Gangurru by Pohlner, Howard J - 1986

Brisbane: Hope Vale Mission Board, 1986. 182pp, appendices, bw ills, maps. Or pictorial card covers. Small bump to front at foreedge (cover and 1 page), fading to spine, a little minor foxing. SIGNED by author on title page. The story of the Guugu Yimidhirr aborigines who inhabited the area from the Annan River south of Cooktown to the Jennie River 100km to the north, and inland to the Normanby River Battle Camp territory from their first sighting of Captain james Cook's Endeavour limping up the coast and beaching on their river, Wahalumbaal. Their language became the first aboriginal language to take written form via the pens of Banks and Parkinson - one of those words gangurru has become the symbol of Australia while having been somewhat mangled in translation (the kangaroo). Through the enormous disruptions of the gold rush years, and epidemics of the white man's diseases and on to the present these people seemed to wane and then rebound like the kangaroo itself. It is also the story of… Read More