The Australian Aborigines by Kenneth Maddock

The Australian Aborigines

A Portrait of their Society

by Kenneth Maddock

Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1972, [First Edition], ISBN 0713903309, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing to edge and corners, ex-library with stamp to front endpaper, sticker to half title page, light finger marks to title page, tape residue to front and back covers, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping and chipping, sticker to spine (see photographs)

“Australia occupies a special place in the history of anthropology, for it was the one continent to be inhabited until recent times only by hunters and gatherers.  A culture of considerable complexity had developed among the Aborigines by which they were in many respects marked off from other peoples.  Although their culture has been ravaged in the course of European settlement and has in many areas virtually disappeared, it is beginning to become of importance in a new way:  as a basis and symbol for Aboriginal wishes for autonomy.
In this important new study, Kenneth Maddock deals critically and systematically with the religion and social order of the Aborigines in the light of the recent expansion of anthropological studies.  In so doing, he provides a new insight into the special character of their culture at a time when white Australians are less wedded to policies of assimilation and more receptive to notions off the persistence of cultures other than their own.”