-
A collection of not-so-tall stories collected in the course of eighteen years in the rugged outback of the Northern Territory, where distances are measured in pints of water and time is hardly noticed. There's gold diggers, old men some of them, still fishing for their buckets of ore at the bottom of deep shafts; you should never to go see them without a 'calling card' - they come in bottles from the brewery. There are also the stock drovers, whose job it is to drive thousands of cattle across the country for up to a thousand miles or so. These and many various characters, white men, aboriginals, and half castes are the author's neighbours. But even such a bare and primitive area is not immune from the troubles of the world, and, just after Pearl Harbour in 1942, the Japanese brought the war to Darwin. Lockwood was there to write an eye-witness account for his paper. Then in 1954, came the world shaking bombshell of the Petrov story. Once again, the author was on the spot, in Darwin, to broadcast it to the world. These, and many other stories, some historical, some tragic, some amusing, some supernatural, but all of them fascinating - and fair dinkum. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
Here is a collection of fair dinkum stories about - what else? - fair dinkum Aussies. Lockwood was on the spot to write an eye-witness account of the Japanese at Darwin and to broadcast the bombshell of the Petrov affair to the world. Some stories are tragic - some are amusing - some historical and some are supernatural - and all are fascinating. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
-
My name is Waipuldanya or Wadjiri Wadjiri. (If they twist your tongue too much, you may call me Phillip Roberts. That is my white-feller name.) I'm a full blood Aboriginal of the Alawa tribe in the Northern Territory. My body has been through the fire of tribal initiation. I have been subjected to many taboos. As a child I was 'sung' to death by a malevolent Dr. Blackfellow, a medicine man who wished to destroy me in order to punish my clan. I was saved by another. I have worshipped Kunapipi, the Earth Mother...I believe in the Rainbow Serpent... Douglas Lockwood wrote this book about my life. He is my countryman. Enjoy it - and understand us better. Here is the autobiography of Waipuldanya, a full-blood Aboriginal of the Alawa tribe at Roper River in Australia's Northern Territory, as told to Douglas Lockwood. In his youth, Waipuldanya was taught to track and hunt wild animals, to live off the land, to provide for his family with the aid only of his spears and woomeras. This is the gripping story of his boyhood and youth, and how he trained as a skilled medical assistant, to become a citizen of both the Aboriginal and whitefella worlds. -
It seems incredible that in the Jet-and-Electronics Age there should still be living in Australia people who have no contact whatever with modern civilisation; people who had never seen white faces; had never seen their own face in a mirror - or been close to a motor vehicle of any kind. For many years there had been rumours of such a lost tribe of aborigines in the vast deserts of Central Australia, but generally they were treated as fantasy. The fact of their existence was confirmed by officers from the Welfare Branch of the Northern Territory Administration, who had began patrolling the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts in 1957. They found Pintubi tribesmen who had never been in touch with modern life. In 1963 the Melbourne Herald's correspondent Douglas Lockwood was invited to join a patrol into the Gibson Desert. Here he tells the fascinating story of that journey and the discovery of yet more Tintubi people. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
