‘Factotum and friend’: anthropologists, informants and ethnographic exchange in central Australia

In this paper I discuss the ethnographic encounter between two Aboriginal men and various Australian anthropologists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century. These men, Mickey Dow Dow and Jim Kite, played a critical role in the development of a body of knowledge associated with Australian Aboriginal people. The important role that these men played in shaping an understanding of Aboriginal relationships to place, personhood and myth is significant. By critically interrogating the field notebooks and diaries of the seminal Australian ethnographers that worked with these men I bring to the fore the nature of these engagements and discuss the various ways in which ideas were communicated. Critically, it was illustrations, maps and acts of translation and performance that often worked to bridge the gap between understandings.