B 505: Lecture on the Aborigines of Australia and papers on Wirradhurrei dialect, 1837-1840

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This material forms part of the Archdeacon James Gunther papers, 1826-1878, held by the State Library of New South Wales.

The following parts of the collection were selected for the Rediscovering Indigenous Languages project:

- Lecture on the Aborigines of Australia and papers on Wirradhurrei dialect, 1837-1840; call number B 505

- The Native Dialect Wirradurri spoken in the Wellington District, 1838; call number C 136

The Archdeacon William James Gunther (1839-1918) was born on 28 May 1839 at Wellington, New South Wales, and was son of Reverend James William Gunther and his wife Lydia, née Paris. Gunther (the elder) was a German-born missionary, who worked in the Mudgee district and died circa 1879. The Church Missionary Society mission appointed Gunther to its mission in Wellington in August 1837, and he stayed until the mission was disbanded in 1843. During this time, Gunter compiled lists of Wiradjuri words, phrases and executed studies on Wiradjuri grammar.

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EYPHKA

The Mitchell Library

Sydney

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Lecture on the Aboriginees of Australia

Permit me Mr Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen, to make a few preliminary observations in reference to the Aboriginees of Australia - the subject I have promised to discuss, before I proceed to the various particulars which may deserve an inquiry res pecting them. And first I would guard you, lest you or some of you should raise your expectations too high as to the interesting information you might receive respecting them. A poor, widely & thinly scattered race, of wandering unsettled & uncivilized habits as are the Aboriginees of this country can scarcely afford much of interest either to be instructive or to amuse or to satis-

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fy our curiosity, [more particularly when it is borne in mind that they are rather reserve towards Europeans]. Still I would add, should some of you form too low an estimate of the Blacks of this country [words crossed out] being so utterly degraded & ignorant as hardly worth our inquiry, there is no human race so deeply sunk or so utterly savage as not to present some few features of interest. These may yet be traced in all the races of the earth, however degenerate certain assimilations to the rest of the human family, some kindred feelings & sympathies & desires, certain qualifications and susceptibilities, intellectual & other faculties, together with some failings, infirmities and inherent evil propensities which all [word crossed out] tend to prove that they partake of the same nature as ourselves that they are our kindred. Indeed those who have studied the human races more carefully

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