The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origins in Australia edited by Luise Hercus, Flavia Hodges and Jane Simpson

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with all external stickers removed. Stamp on imprint page. Blank sticker on half-title page. Wear to book corners and edges. Some tiny spots on half-title page. Marks on foredges.

The entire Australian continent was once covered with networks of Indigenous placenames. These names often evoke important information about features of the environment and their place in Indigenous systems of knowledge.

On the other hand, placenames assigned by European settlers and officials are largely arbitrary, except for occasional descriptive labels such as ‘river, lake, mountain’. They typically commemorate people or unrelated places in the Northern Hemisphere.

In areas where Indigenous societies remain relatively intact, thousands of Indigenous placenames are used but have no official recognition. Little is known about the principles of forming and bestowing Indigenous placenames. Still less is known about any variation in principles of placename bestowal found in different Indigenous groups.

While many Indigenous placenames have been taken into the official placename system, they are often given to different features from those they originally applied. They have been cut off from understanding their original meanings in the process.

Attempts are now being made to ensure that additions of Indigenous placenames to the system of official placenames more accurately reflect the traditions they come from.

The eighteen chapters in this book range across all of these issues. The contributors (linguistics, historians and anthropologists) bring a wide range of different experiences, both academic and practical, to their contributions. The book promises to be a standard reference work on Indigenous placenames in Australia for many years. (back cover)