Afterlife Before Genesis is the final volume in a trilogy that began with Life Before Genesis and was followed by Return to Eden. Here David H. Turner focusses on what the Aborigines of the Groote Eylandt area of northern Australia take to be the foundations of their way of life, namely musical Forms. Their music, like their way of life, incarnates from «Nothing» as differences (songLines) which are «renounced» from «owners» to «non-owners» to connect rather than divide. This music is a complex polyphonic interplay of didjereedoo (their hollow log instrument) and voice which not only transcends but also heals. This the author documents by recounting how he learned to play the didjereedoo.

Autorentext

The Author: David H. Turner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto and Fellow of Trinity College and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. He has worked for 25 years with the Australian Aborigines as well as in northern Canada, north India, Bali, and on aspects of his own society. He is also author of Tradition and Transformation, Shamattawa (with P. Wertman) and Challenging Anthropology (with G. Smith).