Capturing histories at Thantyi-Wanparda: Comparing early and late twentieth century ethnographies in Arabana territory, South Australia

This paper deals with the original field diaries and notebooks of Walter Baldwin Spencer during his brief fieldwork endeavour amongst the Arabana of northern South Australia in 1903. The information recorded by Spencer reveals a relatively accurate, although abbreviated and fragmentary assemblage of Arabana mythologies and language that can be compared with information recorded by Luise Hercus with Mick McLean and other Arabana and Wangkangurru people, over sixty years later. In this paper we describe and contextualise what is an overlooked episode in Spencer and Gillen’s fieldwork career, provide an analysis of their work with Arabana informants, and compare their findings with more recent ethnographic information collected in the latter half of the twentieth century. Interrogating this historical information and rereading in light of far more recent and thorough research, we demonstrate the benefits of combining the sets of information from two radically different periods in Australian ethnography, linguistics and anthropology.