Ceremony men : making ethnography and the return of the Strehlow collection / Jason M. Gibson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Ceremony Men is an account of one scholar's attempt to return an anthropological collection to Aboriginal communities in remote central Australia. In revealing his process, Jason M. Gibson highlights the importance of personal rapport and collaborations in ethnographic exchange, both past and present, and demonstrates the ongoing importance of sociality, relationship, and orality when Indigenous peoples encounter museum collections today. Combining forensic historical analysis with contemporary ethnographic research, this book challenges the notion that anthropological archives will necessarily become authoritative or dominant statements on a people's cultural identity. Instead, Indigenous peoples will often interrogate and re-contextualise this material with great dexterity as they work to re-integrate the documented into their present-day social lives. By analyzing one of the world's greatest collections of Indigenous song, myth and ceremony-the collections of linguist/anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow-Ceremony Men demonstrates how inextricably intertwined ethnographic collections can become in complex historical and social relations. By theorizing the nature of the documenter-documented relationships this book makes an important contribution to the at times simplistic post-colonial generalizations that dominate analyses of colonial interaction. A story of local agency is uncovered that enriches our understanding of the human engagements that took (and continue to take) place within varying colonial relations of Australia"-- Provided by publisher

Print version record.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Cover Art -- Language and Orthography -- A Note on Sources -- Introduction -- The Ethnographer T.G.H. Strehlow -- Agency in the Archive -- Introducing Anmatyerr People -- Belonging to Men -- The Relational, History, and Ethnography -- Chapter Overview -- Chapter 1 Archive and Field -- Prior Interactions -- Positioning -- Anmatyerr Country -- Reading Alongside People -- Wrangling the Archive -- Chapter 2 Early Alhernter Encounters -- "Discovering" the Known -- Frontier Violence -- Pastoralism -- First Ethnographic Encounters -- The "Government Mob" -- The Cockatoo Creek Expedition -- Chapter 3 Strehlow's Scope -- Plotting a Complicated Life -- A "Famous Father" -- Literature and Language -- Anthropology -- Continental Connections -- Parallels and Comparisons -- The Authentic Value of Culture -- "Informants" and "Friends" -- Chapter 4 A Balancing Act -- First Lessons -- Atyewe-nhenge (The Age-mate) -- The Era of Festivals -- "The King" and the "Akiwarenye" -- Colonial Interests -- Inner Cycles and Local Sites -- "Disowned as Ingkata" -- Chapter 5 Urrempel Man -- Urrempel Man -- Ingkarte? -- Anpernerrenty (Relations) -- Singing and Talking -- "Strehlow-time" and "Three Law" -- A Specter in the Region -- "He took it dishonestly!" -- Chapter 6 Declarations of Relatedness -- Dancing and Singing Warlapanpa -- Continuity and Change -- Declarations of Relatedness -- Valuable and Vulnerable -- "Country Business" -- Chapter 7 The Intermingling of Intimate Narratives -- Malcolm's Story -- Orality, Literacy, and Historical Practice -- Finding "Big Foot" -- Questioning the Archival Account -- Traveling to Artwertakert -- The "Written Down Story" -- Reading the Family Trees -- The Trouble with Terminology -- Biography and Becoming -- Chapter 8 "You're My Kwertengerl".

Strehlow's Collection? -- "Beautiful" Yet "Dangerous" -- The Logic of Repatriation -- "You're my kwertengerl" -- "We Still Working" -- Teaching with "Content" -- Tin Boxes and Digital Files -- Conclusion -- References -- Index.

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