Abstract
DR. CHEWINGS'S experience of the blackfellow dates back to 1881, when he took up a grant of land in the MacDonnell Ranges of Central Australia. The tribes with whom he then came into contact were the Aranda (Arunta) and Loritja described in detail by C. Strehlow, a missionary of the Hermannsburg Mission, more than thirty years ago. When Dr. Chewings first met them, they were living literally in the stone age, their only cutting implements being of stone. He describes their daily life, their social organization and magical beliefs and practices as they presented themselves to the squatter, but with certain explanatory additions to make them intelligible to the ordinary reader, which he has gleaned from the work of Strehlow and Spencer and Gillen. His actual experiences as an employer of the black-fellow in the work of the station and in his contacts with them and their lubras tell us even more of their characters and capacities than his account of their customs.
Back in the Stone Age:
the Natives of Central Australia. By Dr. C. Chewings. Pp. xx + 161 + 23 plates. (Sydney and London: Angus and Robertson, Ltd., 1936.) 7s. 6d.
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Back in the Stone Age. Nature 139, 570 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139570c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139570c0