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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!m2xenix!puddle!p0.f508.n711.z3.fidonet.org!Peter.Macinnis
- From: Peter.Macinnis@p0.f508.n711.z3.fidonet.org (Peter Macinnis)
- Sender: ufgate@puddle.fidonet.org (newsout1.26)
- Newsgroups: k12.chat.teacher
- Subject: Folktales of Australia
- Message-ID: <22154.2B0E62A9@puddle.fidonet.org>
- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 21:48:00 PDT
- Organization: FidoNet node 3:711/508.0 - The Bay, Neutral Bay NSW
- Lines: 40
-
- G'day from Australia
- We have two kinds of tales: many aboriginal legends, and the stories
- which were written mainly in the late 19th century, some of which count
- as almost folk tales now. We also have a good band of "tall tale"
- stories, such as those featuring Crooked Mick of the Speewah. He once
- set out to catch a Murray Cod (a large fish found in the Murray River).
- Used a plough as the hook, huge cable as the line, a bullock as the
- bait, and attached it all to a river red gum. The result was that the
- fish took the bait, and pulled so hard that it moved the whole bed of
- the river.
-
- Tricksters: well, you could look for "Tiddalik the Frog", or Henry
- Lawson's character "Steelman the Spieler", and I'm fairly sure that the
- kookaburra gets a role in some aboriginal stories. BTW, the aboriginal
- people of the Sydney area now refer to themselves as Kooris (the "oo" is
- pronounced as in "book"), so maybe you could search under that as a
- keyword.
-
- You have at least one Australian exchange teacher in your neck of the
- woods: maybe you could pester him for some info: if my son's teacher
- from Washington is typical of what exchange teachers do, he will have
- taken quite a lot of Australian material with him to the US&A <Pogo
- lives!>. He is at Spirit Ridge Elementary school, and he is Robert (?)
- Blanchfield.
-
- I'm unwilling to commit a whole batch of typing as I get RSI, and I've
- just been doing a lot of on-screen editing, so the danger signs are
- there. If you can get the real thing closer to home, that's great, but
- if you can't, send me a snail mail address, and I will bash out a few
- photocopies next week, when I will be back at work (I'm a museum
- person).
-
- peter
-
-
-
-
- --
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