Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines

David Unaipon was a most extraordinary man. He was not only an early Aboriginal political activist, but also a scientist, a writer, a preacher and an inventor. In the 1920s, under contract at the University of Adelaide, he was commissioned to collect traditional Aboriginal stories from around South Australia. He also acted as a 'collector' for the Aborigines Friends' Association. The manuscript version of the stories he collected is now held in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Most of them come from his own Ngarrindjeri people, but some are from other South Australian peoples. Stephen Muecke and Adam Shoemaker, who are working on a definitive biography of David Unaipon, have put together a new collection of the stories he collected and transcribed.