Children of the Desert

by Phyl and Noel Wallace

Thomas Nelson, 1977, [Revised], ISBN 0170052433, colour and black & white photographs throughout, line drawings, colour photographic two-page title page, hardcover with colour photographic boards, dustjacket

Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear (see photographs)

“This new revised edition of Children of the Desert has been published in response to the many people who have written to the Wallaces from all over the world asking what has happened to the children of the Desert People since the book was first published.
Children of the Desert is an apt description of the children of the Pitjantjatjara people, for this tribe still live their nomadic lives in the heart of Australia, their only contact with the white man or the white man’s civilisation being the missionaries, the welfare officers and the passing anthropologist.
Through this book Phyl and Noel Wallace share with us their discoveries about these Aborigines and, more especially, their children.  While the parents under the influence of their dreamtime continue the age-old pursuits of food-gathering and building wiltjas, of corroboree and walkabout, many of the children now go to school where the music of the corroboree may have a very unfortunate influence over the white man’s mathematics! In drawing classes, however, the two worlds meet and the pictures created by the children from lives where the aeroplane jostles the evil spirit, mamu, and the ideograms of the cave paintings mingle with closely observed portraits of trucks, are most fascinating works of art.”

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