V.1, pt.1; Geographical & binyurri), pointing bones & sticks, method of pointing, influence of magic love charms, Kurdaitcha, description of shoes; medicine men & sorcerers - method of graduation; Alchera beliefs & the cult of ritual objects, sacred objects of Urabunna, Luritcha & Arunta, Kaitish, Warramunga, stone & wooden ritual objects, sacred totemic beliefs, tradition dealing with Achilpa, or Wild Cat totem - ancestral route given with native place; names, map of totemic topography, meaning of designs on ritual objects; Engwura ceremony, 1895, plan of ceremonial ground, detailed account of totemic ceremonies, part enacted by women; camp at Charlotte Waters - rain making ceremony described, words of song; stone arrangement Finke valley, mythological background; rock drawings at Ooraminna; sun, witchetty grub & eagle hawk ceremonies performed; avenging expedition (Atinga); Barrow Creek, Kaitisha & Unmatchera people; history of the massacre in 1874; history of ancestor of rain man, grass seed totem ceremony, body decoration belief about the comet; myth explaining tooth avulsion, method of operation, magic; charm made of human hair & owl feathers carried by avenging parties; Tennant Creek - Warramunga; physical appearance, hair depilation; camp life; wearing womans headdress by men to cure headache, tooth avulsion operation, tooth afterwards ground & eaten by mother (if a girls tooth) & eaten by mother in law (if mans); Gammona relationship among Warramunga; ceremonies connected with hair; ban of silence, use of gesture language - 47 signs illustrated with meaning; details of fire ceremony.

This volume of original essays brings together, for the first time, histories of the making and of the makers of most of the major Indigenous Australian museum collections. These collections are a principal source of information on how Aboriginal people lived in the past. Knowing the context in which any collection was created-the intellectual frameworks within which the collectors were working, their collecting practices, what they failed to collect, and what Aboriginal people withheld-is vital to understanding how any collection relates to the Aboriginal society from which it was derived. Once made, collections have had mixed fates: some have become the jewel of a museum's holdings, while others have been divided and dispersed across the world, or retained but neglected. The essays in this volume raise issues about representation, institutional policies, the periodisation of collecting, intellectual history, material culture studies, Aboriginal culture and the idea of a 'collection'.

Australia has one of the largest inventories of rock art in the world with pictographs and petroglyphs found almost anywhere that has suitable rock surfaces – in rock shelters and caves, on boulders and rock platforms. First Nations people have been marking these places with figurative imagery, abstract designs, stencils and prints for tens of thousands of years, often engaging with earlier rock markings. The art reflects and expresses changing experiences within landscapes over time, spirituality, history, law and lore, as well as relationships between individuals and groups of people, plants, animals, land and Ancestral Beings that are said to have created the world, including some rock art. Since the late 1700s, people arriving in Australia have been fascinated with the rock art they encountered, with detailed studies commencing in the late 1800s. Through the 1900s an impressive body of research on Australian rock art was undertaken, with dedicated academic study using archaeological methods employed since the late 1940s. Since then, Australian rock art has been researched from various perspectives, including that of Traditional Owners, custodians and other community members. Through the 1900s, there was also growing interest in Australian rock art from researchers across the globe, leading many to visit or migrate to Australia to undertake rock art research. In this volume, the varied histories of Australian rock art research from different parts of the country are explored not only in terms of key researchers, developments and changes over time, but also the crucial role of First Nations people themselves in investigations of this key component of their living heritage.

Tiwi Textiles: Design, Making, Process tells the story of the innovative Tiwi Design centre on Bathurst Island in northern Australia, dedicated to the production of hand-printed fabrics featuring Indigenous designs, from the 1970s to today. Written by early art coordinator Diana Wood Conroy with oral testimony from senior Tiwi artist Bede Tungutalum, who established Tiwi Design in 1969 with fellow designer Giovanni Tipungwuti, the book traces the beginnings of the centre, and its subsequent place in the Tiwi community and Australian Indigenous culture more broadly. Bringing together many voices and images, especially those of little-known older artists of Paru and Wurrumiyanga (formerly Nguiu) on the Tiwi Islands and from the Indigenous literature, Tiwi Textiles features profiles of Tiwi artists, accounts of the development of new design processes, insights into Tiwi culture and language, and personal reflections on the significance of Tiwi Design, which is still proudly operating today. 'Tiwi Textiles is a unique historical document, a formidable vindication of the accomplishments of great Indigenous artists, and an account of a missing chapter in world art history. The book is a wonderful chronicle of a vital and fertile period for Tiwi practice in the emergence of contemporary Indigenous art. But it is also a charter for the future.' — Nicholas Thomas FBA FAHA Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge 'Wood Conroy not only writes, intricately and sensitively, a vital history of Tiwi art: she also firms up the place of fibre and textiles practices in Indigenous art and leaves space for us to consider how art history can shift to become more responsive to the lived realities of Indigenous peoples and our non-Indigenous accomplices.' — Tristen Harwood, The Saturday Paper

This publication brings together existing research as well as new data to show how Arnhem Land bark painting was critical in the making of Indigenous Australian contemporary art and the self-determination agendas of Indigenous Australians. It identifies how, when and what the shifts in the reception of the art were, especially as they occurred within institutional exhibition displays. Despite key studies already being published on the reception of Aboriginal art in this area, the overall process is not well known or always considered, while the focus has tended to be placed on Western Desert acrylic paintings. This text, however represents a refocus, and addresses this more fully by integrating Arnhem Land bark painting into the contemporary history of Aboriginal art. The trajectory moves from its understanding as a form of ethnographic art, to seeing it as conceptual art and appreciating it for its cultural agency and contemporaneity.

A comprehensive guide to cryptozoology—the quest to identify animals that have not been officially catalogued by science and to place these unknown animals into their proper zoological categories. In this fascinating two-volume encyclopedia, author George M. Eberhart provides a comprehensive catalog of nearly 1,000 cryptids—unknown animals usually reported through eyewitness accounts and not yet described by science. Cryptids are the stuff of folklore, hoaxes, and genuine scientific breakthroughs. There are 400 now-classified cryptids once considered either extinct or pure fantasy. The cryptozoologist's job is to strip away the myth, misidentification, and mystery—and separate fact from fiction. Mysterious Creatures covers everything from dinosaurs and the emala-ntouka, an elephant-killing dinosaur-like animal of central Africa, to searches for the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and other cryptozoological hoaxes. Entries about specific animals include the derivation or meaning of each cryptid's name, its scientific name, variant names, a physical description, behavior, description of tracks, habitat, significant sightings, present status, and possible explanations. Illustrations and photographs accompany many entries. The book also includes resources and references for further information.

This volume shows how hunter gatherer societies maintain their traditional lifeways in the face of interaction with neighboring herders, farmers, and traders. Using historical, anthropological and archaeological data and cases from Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia, the authors examine hunter gatherer peoples—both past and present--to assess these relationships and the mechanisms by which hunter gatherers adapt and maintain elements of their culture in the wider world around them.