Walking With Camels: The Story of Bertha Strehlow

by Leni Shilton

In this volume, Leni Shilton offers us a woman’s exploration of loss and survival in a savagely beautiful landscape. The story of Bertha Strehlow - a brilliant observer and connector of people - explores years of endurance and loss as she and her anthropologist husband travelled central Australia in the early 20th century. Drawn from her diaries and years of research, Leni Shilton weaves Bertha’s tale in poetry of stark beauty, threaded through with a deep love of the unforgiving desert.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Vannessa]

Beautiful and lyrical, Shilton writes poetry like a dream. This is a life story, that of Bertha Strehlow, written in prose form. Not only clever, but deeply evocative and underpinned by a huge amount of historical research. There are extensive notes for those interested in the research and further reading on the Strehlows.

[Lisa]

My copy of Leni Shilton's prize-winning Walking with Camels — The Story of Bertha Strehlow came with a sticker advising that it was the winner of the Best Fiction award in 2020 Chief Minister's NT Book Awards, but I read it for Non Fiction November because (a) librarians shelve poetry as Literature so poetry is in the Dewey system as Nonfiction i.e. from 808 to 890 and (b) it's a Life Story (Dewey NF 920-921) in verse, the story of a real person, the remarkable Bertha Strehlow (1911-1985).

Anyway, however we classify it, it certainly deserved an award.

I confess to reading it the wrong way round.  I began by browsing the components of the book, and became absorbed by the Notes at the back, which provide the context for the verse, derived from Bertha's own writing (letters and so forth) and further research including Ted's journals.  I knew some of the backstory already, because I had read and reviewed Journey to Horseshoe Bend (1969), written by Bertha's husband T G H (Ted) Strehlow.  Published many years after events, this memoir was the story of Ted's father Carl Strehlow (1871-1922) and his desperate journey from the remote Hermannsburg Mission to try to reach medical help.  Ted was only 14 at the time, but his memories were vivid and the harrowing story of his father's death in the Outback is an Australian classic.

But despite his bitterness about human failings and nature's cruelty in the Red Centre, Ted Strehlow made his career as an anthropologist and linguist in Central Australia, and that is where he took his 24-year-old bride almost immediately after they married in December 1935.  Bertha had not long graduated from the University of Adelaide with a BA and begun a teaching career at Walford Girls School, but she was smitten when she med Ted at a dance.

I'd heard about him —
The smart one, born in the desert,
making the languages of Central Australia his own.
He is shy, handsome and dances well. (p.12)

Her friends have misgivings but she's excited:

I aim to have a wonderful time
and tell them so:
'It will be like
going into the heart of darkness
in my own
country'. (p.13)

In February 1936 they set off for Alice Springs on the Ghan...

The windows jam with dust,
crawl with flies
my throat clots with hot air

but my new husband and I
gaze out the clouded window,
hold hands
and when no one looks
he kisses me. (p.17)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/11/30/w...

[Fiona Dorrell]

In the legacy of her husband, T.G.H. (Ted) Strehlow (1908-1978), the prominent Central Australian anthropologist and linguist who was born and raised amongst Arrernte people at the Lutheran mission at Ntaria, Hermannsburg, Bertha Strehlow is generally overlooked. History often forgets stories like her’s—about supporting a husband’s ambition, about complicated love, about pregnancies, and about being changed by a place and its people. From letters, photographs, and field diaries, Shilton retrieves a woman’s encounter with the Australian desert frontier. The Bertha we encounter is an astute observer of a world in transition; of the interface between black and white, religion and anthropology, and of a landscape, though remote and isolated, already fundamentally impacted by colonisation.

History and narrative impel this poetry. In a sequence of intimate scenes the book describes expeditions into the deserts south-west of Alice Springs for Ted’s anthropological fieldwork. It is the 1930s, during the early contact period and while Bertha considers the idea that an old way of living in country is being lost, the Aboriginal characters around her are already straddling a rapid shift between traditional and introduced cultures. There is nothing static about the place and people she encounters, and her experiences simultaneously complicate and ground any intercultural romance, and reveal a world that is dynamic and culturally textured. The landscape she travels into is already changed by cattle, plagued by dust storms and trampled waterholes.

Offering a distilled and very human rendering of the otherwise untold story of a remarkable woman's life, this book continues the crucial task of complicating and retelling Australia's histories.

[Danielle Clode]

I was familiar with the work of the Lutheran missionary Carl Strehlow and that of his anthropologist son Ted, but it never occured to me to think about their wives' substantial contribuition to their work. Leni Shilton beautifully shifts the focus away from the better known men onto Bertha, Ted's first wife. Very often such reconstructions rely on writing into the gaps left by an absence of written records (such as Adrian Mitchell's account of Bertha Banfield). In this case Shilton had an abundance of written material but little of a personal nature. The author skillfully navigates this tricky emotional territory, stripping back her subject's life to its poetic essence, her responses to the desert landscape and inhabitants and revealing the beating heart of a brave and talented woman.

[Susan Austin]

Beautiful, restrained poetry. I like that it was based on historical records and there were copious notes at the back to flesh out the story. It would have been good if the relationship deterioration was explained / described more so we could understand, but perhaps that was hard to fathom, even for Bertha herself.

[Lucinda Bain]

Written with the air of a lucid dream this verse novel documents the story of Bertha Strehlow and her anthropologist husband who travelled thousands of kilometres through Central Australia in the 1930s. Deeply embedded by years of research. My first verse novel, an intriguing book, I would try another! Don’t skip the notes at the end!

[Steven]

A series of prose poems taking us into the world of an ethnographer's wife in the 1930s - 1950s. In the back is a short exegesis for each poem, referencing a bibliography of primary sources. This is a sublime read, satisfying heart and mind. Winner of the Northern Territory Literary Award 2020.

[Chris Freudenstein]

Beautifully written. Some poems were particularly strong in evoking the landscape and spirit of central Australia and others drew out character. Very powerful. The chronology of events and notes were valuable aids.

[Lisa Collyer]

'like the small curves
of a woman's back.
Orange grasshoppers
fly from the spinifex
at each step.' @lenishilton
What I read on holidays after taking advantage of the @uwapublishing book sales. Oomph. A stunning 'lyrical history' told through the perspective of Bertha Strehlow.

[WildWoila]

The story of Bertha Strehlow, who married a driven anthropologist and journeyed through the lands of the Arrente people. In poem form, and very readable!

[Deb]

What a fabulous book! Poetry based on historical research on Bertha Strehlow, notes, maps and a few photos scattered through. Very rich read.