Daughters of the Dreaming

First published in 1983, "Daughters of the Dreaming" remains an important study of Aboriginal women's lives from a woman's perspective. In this second edition, Diane Bell reviews her work from the position of the 1990s. In her epilogue she discusses her writing as a young anthropologist in the field from the current standpoint as a professor one decade on. "Daughters of Dreaming" raised issues about gender relations in Aboriginal society that are still being discussed and debated. For Bell, a disturbing enigma was that anthropologists depicted a group of proud women, knowledgeable in the ways of the Dreaming Law, as second-class citizens. She redresses this by presenting a factual account of the roles played by Aboriginal women.