The Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781108038959)

James Bonwick (1817-1906) arrived in Tasmania, then Van Diemen's Land, in 1841, beginning an unstable and itinerant career as school-master, writer, and archivist. A zealous non-conformist and mystic, who was briefly in contact with Madame Blavatsky, Bonwick became interested in the plight of the Tasmanian aborigines after a visit to Flinders Island, to which the last of the nearly extinct population had been removed. Published in 1870, by which time Bonwick had become a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, this book is a sympathetic anthropological study of indigenous Tasmanian culture and society, based on colonial records, interviews with early settlers and Bonwick's own experiences. The companion volume to The Last of the Tasmanians, which discussed the reasons for the extinction and was cited by Darwin in The Descent of Man, it provides important source material, as well as insight into the morally difficult subject of nineteenth-century anthropology.

Author: James Bonwick
ISBN-10: 1108038956
ISBN-13: 9781108038959
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/08/2011
Pages: 342
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.96lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.76d