Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines

by W. Ramsay Smith

With this colorful compilation of oral traditions, readers can savor tales as they were told by their aboriginal narrators — from reverent recountings of the origins of the world and human life, to stories about the roots of religious and social customs, to fanciful and humorous animal fables.

Genres: Mythology, Folklore, Australia, Nonfiction, Anthropology

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was plagiarised from David Unaipon in 1930. This was discovered between 1996-1998 so I'm very surprised to still see this book in my local (Australian) library.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ab...

https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/pa...

https://readingaustralia.com.au/books...

[Rhonda Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

research projects, outside sources for cultural activities, religion & basic way of life

[KT · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointed the real writer of this book David Unaipon isn’t given credit for this book

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple nights ago I finished reading Aborigine Myths and Legends by William Ramsy Smith, part of Senate Publishing's great Myths and Legends series. This was the secound book on Aborigine myths that I read, the first being written in about 1890 this one was written in 1930. The book was illustrated throughout with pictures of the myth, illustrations of objects used by the aboriginals and reproductions of actual photographs from other books.

The book seemed in parts like an early unscientific ethnography for the general reader, as apart from myths also included were hunting, games and magic practices. I enjoyed the look at aboriginal witchcraft a great deal, though the way it was written was full of very telling adjectives like "pretends" and "deceives". It was an interesting look into life, but also a telling look into the people writing at the time. Despite a rather lengthy section on aboriginal life there was nothing about what the women did and everything referred to was a male activity. Which seemed especially odd when compared with the mythology itself where women had frequently a very active role.

I like aboriginal myths a lot, like China they are a very ancient culture that's existed as such for thousands of years, and when reading their mythology it becomes clear what a fundamental grasp they have on the world around them, how well they understand it and are a part of it, almost as if they were the true daoists. At least before the effects of colonization which I don't want to get into too much here as that's a whole big topic of controversy which is in many ways terribly sucky.

But I very much enjoyed the creation myths, the Goddess who created the world and the way it was filled, how intelligence was given to the animals to grow and develop before it was given to man was such an interesting concept. I find native American animal myths, and western European animal fables to be not that interesting. The Australian ones though for some reason I like. I think it's because they act like humans, or have real feelings and behaviours but then they still do something cool and animal related like fly.

I feel unable to draw any conclusions about how I feel about how women were treated in these myths. In the first book I read they seemed to be treated a bit more equally with a strong feeling of justice and a sense of value applied to them and their roles. But I didn't get that so much from this book. I think perhaps the difference may be that the first book was written by a woman and the second by a man. The first book was also a specific tribes tales, and the secound book looked at the whole country, and it's hard to draw specific conclusions from a more diverse population.

There was one story I read which I found rather disturbing, it was about two sisters who ate a fish that was forbidden to women and if a woman ate it she was condemned to death. I was a bit horrified that there was something that was so tasty that they wouldn't let women, on pain of death, eat it but wanted to keep it for the men. That seemed a bit excessive to me. The woman's husband found out that his wives had done this and tracked them down after they fled for their lives and decided he had to kill them for their "sin" even though he loved them. I felt myself being very indignant and outraged, and then the last line was after he killed them and turned their bodies to stone, he went into the sea, drowned himself and collected their souls and they all went up to heaven. Which totally threw me for a loop, perhaps a later hollywood ending stuck on? or perhaps the real story? But nonetheless it was a very interesting read.

[David Olmsted · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book first published in 1932 describes the legends of the Australian aborigines located in the southeast corner of Australia near the Murray River. It covers the complete range from creation, through witchcraft, through explanations for landmarks. We now know that Australian mythology is unique since it developed in isolation from other human cultures from the time the first modern humans settled in Australia 50,000 years ago.

Some unique features is that the sun as a life giver is considered feminine in contrast to most other mythologies. During creation the male spirit spent time with each animal giving each some measure of his intelligence and gaining in return some animal spirit. In contrast woman was created out of a beautiful plant giving her a plant based spirit.

They do have a flood story meant as an explanation of why the platypus has some features in common with the more normal animal species. It is because the actions of the other animals caused the flood and being slow they were not all able to escape. They blamed the other animals and sought to rid themselves of features they had in common leaving them a hybrid.