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Many Australians have heard of the remarkable abilities of Aboriginal people to track animals and people over very long distances. The character of the Aboriginal tracker has been made famous in novels and films. The tracker in the film 'Rabbit-Proof Fence', discussed in the Storytelling c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agora (Melbourne, Vic.) Vic.), 2020-04, Vol.55 (1), p.3-10
Main Author: Langton, Marcia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aboriginal Australians
Agricultural Production
Animals
Culture
Environment
Evidence
Fire management
History
Hunter-gatherers
Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous Populations
Influence
Knowledge
Land use planning
Landscapes
Management Systems
Mythology
Native peoples
Observation
Pascoe, Bruce
Social aspects
Teaching Methods
Traditions
Vegetation
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Summary:Many Australians have heard of the remarkable abilities of Aboriginal people to track animals and people over very long distances. The character of the Aboriginal tracker has been made famous in novels and films. The tracker in the film 'Rabbit-Proof Fence', discussed in the Storytelling chapter, is perhaps the most well known but there are many others. The tracker has entered the Australian mythology as an especially skilled Aboriginal man (trackers are always male in the mythology, although women read landscapes just as well) with uncanny powers of observation. In reality, trackers were indentured police assistants who had the job of capturing escaped 'natives' and white outlaws, or finding people who were lost. Gradually, non-Indigenous Australians are coming to realise that Aboriginal people also had an encyclopaedic knowledge of their environments and were keen observers of human behaviour.
ISSN:0044-6726
1837-9958