Research and friendship: John Mathew and his Aboriginal informants

Abstract

Between 1879 and 1928, John Mathew (1849-1929) published two books and over 20 articles on aspects of Aboriginal culture, society and languages. In that period he grad­ ually developed some repute as an ethnographer, linguist and student of Aboriginal society. He has generally been included in subsequent lists of pioneers of Aboriginal ethnography in the period from the 1880s to the 1920s. This was the transitional phase between the 'mere collectors' like R. Brough Smyth and E.M. Curr and the organised, systematic, academically-based professional researchers from the 1920s onwards. His­ tories of Australian anthropology which list the pioneers of the discipline still usually give the names A.