Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia

Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia
by Baldwin Spencer

This is a comprehensive ethnography of the Australian Aborigines of Northern Australia, particularly the group known as the Kakadu, and the tribes of Melville Island. This is one of about half a dozen ethnographies written before the destruction of the Australian traditional cultures. This book is well written and, for the most part, presented from a non-ethnocentric (non-judgemental) point of view, which sets it apart from most of the other available public domain materal on this topic. As far as material on the traditions of these tribes, this is the only source text which we will ever have. Shortly after this was written, the traditional life of these tribes was devastated by the impact of European culture. This is a priceless record of a vanished stone-age civilization.