Fire and Hearth

Book excerpt: Originally published by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, this facsimile edition of Professor Sylvia J. Hallam's classic 1975 work, Fire and Hearth, includes a substantial Afterword by the author, and a Preface by Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney. The book has been produced in light of the considerable new interest in the subject of Aboriginal land management before European settlement in Australia. *** "The land the English settled was not as God made it. It was as the Aborigines made it." Such is the challenging claim which opens Sylvia Hallam's majestic pioneer memoir on the interconnections between Aboriginal society, Country and the varied applications of deliberate firing. -- from the Preface by Professor John Mulvaney [Subject: History, Anthropology, Ethnography, Australian Studies, Aboriginal Studies, Land Conservation]