Aboriginal Myths, Legends and Fables by A.W. Reed

by Alexander Wyclif Reed

A.W. Reed. This book presents a wealth of poetic and imaginative tales from Aboriginal cultural heritage. While retelling the stories simply, this book captures the mystical bonds that exist between Aboriginal people, their environment and the spirit life of the Dreamtime.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, Folklore, History, Australia, Classics, Indigenous

Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Alexander Wyclif Reed (1908 – 1979), also known as Clif Reed and A. W. Reed, was a prolific New Zealand publisher and author.

As an author he was known most commonly as A.W. Reed.
Reed wrote many books on topics such as myths, language, and place names of both Māori and Australian Aboriginal cultures.

With his uncle Alfred, he established the publishing firm A. H. & A. W. Reed.

Reviews

[Emily Van Coolput · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a number of other people have already pointed out, committing an oral tradition to writing is never an easy task, especially when you're neither part of the culture nor the person who collected the material, and I was left with a distinct impression that some tales had probably been altered or contaminated a fair bit in the edition process. I also feel the distinction between the basic material and the author's explanations could and should have been clearer and the commentary (or lack thereof) more consistent throughout the book (there was a fair bit of it in the myths, hardly any in the seemingly random collection of tales in the last part; the way I see it either you explain and contextualise or you don't, but don't change your mind halfway through the volume). This being said, all in all it was still an enjoyable read.

[Octavio Villalpando · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta es una colección asombrosa de mitos y leyendas de los habitantes originales de Australia. Cubre todos los aspectos básicos de la cosmogonía original de ese hermoso territorio. Lo que más me ha asombrado es que, una vez que soy un verdadero enamorado de este tipo de expresión, realmente son originales en forma y concepción. Digo, uno puede estar familiarizado con las enseñanzas de las civilizaciones antiguas de occidente y es posible encontrar paralelismos en muchos casos, si bien aquí los mitos típicos persisten (como la ideal del diluvio), la verdad es que están permeados de unas formas nada típicas para lo que estamos acostumbrados, resultando muy brutales y sobrecogedores en algunos casos.

En verdad es muy interesante, lo recomiendo ampliamente para los interesados en el tema.

[Thinn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is like a textbook for me. There is a lot of information put together so it is hard for me to digest all of it. Although the book was divided into 3 chapters, for me, legends and fables intertwine with each other and are similar.

In the Myths session, I read about ‘the Great Father: Baiame, Punjel or Bunjil, and Nurunderi. This is my first time reading about Australian Aboriginal myths so it’s hard for me to understand. However, like any other creators and gods myths, there were punishments and curses, manipulation, power abuse, and so on.

For the Legends session, I remembered that even though the story has a sad ending, they always leave good intentions like Coral Creeper. In the ‘Crow people,’ it’s more like the adaptation of Wahn. He was turned into a white crow but he became darker and darker based on his mischievousness. Again, I’m not familiar with the geography of Australia so it’s hard for me to catch up with the places the book had mentioned.

The last session was about the Fables. Like I said, for me, legends and fables are similar. They even have similar stories about mockingbird and crow. A few fables mentioned why koalas don't have a tail now. So many reptiles are involved in fables. I like the story about ‘Waratah flower’ as it represents the undying love.

The things I don’t like about this book are, first of all, the book was based on secondary research. The stories didn’t come from the aboriginal people. For me, the narration was not authentic. Secondly, the author was not from the community that these stories come from. He doesn’t know the culture at all and he can’t relate to the stories he wrote. I am not in a favor of a colonizer who tries to retell the stories of the locals. 🫥

Well hopefully in future, I can find more authentic book written by the aboriginal.

“The clue to understanding lies in the Dreamtime. In that Dream world, man dreamed splendid dreams of kingship with everything that surrounded him and invented glorious tales, as well as horrific ones, to provide a satisfying account of the origin of natural life with which he was so familiar, investing what most of us accept as commonplace with the supernatural.”

[Sarah Huntington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aboriginal Myth is like no other. It's elegant and complex, beautiful and woven with secrets and metaphors. As others have pointed out, this collection is important but it lacks the magic and that's the most special part. Oral traditions are either written down well, badly, or somewhere in between. For me, this book fell in the in-between.

[Chris Jim Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magic, talking spirit animals, characters announcing how good wallaby meat is, and cannibalism. Bonza

[Douglas Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book but it was fairly dense and could have been better presented with some background information on each story, its purpose and the First Nations to which the story belonged. This is possibly because the collection of and then transcribing of these stories are dated - a contemporary approach may be different.

[Paul W · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are few anthologies of Aboriginal myths, and Reed’s is an important contribution. The challenge Reed faces is to capture coherently in written form the stories from multiple different cultures which make up Aboriginal Australia, cultures which are based on a spoken language.
Reed notes that he has "had neither opportunity nor ability to collect the legends…at first hand." As a result, something appears to have been lost in the collection and retelling. Reed’s section on Myths is stilted with myths often interrupted by Reed’s narrative.
In presenting all the stories he has collated, this book becomes neither an engaging read, nor an academic anthology.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This didn't quite meet my expectations, though I doubt any other book on this subject would. It seems to me that one reason why the First Australians did not have a store of written texts; their culture embraced so many aspects of story telling (dance, song, environment, etc.) into the Dreaming that simple words on a page would never be enough.
I found many explanations of natural phenomena quite profound and different to other cultures I know.
While there will never be a definitive collection of Indigneous Australian myths, legends and fables, this had a great attempt at scratching the surface of an entirely different, unique and ancient living culture and worldview.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

another good book on aboriginal belief .

[Markus Whittaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author tended to over-simplify indigenous Australian culture, and represent it as a homogeneous whole. Frequently. But I still found it an interesting and well researched collection.