Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T08:11:31.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Route Finding by Desert Aborigines in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

Extract

How do Aborigines find their way across the arid wastes of Central Australia? Certainly their feats of practical orientation and tracking are legendary. Are their methods in any way analogous to the non-instrumental arts still surviving in parts of the insular Pacific? (Lewis, 1972). In 1972 the professor of Pacific History at the Australian National University generously extended to Central Australia the accepted bounds of Oceania, to allow me to travel the Simpson Desert with Antikarinya tracker Wintinna Mick in an attempt to find answers to these questions. Subsequently, in 1973 and 1974, a grant from the Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies and a Visiting Fellowship in Anthropology from the A.N.U. enabled me to extend the investigation into the Western Desert, under the tutelage of men most of whom had spent their youth as nomadic stone age hunters. What they taught me makes up the bulk of this paper and provides some sort of answers to our opening questions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berndt, R. and , C., (1942–5). Fieldwork in the Oldea Region, reprinted from Oceania, vols. 12–15: pages numbered consecutively.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berndt, R. M. (1959), ‘The Concept of “The Tribe” in the Western Desert of Australia.’ Oceania, vol. 30, No. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berndt, R. M. (ed.) (1964). Australian Aboriginal Art. Chap. 4. Strehlow, T. G. H., ‘The Art of the Circle, Line and Square,’ London, Collier-Macmillan; Sydney, Smith.Google Scholar
Berndt, R. M. and , C. H. (ed.) (1965). Aboriginal Man in Australia. Strehlow T. G. H., ‘Culture, Social Structure and Environment in Aboriginal Central Australia,’ and Stanner, W. E. H., ‘Religion, Totenism and Symbolism,’ Sydney, Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. (1950). The Perception of the Visual World, Cambridge, Mass., Riverside Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. C. and , L. E. (1974a). Pintupi Dictionary, Darwin, Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. C. (1974b) Pintupi Kinship, Alice Springs, Institute for Aboriginal Development for the Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Hercus, L. (1971). ‘Arabana and Wanganguru Traditions’, citing Strehlow, T. G. H. 1974, and Berndt, R. M., 1970, Oceania, vol. 42, No. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahiri, T. K. (Undated). ‘Tracking Techniques of Australian Aborigines,’ MS in Library A.I.A.S.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. H. (1972). We the Navigators, Canberra, A.N.U. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maegraith, B. G. (1932). ‘The Astronomy of the Aranda and Loritja Tribes’ Adelaide University Field Anthropology No. 10, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, Vol. 56.Google Scholar
Meggitt, M. (1962). Desert People, Sydney, Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Munn, N. (1973). Walbiri Iconography, Ithaca and London, Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rose, F. G. G. (1965). The Wind of Change in Central Australia, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanner, W. E. H. (1965). ‘Religion Totemism and Symbolism,’ Chap. 8 in , R. M. and Berndt, C. H. (ed.), Aboriginal Man in Australia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson.Google Scholar
Strehlow, T. G. H. (1947). Aranda Traditions, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Strehlow, T. G. H. (1964). ‘The Art of the Circle Line and Square’ in R. M. Berndt,Australian Aboriginal Art, London and Sydney.Google Scholar