Goldfields Aboriginal Language Centre
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The Australian Medicine Man

$66.00

7 in stock

Originally written by anthropologist Helmut Petri as a contribution to his application for his Senior Doctoral degree in 1949, Helmut Petri’s Der Australische Medizenman [The Australian Medicine Man], drew upon investigations he had carried out while leader of the Frobenius North-west Australian Expedition to the Kimberley in 1938-1939. As well as drawing upon Petri’s own experiences in the central and northern Kimberley, Der Australische Medizenman is an extensive survey of the literature relating to the Aboriginal medicine men or, as Elkin was to term them ‘Men of high degree’.

This English translation of Der Australische Medizenman now makes Petri’s work available to a wider audience than was previously possible and, in this period of growing awareness of the important role of Aboriginal cultural identity in the history of contemporary Australia, is a timely addition to the growing corpus of knowledge of the First Australians.