Description
The range and depth of information on Aboriginal culture in George Augustus Robinson’s journal gives it an enormous importance in a huge variety of studies. The journal contains information of interest to studies of prehistoric Aboriginal life in all its rich diversity, of Aboriginal-European relationships, of changes in the physical and cultural environments, and of the European settlement history of rural Victoria. Like all other European observers Robinson was not without biases (both conscious and subconscious) regarding Aboriginal culture and its worth. He certainly wasn’t an impartial commentator on his contemporaries. Thus, as with all other ethno-historic sources, the journal cannot be used without some allowance being made for the ethnocentric and egocentric perspectives of the writer. However, this source has the advantage of an immediacy of recorded observations, and a temporal and spatial range unequalled in any other Victorian source of this kind.
In use, the journal has proved to be an invaluable and, in some cases, unique source of data. Ironically however, although it has been used widely and is informing an increasing number of studies, it remains substantially unknown and untapped.
Paperback; 117pp; 2022
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