Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia eBook: Harvey Arden, Mike Osborn: Books

Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia

From Publishers Weekly

Arden, a staff writer for National Geographic and coauthor of Wisdom keep ers: Meetings with Native American Elders, here movingly and tellingly portrays modern-day Australian Aboriginals. Aided by a guide, he traveled in the Outback and sought out Aboriginals; interposing himself even less than Bruce Chatwin did in Songlines , another portrait of these people, Arden tried not to probe, but rather encouraged the Aboriginals to talk freely while keeping himself unobtrusive. He recorded poignant memories, inner thoughts, old stories and apocalyptic prophecies. Like Native Americans, the Australian Aboriginals regard themselves as a nation within a nation. Their sense of the sacredness of the land is unaltered; their frequently expressed hunger to retrieve their lost land is powerful. Regarded by many tourists and Australians as unsophisticated and as curiosities, the Aboriginals Arden met are extremely poor, living partly in the modern era and partly in the Dreamtime of their belief that their ancestors sung the world into existence. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Arden, a former staff writer for National Geographic magazine and the coauthor of Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders (Beyond Words, 1991), focuses upon the Aboriginal cultures of the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia. Writing in an anecdotal style, he chronicles his journey throughout the area and his meetings and interviews with a variety of Aboriginal people--political leaders, spiritual elders, creative artists, and ordinary individuals. Arden frequently points out the parallels between the Aboriginal people and Native Americans. Like Native Americans, Australian Aboriginals identify closely with ancestral lands and are in danger of losing their identity because these lands have been taken from them. Arden allows the Aboriginal people to speak for themselves--sharing their concerns, thoughts, and ideas exactly as they were spoken to him. His compelling, thought-provoking, and sensitive account of the contemporary Aboriginal struggle for identity and dignity is highly recommended.
- Elizabeth Salt, Otterbein Coll. Lib., Westerville, Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.