Old man Fog and the last Aborigines of Barrow Point

Description

"In far northeastern Australia lies Barrow Point, a now deserted promontory that once was the homeland of several groups of seminomadic Aborigines. Central to the lives and culture of the Barrow Point people was a series of myths about Old Man Fog, a wandering trickster-hero whose adventures created the physical landmarks and moral boundaries of their world." "In 1979 Roger Hart, who had been taken to the Cape Bedford Lutheran mission in 1923 at the age of seven, asked anthropologist John B. Haviland to help him record his native language before it disappeared. He believed himself to be the last surviving member of the Barrow Point people. Their project soon expanded into an effort to preserve not only Hart's language and memories but also the culture of his ancestors." "Weaving together Roger Hart's childhood recollections, the myths of Old Man Fog, and excerpts from government and missionary records, John B. Haviland reconstructs the rich, complicated history of the Barrow Point people during the period when traditional Aboriginal life was being systematically dismantled. Through Hart's stories, Haviland details the social relations, resources, foods, and seasonal travels of the early twentieth-century Barrow Point people and describes the traumatic effects of colonization on individual lives."--Jacket.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Smithsonian series in ethnographic inquiry