THE ABORIGINES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 12

THE ABORIGINES

ADAM IN OCHRE, by Colin Simpson; Angus and Robertson. Australian price, 25/-. ‘TODAY's new literary form, radio feature writing, here ventures to displace, or at least to forestall, the traditional "narrative" of a scientific expedition. Whether to good effect or not depends I suppose on who asks, the scientist or the general reader, and it may be rash to try to answer for both. That it is good popular science can be said unreservedly. Facts and events come freshly and first-hand: either from the author’s own eager experience, or, as he makes good use of radio’s new weapon the tape-recorder, from the expedition Scientists’ own word-and-place descrip-

tions or discussions. Two qualities that make Simpson’s handling of science popular also give coherence and unity to what might otherwise have become a mere succession of episodes. They are his humanity, which as one reads emerges as the purpose of the book, and his sense of drama. The form of the book suggests the stage-prologue: a \neat, terse, interestholding outline of the Aborigines and ‘their ways; scene: the het rocky hills, plains and lagoons, and the unexpectedly fertile aridity of Arnhem Land; overture: the songman, tube-trumpet and painted log-drum summoning corroboree from the scrub and paperbarks; narrative acts, tense and vivid, of misunderstanding, neglect and exploitation of a "wild" people; a short sto1y, almost too well told for comfortable reading, of brutal violation of their deepest affections; and discussions that reveal the difficulties that stand in the way of bringing these tribes out of nomadism. The "Walkabout" existence, \though long since economically inadequate, is still the essence of their spiritual existence because the hills, rocks and water-holes are their altars and they belong to the land instead of the land belonging to them. Simpson emphasises, as Professor Elkin insisted some years ago, that the aborigines, now increasing in numbers,

are seeking the European life; something more than welfare hand-outs or the muddle of thought that is pidgin speech is necessary to guide them towards it, and he points to anthropological research as

a means to discover what it may be. And as for general reading, the dustcover can be believed: Adam in Ochre is a "vivid and adult Australian book."

Gilbert

Archey