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MS 2532

Papers of James Robert Beattie Love

Access

Open access - reading. Copying of unpublished works by J.R.B. Love requires the copyright holders' permission. [Access code: R1 B1]

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Scope and Content Note

Date range: 1904-1946

Extent: 18 cm (1 box)

John H. Love deposited these papers in the Library in 1988.

The collection consists of photocopies of selected papers copied from originals held in the Papers of James Robert Beattie Love in the Mortlock Library, State Library of South Australia, at PRG 214. The exception is Derek Freeman’s notebook containing extracts from Love’s Stone-age bushmen of today. The papers were re-copied onto archival paper in November 2002.

The papers include correspondence, unpublished papers relating to anthropology, legends and linguistics. There are also sermons, translations of passages from the Book of Genesis, an index to Love’s Stone-Age Bushmen of to-day, a notebook, compiled by Derek Freeman from this book, and other miscellaneous papers.

AIATSIS Library also holds a significant collection of Love papers at MF 204 as well as other manuscripts and also published material by Love. For a complete listing of the material by Love, which is held by the Institute, see the Mura® online catalogue. To access any related audiovisual materials contact the Audiovisual Archives Program.

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Biographical Note

James Robert Beattie Love was born in 1889 and died in 1949.

Love worked for over thirty years as a Presbyterian minister and lived for thirteen years at Kunmunya Mission in the Kimberley region.

Love wrote a number of papers on the Worrorra language and cultures, translated the Gospels of Luke and Mark and wrote Stone-age bushmen of today: life and adventure among a tribe of savages in North-Western Australia published in 1936. He gained a Master of Arts degree for his thesis on Worrorra grammar.

After leaving Kunmunya, Love spent six years at Ernabella, where he also undertook linguistic research, and translated the Gospel of Mark into Pitjantjatjara.

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Item Descriptions

Item

  

1

Correspondence from Love to his parents, 1905, 1908 and 1915. (PRG 214/46)

2

Letters about, and descriptive list of, artefacts presented to Perth Museum, 1904/1915 (PRG 214/46)

3

Notes and unpublished papers about the Worrora and other Kimberley people and languages. Mostly by Love. Handwritten and typescript (PRG 214/20/1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11)

4

Legends, including ‘The fire story’, ‘The emu story’, ‘Why the emu cannot fly’, ‘The flood story’, ‘Getting the Doctor’ and ‘Making a man’. Typescript (PRG 214/18)

5

Stone-age bushmen of to-day (1936) index (PRG 214/40) and notebook compiled by Derek Freeman, entitled ‘Ref Worora’, containing excerpts from J.R.B. Love’s Stone-age bushmen of today, arranged by subject

6-7

Sermons, 1941 to 1946 (PRG 214/36)

8-9

Translation of passages or Book of Genesis into Worrorra. Handwritten (PRG 214/15)

10

Particulars of photographs supplied by Mrs Love. Sets in Australian Museum, South Australian Museum and National Museum of Victoria. Typescript

11

Published articles and poems. Various authors. (PRG 214/37)

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Finding Aid updated by J. Churches, November 2002