Singing the Coast
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
Singing the Coast
By (Author) Tony Perkins
By (author) Margaret Somerville
Aboriginal Studies Press
Aboriginal Studies Press
1st June 2010
Australia
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Indigenous peoples
305
Physical Properties
Paperback
240
Width 152mm, Height 230mm, Spine 20mm
516g
Description
Most Australians live on the narrow coastal strip that fringes our island continent. For Aboriginal people a place comes into being each time it is sung, and it is through this process that places are learned about and cared for. These songs can be for all of us, in the places where Aboriginal stories are rapidly overwritten with the grids of roads and towns. Together, Tony Perkins and Margaret Somerville explore one coastal group's experience in maintaining the stories and songs of their country: Perkins' Gumbaynggirr homeland in mid-north coast New South Wales. These stories and songs are unique in their particularities, yet universal in their sense of knowledge, understanding and openness to sharing.
Author Bio
Margaret Somerville has been working with Aboriginal communities in eastern Australia for more than 20 years. She is the author of The Sun Dancin' People and Place in Coonabarabran and Wildflowering: The Life and Places of Kathleen McArthur. Tony Perkins is the grandson of Aboriginal Elder and speaker of three tribal languages Clarrie Skinner. He reignited the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation in order to promote the Aboriginal culture and tradition of the Garby Elders.
