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For over twenty-five years, Dr. Ian McIntosh, an anthropologist born in Australia but now long-based in the United States, has been a meticulous chronicler of the life and writings of David Burrumarra, M.B.E. (1917-1994), long his close friend and colleague. From 1986, they had worked together in the enclave of Elcho Island, in north-east Arnhem Land, in Australia's Northern Territory, on cultural and community projects, as well as on serious and time deep research. Already in the year of Burramurra's death, McIntosh recounted some of their contacts in a finely wrought and illuminating composition, 'The Whale and the Cross: Conversations with David Burramurra, MB.E.', (1994). Since then, he has treated us to a stream of his own ever insightful and eminently readable essays, while also returning to present further perspectives on his friend and the latter's culture that remain both fresh and perceptive, fascinating and significant, despite the passage of the years. |
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