The main intent of this engaging and deeply informed book is to highlight the hybrid character of certain encounters between Aborigines and Europeans on the Australian frontier. Each chapter’s point of departure is a particular, usually obscure, artifact from a museum collection that embodies this hybridity in material form. The circumstances that led to the creation of these artefacts provide the narrative framework for what proves to be a compelling and powerful study that addresses a wide range of issues, including the sources of ethnographic knowledge, the premises of museum practices, the impact of missionary endeavors, the roots of artistic innovations, and more.
Jones, a senior curator at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, brings to this project an interdisciplinary expertise in history, anthropology, and art, as well as a keen appreciation for the insights that can be gleaned from material objects themselves. The first artifact that he examines is...