Songs of Central Australia

Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1971. Quarto, pictorial dustjacket over cloth (price clipped), liv, 775 pp, colour illustrations, map in pocket inside back cover. A fine copy, with some mild foxing to the endpapers and light edge wear. One of only 500 copies printed.

An extremely important study of the poetic and musical culture of the Arrernte (Aranda) people of Central Australia. The anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow, who had grown up at Hermannsburg Mission with his father, Pastor Carl Strehlow, was a fluent speaker of the Arrernte language, and the special fonts which he required to be created for this book caused much difficulty in the publication process. This monumental volume is essentially Strehlow’s D. Litt. thesis (University of Adelaide).