Review of 'Myths and Legends of Australia'. By A. W. Reed and A. H. Reed, 1965. Pp. 256. 21S

Abstract

This compilation is an unfortunate one, since it is likely to serve as an introduction to aboriginal religion and myth, and its premises and contribution are somewhat distorted. In his more scholarly Treasury of Maori Folklore (1963), A. W. Reed was, in part, concerned to present a Polynesian world of beliefs which he seemed to relate to the Graeco-Roman underworld, or the faeries of the Celts. His companion volume to the work under review, 'Aboriginal Fables and Legendary Tales' (1965), is an attempt to superimpose 'Genesis' (Chapter 2) and Milton's picture of the Garden of Eden on Aboriginal Mythology. Such exterior preconceptions would appear to be operating again in the present instance when the aborigines are described as 'primitive, clever, imaginative people' (p. 9) and sentiments like 'they lived close to the soil, these children of nature' (ibid.), show that we are dealing with an anthology based on a simple organization of thought, an uninformed wonder such as the one a teacher finds in young students of Aesop. The compiler has excerpted stories from various earlier anthologies and related them to apparent unities of theme. Thus the six sections are, in order, devoted to: creation; cosmos; animals; birds; water; and 'hero stories'.