Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/497

 REVIEWS.

The Northern Tribes of Central Australia. By Baldwin Spencer, M.A, F.R.S., and F. J. Gillen. London : Macmillan & Co., Limited. 1904.

Few, if any, ethnological works have excited such widespread interest or awakened such important scientific discussions as that of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen on The Native Tribes of Central Australia, published five years ago. The practices and the beliefs of the savages of Central Australia, as therein described, disclosed such utterly unexpected features, and indicated a condition of thought in many respects so novel, and at first sight inexplicable, that it was inevitable that further information as to these tribes and their immediate neighbours should be demanded. Fortu- nately the governments of Victoria and South Australia recognised the importance of the subject, and at once acceded to memorials signed by a large number of scientific men in this country to allow the distinguished explorers to make another expedition. The expenses of the expedition were generously defrayed by Mr. David Syme of Melbourne ; and the results are before the world in the present volume, which forms a fitting companion to its prede- cessor.

The earlier work dealt chiefly with the Urabunna, the Arunta, and the tribes most closely associated with the latter people, and forming together with it a group to which the authors refer as " the Arunta nation." The principal object of the recent expedition was to verify previous information as to the Arunta, and to extend inquiries among the tribes beyond the Macdonnell Range to the north. This object has been successfully accomphshed. In The Northern Tribes of Central Australia we have a mass of details regarding the Warramunga " nation," including the tribe of that

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