Grief, Gaiety and Aborigines by W E (Bill) Harney

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Creasing to front cover. Back cover has minor marks. Foredges are foxed. Previous owner has signed inside page. Spine and corners now reinforced with book tape.

Bill Harney, story-teller and authority on Australian Aborigines, tells how he came up the hard way during the years in which he battled the ridges of the Northern Territory. Married to a part-Aboriginal woman Linda, Bill, his wife and two children "beat it bush" to find a dry, healthy climate to help Linda's tuberculosis.

He recalls the antagonism over colour they encountered as they travelled hundreds of miles in a land gripped with the 1930s Depression. He describes Linda's death, the months spent on the dole in Katherine, the partly-coloured torn betwixt personal loyalty and the old tribal code which attibuted Linda's death to magic, and all are portrayed in the grip of Depression that people could neither overcome nor understand. (Synopsis)

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers, please note that this book may contain descriptions and/or images of people who have passed away.