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Book Cover
Book
Author Stevens, Christine, 1946-

Title White man's dreaming : Killalpaninna Mission 1866-1915 / Christine Stevens
Published Melbourne : Oxford University Press, 1994

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  266.4194237 Ste/Wmd  AVAILABLE
Description xii, 308 pages
Contents Includes index
Summary Although their proselytising was largely a failure, some of the missionaries undertook valuable linguistic and ethnological work, documenting the language customs and religion of the Diyari. In 1893 Reuther, along with Carl Strehlow, set out to translate the New Testament into the Diyari language
Ironically, having appropriated Aboriginal land and introduced European livestock, the Lutherans came to depend on Aboriginal domestic labour and stockmen. The Diyari, in turn, forced into an uneasy dependence on the mission for rations that supplanted now polluted water supplies and traditional food sources, moved confusedly between two cultures and two sets of religious beliefs. The mission became a mere refuge from outer violence and a ration station for the dispossessed people. One of the leading missionaries, Johann Georg Reuther, reported that mission work was 'a stony field ... full of human bones'
White Man's Dreaming is underpinned by the prolific correspondence between the Lutherans and their supporters in Adelaide and Germany. Christine Stevens also uses interviews with the families of missionaries and Aborigines who survived the mission. White Man's Dreaming is a narrative history of rare power and poignancy. The many photographs alone constitute a graphic record of European appropriation and incomprehension. A contact history demonstrating the strength of the human spirit when opposing cultures - opposing 'Dreamings' - meet for the first time, it is also a microcosm of the metamorphosis of Aboriginal culture since European colonisation
The history of the Killalpaninna Mission (1866-1915) is stark and tragic. White Man's Dreaming tells how a group of Lutheran missionaries dominated the Diyari Aborigines of the far north of South Australia. These missionaries - part of the great exodus of Lutherans from Prussia to South Australia after 1838 - were intent on spreading their religious faith to the 'underprivileged heathen' of the New World. With great perseverance, despite heat, drought, floods, disease and despair, the missionaries made their cumbersome way to the desert-dwelling Diyari and established the Killalpaninna Mission
Analysis Lutheran churches Missions History
South Australia
Aboriginal culture
Aborigines
Churches
Diyari (Australian people)
History, 1801-1900
History, 1901-1945
Killalpaninna Mission (SA)
South Australia
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Bibliography
Notes Text in Croatian
Subject Killalpaninna Mission -- History
Lutheran Church -- Missions -- South Australia -- Killalpaninna, Lake, Region -- History
Lutheran Church -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia.
Lutheran Church -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia -- Killalpaninna, Lake, Region -- History
Aboriginal Australians -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia -- Killalpaninna, Lake, Region -- History
Aboriginal Australians -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia.
Aboriginal Australians -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia -- Killalpaninna -- History
Diyari (Australian people) -- Missions.
Killalpaninna, Lake, Region (S.A.) -- History
Lutheran Church -- Missions -- Australia -- South Australia -- Lake Killalpaninna Region -- History
SUBJECT Killalpaninna, Lake, Region (S. Aust.) -- History
Killalpaninna, Lake, Region (S.A.) -- History
LC no. 95115176
ISBN 019553574X