Into the Heart of Tasmania

Title: Into the Heart of  Tasmania (2017)
Author: Rebe Taylor
Genre: non-fiction; history
Trivia:  (TAS)  #AusReadingMonth  @Brona’s Books
Trivia: #WorldFromMyArmchair Challenge (Tasmania)

Trivia: #NonFicNov

Trivia:   #AWW    @AustralianWomenWriters

• Trivia: Dr. Rebe Taylor is an Australian historian.
• Her book Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search for Human Antiquity
• won the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award 2017.

 

Introduction:

1. Into the Heart of Tasmania is a new history of Aboriginal Tasmania
2. …the eccentric Englishman Ernest Westlake (geologist)
3. ….and  his  hunt for man’s origins.

 

Who was Ernest Westlake?   (1855-1922)

1. English amateur scientist Ernest Westlake from about 1870 to 1920.
2. The man who loved stones and the history they revealed!
3. Westlake was officially a geologist… unofficially a self taught anthropologist
4. The story of Ernest Westlake his collections is brought to life  this book.
5. I was most interested in what I could learn about Tasmania by reading Rebe Talylor’s book.

 

What did Westlake do?

1. In 1908 E. Westlake packed a tent, a bicycle and forty tins of food and
2. sailed from Liverpool to Port Melbourne Australia.
3. He believed he found on the island of Tasmania the remnants (stone tools)
4. …of an extinct race the Tasmanian Aboriginals.
5. In the remotest corners of the island
6. …Westlake did encounter via interviews
7. ….the living indigenous communities.

 

Why were the Tasmanians so important for anthropology?

1. The Tasmanians are believed to have been the most isolated race on earth.
2. Their importance is their status as a cultural beginning.
3. Because of their isolation and slow transformation
4. …the Tasmanians ‘may have gone on little changed from early ages’ (pg 100)

 

What evidence do we have that the Tasmanian Aboriginals first human beings?

1. Edward B. Tylor, ‘the father of anthropology’ after viewing an aboriginal stones
2. …’the Taunton Scraper’  declared the Tasmanian Aboriginals as the ‘dawn of humanity.’

 

What was Westlake’s goal?

1. Westlake wanted to rewrite history.
2. In the process he  finds and documents a living culture
3. ...that had been declared extinct, Tasmanian Aboriginals.
   

 

 

Conclusion:

1. I knew NOTHING about the Aboriginals or Tasmania!
2. Strong point:  Westlake lets the frontier violence done to the Aborigines
3. seep through his  anthropological journey.
4. …(Risdon Cove Massacre,  The Black War in Tasmania)
5. I have never read about the injustice done to this race. #Shameful
6. All in all did discover Tasmania….following Westlake’s journey on a digital map.
7. Warning: Be prepared to  ‘push’ through the first 50% of the book.
8. I had to…. at times Westlake’s  life  back in England
9. …was not so interesting after his return from Tasmania.

Structure:

1. 1-8% – introduction to the man Ernest Westlake and his family and education
2. 9-32% – described Westlake’s 1,5 year trip to Tasmania
3. …Flinder Island and Cape Barren Island.
4. 42-45% – Westlake’s return to England and his  studies…and his death in 1922.
5. 46-48% – Westlake’s Tasmanian stone collection and notes were now open to
6. …Rhys Jones, University of Sydney earning his PhD in Tasmanian archeology (1966).
7. 49-   57%   The book gathers steam with the very interesting
8. …escavations by R. Jones and his team (1965)
9. Finally Dr. Rebe Taylor shines as she pulls all the diverse theories
10. …together of past explorers into a  ‘page turning’ last few pages!
11. 57-100% – notes and other resource

Last thoughts:

1. Rhys Jones the ‘cowboy archeologist’ once said:
2. “Australian archaeological treasure is not gold or silver
3. …it is time itself.”
4. I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite a ‘few slow pages’.
5. Dr. Rebe Taylor deserves
6. …University of Southern Queensland History Book Award 2017
7. Tasmania, the heart-shaped island, takes on a new meaning for me!

Dr. Rebe Taylor:

 

BTW:

I visited new museum websites:

1. Tasmanian Museum
2. National Museum Melbourne