Until this new edition, Journey to Horseshoe Bend had been out of print for many years. A paperback edition was published by Rigby in 1978, coincidentally the year of Strehlow’s death. A choral work and a website have been created around the story in recent years. Now though, it is time for a new generation to discover this intriguing tale of Central Australia and its people, and to uncover the extraordinary entanglement between Strehlow’s personal experience and the deep cultural history of the Arrernte.
1 T.G.H. Strehlow, Personal Diary, 1966, p.95, Strehlow Research Centre, Alice Springs. Strehlow’s hand-written first draft manuscript is also held in the Strehlow Research Centre. The first page is annotated in his hand: ‘Begun in hospital Sunday 8 May at 11.45 a.m. T.G.H.S.’ The last page is annotated: ‘Original draft finished (a) on Sunday, 12 June, 1966, at 20 to 6 pm. (b) Typing of the original draft by Miss Julie Stone, on Thursday 25th August, 1966. (c) Revision of this first typescript completed by T.G.H.S. on Tuesday, 11th Oct. 1966’. A note on the second draft reads: ‘Typing of 2nd Draft finished 21.10.66. (Last nine pages once more revised on 16th & 17th Jan. 1967)’.
2 Ibid, p.100.
3 Ibid, p.120.
4 T.G.H. Strehlow to Beatrice Davis, 16 June 1967. Correspondence held in the Strehlow Research Centre, Alice Springs.
5 Davis to Strehlow, 24 October 1967; Strehlow to Davis, 1 November 1967.
6 Strehlow to Davis, 10 July 1969.
7 Beatrice Davis papers, 1952–1989, MLMSS 7638, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
8 Strehlow to Davis, 7 February 1968.
9 Unpublished review by Iris Milutinovic, received by Strehlow in July 1972. Strehlow Research Centre.
10 Correspondence and reviews relating to Journey to Horseshoe Bend, Strehlow Research Centre.
11 Rev. M. Lohe to T.G.H. Strehlow, 29 May 1970; Strehlow to Rev. M. Lohe, 23 June 1970, Strehlow Research Centre.
12 P.G.E. Albrecht, The journey broken at Horseshoe Bend. An examination of the events surrounding Carl Strehlow’s death, from the documents (2006). Friends of the Lutheran Archives, Adelaide.
Acknowledgements
The publisher wishes to thank Ruark Lewis for providing the map from the original edition, and the cover photograph; Hart Cohen and Rachel Morley for their assistance with the text and their enthusiasm for the project of republication; Philip Jones for his erudite essay on Journey to Horseshoe Bend written for this edition; and Pierre Arpin for his pursuit of copyright clearance and the support of the Strehlow Centre.
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Biographical Notes
T.G.H. STREHLOW was born in Hermannsburg, Central Australia in 1908. He was educated at the University of Adelaide, where he later became a Research Fellow in Australian Linguistics and Lecturer in English Literature, then a Reader and Professor in Australian Linguistics. In addition to Journey to Horseshoe Bend, his published works include Aranda Phonetics and Grammar (1944), Aranda Traditions (1947), and the monumental Songs of Central Australia (1968), as well as studies of the artists Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira. He died in 1978.
PHILIP JONES is Senior Curator in Anthropology at the South Australian Museum and the author of Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers, which won the 2008 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and Behind the Doors: An Art History from Yuendumu, published by Wakefield Press in 2014.
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