Aboriginal Studies/Religious Studies
Book Details

Blood, Bones and Spirit

Aboriginal Christianity in an East Kimberley Town

Heather McDonald

Analyses how Aboriginal people have appropriated Biblical stories of land inheritance, expansion and loss in order to make sense of their own dispossession.

Awards

AIATSIS Stanner Award 2002

Opinion

‘An endlessly suggestive, sparkling work plunged deep in the domain of Aboriginal Christianity.’ (Nicholas Rothwell, Weekend Australian, 19-20 October 2002)

‘Heather McDonald’s Blood, Bones and Spirit is a complex, sophisticated and comprehensive study of contemporary Aboriginal Christian belief and practice . . . It is an original ground-breaking work.’ (JAS Review of Books, Issue 6, June 2002)

About this Title

In this fascinating and beautifully written book, Heather McDonald examines Aboriginal people's experiences of colonialism and post-colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Blood, Bones and Spirit analyses how Aboriginal people have appropriated Biblical stories of land inheritance, expansion and loss in order to make sense of their own dispossession. It investigates the embodiment of Christianity by Aboriginal people through their appropriation of Christ's body—his blood, bones and spirit—in order to replenish and heal their own colonised bodies.

Indeed, this local study of Christianisation in a small East Kimberley town presents a challenge to the very history and philosophy of Western religion.

Heather McDonald spreads out before the reader various aspects of Aboriginal Christianity: the way Aborigines have assimilated Christian stories to make sense of their history and their relationships with the dominant society; their understanding of what it means to be Christian; their church activities; and their conflicting interpretations of the Christian way of life. Aboriginal Christians are repossessing the land and reclaiming a traditional, earth-bound, world-immanent spirituality.

These Aboriginal understandings of colonisation (including missionisation) and Aboriginal ways of interpreting and understanding Christianity offer a unique contribution to the reconciliation process.

Table of Contents

Preface
Editorial Note
Introduction

1 People, Land and Spirit
2 Mediterranean, European and Aboriginal Spirit Worlds
3 Colonisation and Missionisation in the Kimberley
4 Maddy Jarra's World History
5 Following the Christian Way
6 Churchgoing
7 Conflicts with Missionaries
8 Mother Earth versus the Lure of Infinite Space

Glossary of Aboriginal Words
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Heather McDonald was a community health worker with Aboriginal people in Western Australia and the Northern Territory during the 1970s and 1980s. She then studied anthropology at the University of Queensland and the Australian National University.

Book Preview

978-0-522-84981-3