Restoring the Chain of Memory describes and analyses the writings and records compiled by the notable linguist, T.G.H. Strehlow (1908–1978), on Australian Aboriginal Religions, particularly as practised by the Arrernte of Central Australia.

During numerous research trips between 1932 and 1966, the local Indigenous Arrernte Elders entrusted him with sacred objects, allowed him to film their secret rituals and record their songs, partly because he was regarded as one of them, an ‘insider’, who they believed would help preserve their ancient traditions in the face of threats posed by outside forces.

Strehlow characterized Arrernte society as ‘personal monototemism in a polytotemic community’. This concept provides an important insight into understanding how Arrernte society was traditionally organized and how the societal structure was re-enforced by carefully organized rituals.

Strehlow’s research into this complex societal system is here examined both in terms of its meaning and current application and with reference to how the societal structure traditionally was interwoven into religious understandings of the world. It exemplifies precisely how the insider-outsider’ problem is embodied in one individual: he was accepted by the Arrernte people as an insider who used this knowledge to interpret Arrernte culture for non-Indigenous audiences (outsiders).

This volume documents how Strehlow’s works are contributing to the current repatriation by Australian Aboriginal leaders of rituals,

ancient songs, meanings associated with sacred objects and genealogies, much of which by the 1950s had been lost through the processes of colonization, missionary influences and Australian governmental interference in the lives of Indigenous societies.

James L. Cox’s Restoring the Chain of Memory: T.G.H. Strehlow and the Repatriation of Australian Indigenous Knowledge

is a fascinating, painstakingly researched, timely and immensely

valuable study of the scholarly achievement of Ted Strehlow in

preserving in textual and material form the culture of the Arrernte

people of Central Australia. Cox argues for a revaluation of both

Strehlow’s career and Arrernte traditions, using Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s

concept of the “chain of memory” to demonstrate that the Indigenous

rituals, songs and objects that Strehlow preserved have become, in the

40 years since his death, a means for contemporary Arrernte Elders to

repatriate their own ancestral knowledge. Restoring the Chain of Memory

is an important book for all people interested in Indigenous religions,

anthropology of religion, and the history of interactions between early

twentieth century scholars and the colonized peoples they lived and

worked alongside.

Carole M. Cusack, Professor of Religious Studies Studies in Religion |

Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Editor, Literature

& Aesthetics (journal of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics)

Co-Editor (with Rachelle Scott, University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Fieldwork in Religion