Letter to F.W.Eardley 29/7/31

Abstract

DBs letter 29/7/31 to FW Eardley, Registrar of the University of Adelaide, confirming that the U of A is now the repository of Central Australian aboriginal material. She states that she is ill but managing with help of the railway dining room to obtain food. She explains her ‘equipment’ and qualifications for collecting the vocabularies she has sent via Professor Fitzherbert to the University and recommends them as a basis for future field research. Her unpublished work on the History of the Native tribes of Western Australia, researched over 12 years, also contains much of interest for South Australia and other states as the state borders were not recognised by the aborigines and the new railways facilitated travel among groups in east and west. DB hopes that there will be a High Commissioner to ensure that the passing of the Australian aborigines will be as happy as possible. The Nullarbor Plain should become a planted ‘memorial’ so that future generations will have better memories of ‘these dreadful cannibals’.