essay

Aspects of the social history of Hermannsburg

Heritage of Namatjira : the watercolourists of central AustraliaPort Melbourne, Victoria, AustraliaPublished In 1992 • Pages: [63]-96

By: Radford, Robin.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This essay presents background information on the Finke River Mission at Hermannsburg, where the Aranda watercolorist Albert Namatjira lived for most of his life. Radford describes the many difficulties that the mission faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in establishing itself in the area. Chief among the problems of the missionaries was acceptance by the aborigines, natural hazards such as disease and death in the hostile environment, the negative reaction of the White settlers to their presence, the anti-Germanism that endangered the mission during the two world wars, and the constant struggle for funding. Interesting vignettes are also presented on the missionary-antropologist Carl Strehlow and his role in missionary development, and on Baldwin Spencer, whose later writings on the eastern Aranda brought him world fame.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Missions
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Aranda
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
1996
RegionThe area the document pertains to
Oceania
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Australia
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
essay
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Historian
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
John Beierle ; 1994
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
no date
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, Australia
NotesAdditional notes
Robin Radford
Not all of the plates mentioned in the text have been included
Bibliographical references are in document number 47
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Aranda (Australian people)