A place for strangers

"Many of the elements ascribed to traditional Aboriginal beliefs and practices are the result of contact with external peoples -- Melanesians and Indonesians, as well as Europeans. This provocative book is the first detailed and continent wide study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal worldviews. "A place for strangers" investigates Aboriginal myth, ritual, cosmology and philosophy, and also examines social organisation, subsistence patterns and cultural change. The author separates out a common core of religious belief which reflects a precontact spirituality of Australian Aborigines more concerned with place than any philosophy of time or origins. It is against this standard that the changes documented in subsequent chapters are measured. The book calls for a radical reinterpretation of all ethnographic data on Aboriginal peoples so that we can place our ethnographic evidence within the context of recent historical processes. This controversial book will prompt new debates about how Aboriginal Australians originally thought about reality. It will be of great interest to readers in anthropology, religious studies, comparative philosophy, Aboriginal studies and Australian history." -- Back cover.