Product Description

With beautiful photographs and vivid narrative, this spectacular book transports readers into the minds, hearts, and dreams of the Australian Aborigines, who maintain the oldest culture in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74459 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 252 pages

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.

From Booklist
Arden was intrigued by the dreamtime, which Australia's Aboriginal tribes regard as a parallel reality holding their sacred secrets. He felt there were similarities between Native American and Australian aboriginal cultures, so he set off for far northwestern Australia to interview the Aboriginals. He did indeed see plenty of resemblances to Native Americans: conquest by the same European white men; sacred sites similarly plundered for minerals and other wealth; lands taken away from each people; languages and cultures denigrated; high rates of alcoholism; and, finally, dependence on a welfare system. But Arden wasn't able to get to the heart of the Australian Aboriginal culture and its stories and myths. That, he discovered, is the one thing the white man cannot take away from them. In his search, however, he talked with some wise older Aboriginals and danced up to the edge of the dreamtime. This book is not the story he set out to tell, but it is nonetheless a fascinating one about a fascinating culture. Mary Ellen Sullivan

Customer Reviews

,0reamy
One of the best i've read recently, so much so I was almost sorry to reach the end. Arden spins the non-fiction tale of his journey through the Australian outback to hear Aborigines' tales of mystery, in the stories of their ancestore; and tragedy, in the segregation and near-annihilation suffered by them, although the tale also had laughs. A trip!

How to know a dream
This is a very helpful and earnest book if you want to know about aboriginal life and thought in Australia now. By talking with several men and women in many different places the author gives us simple and sensitive reports accompanied by photographies. This means he tells us what he was told and how and when, as well as about his feelings and doubts, the relationships he did or didn't establish with the people, what he learned and what he couldn't learn but tried to.

In Their Own Words
Dreamkeepers is subtitled, "A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia." That's important to emphasize because the spirit-journey is the author's, more so than the Aboriginals.

Harvey Arden is a former editor-writer for National Geographic and co-author of Wisdomkeepers, a book on Native Americans in the United States. In the prologue, he writes,

"I had hoped to garner a few stories from the Dreamtime on this `spirit-journey' of mine into Aboriginal Australia.'" (2)

With that quest clearly stated, he and his guide travel across The Kimberley to seek out and interview a dozen or so Aboriginals to glean from them an understanding of Aboriginal faith and practice, as well as current issues affecting the plight of Aboriginals in Australia today.

Arden is a seasoned journalist and, to his credit, he gives voice to individuals who would not otherwise be heard. This is the strength of the book: The people he interviews are real people with real thoughts and feelings and stories to tell. They deserve to be heard in their own words, and Arden is there to provide the opportunity.

The reader is apt to enjoy Arden's adventures in the bush; his impromptu conversations with Mike, his guide; and, throughout, his humility. He writes,

"I was no anthropologist or scholar or historian ... I wanted to relate to them as human being to human being, ... but no less." (3)

Having said this, the book lacks breadth and depth: The Kimberley is one of many vast areas of Australia, and the spokespersons singled out are but a dozen of hundreds Arden could have just as easily chosen to interview. What's more, the anecdotal nature of the book leaves one hanging. Where is the historical perspective and theological reflection?

The book is what it is - one man's spirit-journey into Aboriginal Australia. If you're willing to accept that, you'll find it worthwhile; if you're expecting more, you might be disappointed.