Australia's
Folklife Heritage
(A Reading List)
General (Directories) | General | Crafts | Customs | Food | Holidays & Festivals | Language | Medicine | Music & Song | National Character | Recreation | Work | Periodicals
[NOTE: This reading list was compiled by Brian Samuels for the History Trust of South Australia in 1993 and is published on this website with the author’s and History Trust’s permission. Minor changes have been made to the introduction and the list of periodicals, and the National Folk Directory is now available on the Folk Alliance Australia web site. Although there have been some significant new publications in recent years - most notably Gwenda Davey & Graham Seal (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore (OUP, Melbourne 1993) - this list is still a useful guide to the field.]
The concept of heritage has become very popular in recent years and justifiably so, for if you define it as our 'inheritance from the past', it includes absolutely everything.
That inheritance can be neatly divided into four: the natural environment; the built environment; movable heritage (artefacts); and the sum of the personal heritages each of us carry within us, or in other words, our folklife heritage.
This is the heritage we absorb from the communities and environments we live in, generally learning it orally or by imitation or observation. It is often a heritage we take for granted.
Among other things it can include customs, beliefs, rituals, language, literature, technical skills, craft, play, music, dance, and song. While customs and beliefs often only get passing mention in much writing about Australia’s past, the increasing popularity of oral history is gradually remedying that.
Given the scope of the subject this reading list is very selective and some topics are not covered at all (for example, Aboriginal heritage and the heritages of post World War Two immigrants). However, the bibliographies of the books cited will soon lead readers further afield. As this list was prepared for the State Folk Festival it is weighted towards music and song.
| General (Directories) | |
| Australian Folk Trust | The Australian Folk Directory 1978/79 - [Titled The National Folk Directory 1978/79, 1979/80, 1981/82 and The Australian Folk Directory Calendar 1983/84 -1986/87]. |
| I Margrett & B Petchell | Folk ’86 Resource Directory (Jubilee 150 Education Office, Adelaide 1986) 88pp. |
| G Seal & R Edwards | Australian Folk Resources A Select Guide and a Preliminary Bibliography (Australian Folk Trust, Canberra 1988) 67pp. |
| General | |
| Australian Folk Trust | Proceedings of the National Folklore Conferences (various titles) 1984- (biennial) |
| Australian Government Publishing Service | Folklife: our living heritage Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Folklife in Australia. (AGPS, Canberra 1987) 306pp. |
| J Factor | Captain Cook Chased a Chook Children’s Folklore in Australia. (Penguin, Ringwood 1988) 290pp |
| G Seal | The Hidden Culture Folklore in Australian Society (OUP, Melbourne 1989) 180pp. |
| Crafts | |
| R Edwards | Australian Traditional Bush Crafts (1975, Rigby, Adelaide1984) 143pp. [Republished as Bushcraft 1 in 1988] |
| _________ | Bushcraft 3 (Rams Skull Press, Kuranda 1987) 164pp. |
| _________ | Skills of the Australian Bushman (Rigby Adelaide, 1979) 166pp. [Republished as Bushcraft 2 in 1988] |
| J Isaacs | The Gentle Arts 200 Years of Australian Women’s Domestic and Decorative Arts (Lansdowne, Sydney 1987) 224pp. |
| M Walker | Colonial Crafts of Victoria (Melbourne 1978) 167pp. |
| Customs (see also Holidays and Festivals) | |
| R Brasch | How Did It Begin? Customs and Superstitions and their Romantic Origins. (1965, Fontana/Collins, Sydney 1985) 352pp. |
| Food | |
| An Australian Aristologist | The Colonial Cookbook (Hamlyn, Dee Why West 1970) 189pp. [An unacknowledged rearranged republication of Australia’s first cookbook The English and Australian Cookery Book (Sampson Low, Son and Marston, London 1864) |
| R Beckett | Convicted Tastes Food in Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1984) 217pp. |
| A Gollan | The Tradition of Australian Cookery (ANUP, Canberra 1978) 211pp. |
| M Symons | One Continuous Picnic A history of eating in Australia. (Duck Press, Adelaide 1982) 278pp. |
| Holidays and Festivals | |
| A Butler et al | The 1986 All-Australian Calendar Book A guide to the days of significance in our multicultural Australia. (Hodja, Richmond 1986) 344pp. |
| K Inglis | The Australian Colonists (MUP, Carlton 1974) 316pp. |
| M Stapleton & P McDonald | Christmas in the Colonies (David Ell Press in association with the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Sydney 1981) 128pp. |
| Language | |
| J Meredith | Learn to talk Old Jack Lang A Handbook of Australian Rhyming Slang (Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst 1984) 63pp. |
| W S Ransom (ed) | The Australian National Dictionary A Dictionary of Australianisms on Historical Principles (OUP, Melbourne 1988) 814pp. [An abridged version was published as J Hughes (ed) Australian Words and their Origins (OUP, Melbourne 1989) 662pp] |
| G A Wilkes | A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (2nd edition, SUP, Sydney 1985) 470pp. |
| Medicine | |
| B Wannan | Folk Medicine (Hill of Content, Melbourne 1970) 191pp. |
| Music & Song (see also Recreation) | |
| M Breen (ed) | Missing in Action (Verbal Graphics, Kensington, Vic 1987) 232pp [Australian popular music]. |
| R Covell | Australia’s Music (Sun Books, Melbourne 1967) 356pp. |
| R Edwards | The Big Book of Australian Folk Song (Rigby, Adelaide 1976) 507pp. [Includes the 3rd edition of the Index of Australian Folk Songs, which is superseded by the one listed below] |
| _________ | 200 Years of Australian Folk Song Index 1788-1988 (Rams Skull Press, Kuranda 1988) 400pp. |
| W Fahey | The Balls of Bob Menzies Australian Political Songs 1900-1980 (Angus & Robertson, North Ryde 1989) 351pp. |
| J S Manifold | Who Wrote the Ballads? Notes on Australian folksong. (Australasian Book Society, Sydney 1964) 176pp. |
| J Meredith & H Anderson | Folk Songs of Australia and the men and women who sang them (Ure Smith, Sydney 1967) 300pp. |
| J Meredith et al | Folk Songs of Australia and the men and women who sang them volume two. (NSWUP, Kensington 1987) 327pp. |
| T Radic | Songs of Australian Working Life (Greenhouse Publications, Elwood 1989) 195pp. |
| _______ | A Treasury of Favourite Australian Songs (Currey O’Neill Ross, South Yarra 1983) 137pp. |
| E Watson | Country Music in Australia (2nd edition, Angus & Robertson, Kensington 1975) 172pp. |
| ________ | Eric Watson’s Country Music in Australia Volume 2 (Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1983) 246pp. |
| National Character | |
| D Horne | The Lucky Country (Penguin, Ringwood 1964) 223pp [Revised edition 1965, 2nd revised edition 1967, fully revised edition 1971] |
| _______ | The Lucky Country Revisited (Dent, Melbourne 1987) 235pp. |
| B Humphries | A Nice Night’s Entertainment Sketches and Monologues 1956-1981 (Granada, Sydney 1981) 211pp. |
| B Petty | Petty’s Australia Fair (F W Cheshire, Melbourne 1967) |
| I Turner (comp) | The Australian Dream A Collection of Anticipations about Australia... (Sun Books, Melbourne 1968) 358pp |
| R Ward | The Australian Legend (1958, 2nd edition, OUP, Melbourne 1965) 262pp. [Illustrated edition 1978 336pp] |
| Recreation (see also Holidays and Festivals) | |
| S Andrews | Take Your Partners Traditional Dancing in Australia (3rd edition, Hyland House, Melbourne 1979) 208pp. |
| R Brasch | How did sports begin? (1970, revised edition, Fontana, Sydney 1986) 437pp. [Ch 47 relates to Australia] |
| N Challingsworth | Dancing down the Years The Romantic Century in Australia (Craftsman Press, Hawthorn 1978) 88pp. |
| J A Daly | Elysian Fields Sport, Class and Community in Colonial South Australia 1836-1890. (The author, Adelaide 1982) 229pp. |
| Work | |
| P Adam-Smith (comp) | Folklore of the Australian Railwaymen (MacMillan, South Melbourne 1969) 308pp. |
| V Darroch | On the Coast Maritime Industry Life and Language (Lothian, Port Melbourne 1984) 160pp. |
| R Lockwood | Humour Is Their Weapon Laugh with the Australian Wharfies. (Ellsyd Press, Chippendale 1985) 96pp. |
Some Periodicals
Australian Children’s Folklore Newsletter 1981 - (biannual) [Now known as Play and Folklore]
Australian Folklore 1987 - (annual) [Details available on the journals’s web site www.une.edu.au/arts/FolkloreJournal/AF.htm.]
Australian Tradition 1964-75
Stringybark & Greenhide 1979-86