Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Presentation copy from the authors)

: group-marriage and relationship, and marriage by elopement : drawn chiefly from the usage of the Australian aborigines : also the Kurnai tribe, their customs in peace and war. Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane : George Robertson, 1880. First edition. Octavo (225 x 150 mm), original blind-blocked brown cloth (bright and unrubbed), spine lettered in gilt; presentation copy inscribed in ink on the half-title: ‘James Callaghan Esq., from the Authors’; pp. [8], 372, frontispiece folding colour map of Gippsland, prefatory note with memoirs by the Rev. Lorimer Fison and Alfred W. Howitt; pastedown with the bookplate of Tristan Buesst (1894-1982, first President of the Friends of the La Trobe Library); pages partially uncut, contents exceptionally clean; a fine and unique copy of the first edition.

Pioneering anthropological studies of the Gunai / Kurnai people of Gippsland and the Gamilaraay (Gamilaroi / Kamilaroi) of New South Wales and southern Queensland.