World That Was

By Catherine H. Berndt and Ronald M. Berndt

This extraordinary book, written from material gathered over half acentury ago, will almost certainly be the last fine-grained account oftraditional Aboriginal life in settled south-eastern Australia. Itrecreates the world of the Yaraldi group of the Kukabrak or Narrinyeripeople of the Lower Murray and Lakes region of South Australia. In 1939 Albert Karloan, a Yaraldi man, urged Ronald Berndt to recordthe story of his people. Karloan and Pinkie Mack, a Yaraldi woman,possessed through personal experience, not merely through hearsay, anall but complete knowledge of traditional life. They were virtually thelast custodians of that knowledge and they felt the burden of theirunique situation. This book represents their concerted efforts to passon their story to future generations. A World That Was encompasses relations between and amongindividuals and clan groups, land tenure, kinship, the subsistenceeconomy, trade, ceremony, councils, fighting and warfare, rites ofpassage from conception to death, myths and beliefs and practicesconcerning healing and the supernatural. Not least, it is a record ofthe dramatic changes following European colonization.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0774804785
• ISBN13: 9780774804783
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.