Bridge Over Time

by Harold Thornell

An inside account of Aboriginal society and stone-age culture virtually untouched by contact with Europeans. Harold Thornell is one of only a few white people alive today who have lived and worked among Aborigines in this then-remote and isolated area which time had passed by. When he joined the Methodist Mission at Yirrkala in northern Australia in 1938 as an eager young agriculturalist he little thought he would also be called to serve as doctor, dentist, mechanic, peacemaker and, during the Second World War, coast watcher. Following the accidental death of two natives, he was for weeks 'marked for death.'This is Harold Thornell's moving record of Australia's native people as they recall the alcheringa or 'dream-time', the rituals and clan revenge, and their courageous readiness to resist the attempted invasion of the Top End by the Japanese.It is the story also of dedicated white men and women who worked to help the Aborigines bridge the vast gap between their culture and that of the twentieth century. It tells how a strong young man was driven, by isolation, overwork and constant tropical diseases, to contemplate suicide. Forty years on, Harold Thornell and his wife returned to Yirrkala to see how the Aboriginal people had coped with a changing society.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1986