Biographical study of R. H. Mathews (1841-1918), surveyor and ethnologist.
People Involved
Martin Thomas (chief investigator)
Megan Poore (research assistant in 2002)
Christine Winter (German translator)
Mathilde de Hauteclocque (French translator)
Project overview
Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841-1918) was an Australian-born surveyor who worked mainly in rural New South Wales. From 1893 until his death he documented Aboriginal customs and beliefs. Now recognised as a founding figure in Australian social anthropology, Mathews studied Aboriginal kinship systems, mythology, rock art, material culture, languages and initiatory practices. He published 2200 pages of ethnographic data in journals around the world. This is the first major appraisal of Mathews since A. P. Elkin’s three part biographical article on him, published in the 1970s. I am studying Mathews’ published work as well as his unpublished papers, held by the National Library of Australia. The project will result in a collection containing English translations of Mathews’ French and German articles (in press) and a book-length biographical study (presently being written).
Project Details
Collaboration
The research commenced during an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Technology, Sydney. The National Library of Australia supported the project in 2002 by granting me a Harold White Fellowship. The Mirranen Archive project was made possible by a consultancy with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Selected Publications
Short introductory article:
‘Surveyor, Anthropologist, “Independent Gentleman”: The Controversial Career of R. H. Mathews’, National Library of Australia News, October 2004, pp. 7-10.
Journal articles and conference paper:
‘“To you Mrs Mathews”: The Cross-Cultural Recording of Janet Mathews’, Australasian Sound Archive, No. 29, Winter 2003, pp. 46-59.
‘Within Earshot of the Barwon River: Vanished Voices and the Midden of Glass’ in Cultural Pacemakers: Art and Scholarship in Australia (seminar proceedings), Independent Scholars Association of Australia NSW Chapter, 2004.
‘R. H. Mathews and anthropological warfare: On writing the biography of a self-contained man’, Aboriginal History, Vol. 28, 2004, pp. 1-32.
Download PDF of this article.
‘Looking for Mr Mathews’, Meanjin, Vol. 64, No. 3, 2005.
Radio documentary:
A Very Human Survey (duration 54 minutes). First broadcast on Big Ideas, ABC Radio National, 6 July 2003. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s892395.htm
Edited collection (in press):
Translating Culture: The foreign-language publications of R. H. Mathews, (French translations by Mathilde de Hauteclocque; German translations by Christine Winter), Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph Series, 2006. Consisting of English translations of Mathews’ French and German language articles.
Web resource (in press):
Mirranen Archive: A reference guide to the published papers of R. H. Mathews.
Description: Mirranen is the name by which R. H. Mathews was known among Aboriginal communities on the South Coast of New South Wales. This project was commissioned by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and will be accessible on the Institute’s web site from late 2005. The site will allow researchers to navigate the vast mass of data published by Mathews. Each of his 170 publications has been analysed for factual information including tribal and language names, geographical localities, subject matter and names of informants. A detailed abstract has been written for each article. Scans of most articles (those not deemed culturally sensitive) will be available for download by visitors to the site. Mirranen Archive will greatly improve the accessibility of Mathews’ work.