Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Chapter 1. 'they covet not Magnificent Houses, Houshold-stuff' Chapter 3 Chapter 2. Orienting the Wergaia Chapter 4 Chapter 3. The Example of Ebenezer Chapter 5 Chapter 4. 'Fantatic Dreaming:' space, power, and the Mission-house Chapter 6 Chapter 5. 'All these little things:' material culture and domesticity Chapter 7 Chapter 6. After the mission closed, 1904-1930: Antwerp Chapter 8 Chapter 7. 'The outskirts of civilization' 1930-1960s Chapter 9 Chapter 8. 'A handle of a cup:' changing views of the missions
Jane Lydon is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University.
Lydon's Fantastic Dreaming represents an important contribution to
our understanding of the complexities of cross-cultural exchange in
Australian history. Focused on the mission site of Ebenezer in
Victoria, Lydon skillfully weaves a story of transformation and
persistence that is grounded in a deep engagement with the place,
its people, and material culture recovered through survey and
excavation. Significantly, Lydon's story acknowledges the
importance of Ebenezer to those whose lives it has touched in so
many ways, and it provides an exemplar of how researchers and
indigenous people can together create compelling history.
*Timothy Murray, La Trobe University*
This is indeed a 'fantastic' book, full of the sort of rich
'hidden' histories that connect the past with the present. It
represents the sort of richly longitudinal study which we need in
Australasian archaeology, and I congratulate AltaMira Press and the
World of Archaeology Series Editors on commissioning this important
book....This rich and deeply nuanced anaysis of the role of
material culture and spatial politics in shaping colonial
identities and archaeology's potential in illuminating hidden
colonial pasts in a postcolonial present deserves a place on the
bookshelves of all Australians, and will appeal to anyone with an
interest in how the past matters in the present.
*Australasian Historical Archaeology*
This book adds another layer to our increasing understanding of the
nuances and subtleties of culture contact and colonialism in all
its guises. Lydon provides an account of mission society that is
rich in detail and profound in sensitivity. Archaeologists would be
wise to emulate her exhaustive research program and her
multiscalar, multicultural perspective. She sets a high standard
for historical archaeology.
*Charles E. Orser Jr., Vanderbilt University*
Jane Lydon has written a very important book, which accentuates the
importance of modern Aboriginal cultural heritage….Lydon's
Fantastic Dreaming stands as a remarkable book on the cultural
transformations and continuity surrounding missions. I warmly
recommend this book as a fantastic and stirring story which sets a
necessary standard for future research in humanities.
*Archaeology In Oceania*
Fantastic Dreaming is well-written and provides a comprehensive and
rich spatial history of the Ebenezer mission. It presents many
historical photographs and reproduces important sketch maps. Lydon
successfully interrogates the marginal status of the Wergaia in
regional Victorian towns, such as Antwerp and Dimboola, in the
twentieth century and reveals how disparaging comments from
non-Aboriginal houses were blind to the long term, if intangible,
attachment of Aboriginal people to their places….With the
publication of Lydon's book, the Ebenezer mission has become one of
the most researched former Aboriginal mission sites in
Victoria.
*Aboriginal History*
Jane Lydon's Fantastic Dreaming is a scholarly work that bears the
hallmarks of this researcher as someone engaged with theory, and
skilled in the interpretation of multiple sources….And not least of
all it provides a detailed insight into the history of Victorian
missions.
*Australian Archaeology, June 2011*
Lydon’s own tale is skillfully narrated, rich in historical detail
and replete with the social actors from both ‘sides’ of the
frontier who shaped the material and spatial worlds of encounter.
In South Africa, where mission archeology remains relatively
under-developed, Lydon’s book offers a compelling benchmark.
*South African Archaeological Bulletin*
Lydon’s work is a significant contribution to historical and
anthropological understanding of the continuing impact of the
missionising process on Aboriginal Australians. Importantly, it
shows both the fluidity and survival of a culture that was for a
long time denied, and that material culture studies can be used to
highlight this fluidity.
*Journal of Australian Studies*
Some of the first physical traces left in the Victorian landscape
by European settlers were those of Major Thomas Mitchell’s dray as
it passed through the soft earth and left tracks that remained
visible for years. As a slowly fading image of the passing of
people and animals through country it is a powerful one that
remains in the imagination of the reader throughout this book. Soft
footed wallabies and bare footed humans had never before left
permanent tracks in the sandy soil such as these. ... There are
many fascinating insights into the mission as a place of exchange
of culture provided by this book. This is set within a wider
context of both secular and religious thought and writings of the
late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Fantastic Dreaming sets out
to explore many things and it does so in a scholarly fashion. The
endnotes to each chapter are extensive and illuminating, and the
range of sources are extensive, representing a wide range of views.
The strength of the book comes from Lydon’s own intimate knowledge
of the place through archeological surveys and through talking to
Aboriginal people descended from those who lived at Ebenezer.
*Historic Environment*
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