Author Description

Christine Stevens' detailed and sympathetic work documents a unique experience in Australian history--the first large-scale interaction between Christian Europeans and hunter-gatherer Australian Aborigines. Recounting how Lutheran missionaries' attempts to dominate and proselytize the Diyari Aborigines led sadly to degradation and suffering for both groups, the book nevertheless preserves some valuable linguistic and ethnographic work. Drawing from interviews with families of those who survived the mission, Stevens offers a microcosm of the metamorphosis of Aboriginal culture since European colonization.