The Tale of Frieda Keysser (Volume I)
£60.00
Frieda Keysser & Carl Strehlow: an historical biography
Arriving newly married in Central Australia in late 1895, Carl Strehlow’s wife Frieda was horrified to find that almost every child born at Hermannsburg died before the age of five. Determined to change this, she set out to discover what was going wrong, and how to change it.
Based on Frieda’s diaries and Carl’s official letters, the book goes into how she and Carl worked together, in the process debunking the fashionable ‘doomed race’ theory espoused by world famous anthropologists Baldwin Spencer and Francis Gillen.
The Tale of Frieda Keysser (Volume I)
Frieda Keysser & Carl Strehlow: an historical biography
Arriving newly married in Central Australia in late 1895, Carl Strehlow’s wife Frieda was horrified to find that almost every child born at Hermannsburg died before the age of five. Determined to change this, she set out to discover what was going wrong, and how to change it.
Based on Frieda’s diaries and Carl’s official letters, the book goes into how she and Carl worked together, in the process debunking the fashionable ‘doomed race’ theory espoused by world famous anthropologists Baldwin Spencer and Francis Gillen.
Carl also researched the two languages spoken on the Mission, Aranda and Loritja, and after German baron Moritz von Leonhardi had contacted him, began writing his magnum opus Die Aranda- und Loritja-Staemme in Zentral-Australien (The Aranda and Loritja Tribes in Central Australia). In it he questioned some conclusions in Spencer and Gillen’s work, starting a vigorous debate in London intellectual circles and earning Spencer’s hostility.
This volume ends with the Strehlows returning to Germany in 1910 with no definite plans to come back to Hermannsburg.
Testimonials
“. . . an indispensible contribution to the literature of remote, indigenous Australia.”
Nicolas Rothwell, The Weekend Australian, 11 February 2012
“It belongs in every – certainly Lutheran – tertiary library. And every teacher’s.”
Maurice Schild, Lutheran Theological Journal, August 2012
“Eminently readable and interesting, and the language is often deft, the work and its conclusions entirely original.”
Prof. Regina Ganter, Aboriginal History, 2012.
“For me this book rings true with what I knew from my own childhood. I am the product of grandparents who lived with the missionaries and for that I am thankful . . . for those of us who grew up within the missionary history in Central Australia, there is never a bad word said about the missionaries.”
Minister Alison Anderson, address to the NT Parliament, 21 February 2012
“The book has a heroic largeness of spirit, a kind of opulence of space and time and credible personality . . . like the Red Centre itself.”
Dr Peter Sutton, The Monthly, April 2012
“. . . by highlighting Frieda’s perspective and portraying the everyday occurrences at Hermannsburg in such depth, The Tale of Frieda Keysser offers a new understanding of the difficulties, tensions and disappointments, but also the patient and painstaking achievements of the men and women on the missions. I cannot imagine a better monument to them.”
Dr. Lois Zweck, Lutheran Woman , August 2012