Aboriginal Books for Artefact Collectors

As a collector of Aboriginal artefacts you would be well advised to read as many old reference books as you can.
The following is a list of books in my library to which I refer:-

• Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, George Grey,
  1841, ISBN 1406833584
• Native Tribes of South Australia, 1876, ISBN 1876154144
• The Queensland Aborigines, W.E. Roth, 1897, ISBN 085905 0548
• The Aborigines of Victoria, R.Brough-Smyth,1878
• The Aborigines of Australia, Richard Sadleir, 1883
• Ethnographical Album of the Pacific Islands, James Edge-Partington and Charles
• Heape, 1890-98, ISBN 1 878529 196
• The Aborigines of Australia, Thomas Worsnop, 1897
• Reminiscences of Early Queensland, Constance Campbell Petrie,1904, ISBN 08 5550 6083
• Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, Spencer, 1914
• The Arunta, Spencer and Gillen, 1927
• A Preliminary Consideration of Original Australian Decorative Art, Daniel Sutherland Davidson, 1937
• Coming into Being Among Australian Aborigines, M.F.Ashley-Montagu, 1937
• The Australian Aborigines :How to Understand Them, A.P. Elkin, 1938
• The First Australians, R.M. & C.H. Berndt, 1952, ISBN 07254 01699
• Australian Aboriginal Culture, The Australian National Commission for Unesco,1953
• Aboriginal Australia, Australian Gallery Directors Council, 1981, ISBN 0642 89690 9
• Boomerang, Phillip Jones 1996

This is not a definitive list and I would be glad to receive feedback as to which books I have omitted to mention which would be useful to you as a collector. These just happen to be some of the books I have on Aboriginal culture and history. I have included the ISBN number where there are reprints I know about. The published dates are not necessarily the date of first publication. They are the dates of the editions I have.

I believe it is very important to understand the cultural context into which artefacts fit. There were many different uses for objects, some ceremonial, some sacred and others mundane. Some were made for trade amongst Aborigines, some for one-off uses, some were destroyed at the death of owners, others passed down.

It?s interesting to be able to pick up a boomerang for instance and know where it was made and how it was used and roughly how old it is. If one were to pick four of these, I would obtain Aboriginal Australia, Boomerang, Ethnographical Album of the Pacific Islands and A Preliminary Consideration of Original Australian Decorative Art.

Some of the books are quite expensive but all worth having. I?ll update this list when I have some feedback.