K. Langloh Parker
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Born | Catherine Eliza Somerville Field 1 May 1856 |
Died | 27 March 1940 | (aged 83)
Spouse(s) | Langloh Parker[2] and Percival Randolph Stow |
Parent(s) | Henry Field (1818–1909)[3] and Sophia née Newland (1829–1872) |
Relatives | Ridgway Newland (grandfather),[4] Randolph Isham Stow (father-in-law) |
Writing career | |
Pen name | K. Langloh Parker |
Language | English |
Nationality | Australian |
Years active | 1898-1940 |
Notable works | Australian Legendary Tales |
Notable awards | Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers 1954 |
Catherine Eliza Somerville Stow (1 May 1856 – 27 March 1940), who wrote as K. Langloh Parker, was a South Australian born writer who lived in northern
Early life
Parker was born Catherine Eliza Somerville Field at Encounter Bay, in South Australia, daughter of Henry Field, pastoralist, and his wife Sophia, daughter of Rev. Ridgway Newland.[1][5] Henry Field established Marra station near Wilcannia on the Darling River in New South Wales, and 'Katie' was raised there. The relocation brought the family both prosperity and sorrows. In an incident that took place in January 1862, her sisters Jane and Henrietta drowned while Katie was rescued by her Ualarai nurse, Miola. In recognition, Miola was taken in to be schooled together with the Fields' other children.[1][2] The family moved back to Adelaide in 1872.
Marriage
In 1875, on reaching her maturity at 18, she married her first husband, Langloh Parker, 16 years her senior. In 1879 they moved to his property, Bangate Station, near
Ethnographical work
Katie Parker had a fair degree of fluency in Ualarai. But her scruples over accurate reportage led her to inquire among, and converse with, her informants by adopting a technique to control against errors. She would elicit material on a legend from an elder, then get the English version retranslated back by a native more fluent in English than the elders, in order to enable the latter to correct any errors that might have arisen. The interpreter would then translate the revised version, which she would write down, and then have the written account read back to the elderly informant for final confirmation of its accuracy.[7]
Her first foray in ethnography,
Reflecting on the use to which her ethnography had been put, she expressed a lively wariness about how aboriginal material can be reworked to fit some modern theory, under the misapprehension that the scholar thereby evinces a 'detachment' from the immediate world of his study's distant subjects, as when she remarked perceptively, as Evans notes, observed that:
I dare say little with an air of finality about black people; I have lived too much with them for that. To be positive, you should never spend more than six months in their neighbourhood; in fact, if you want to keep your anthropological ideas quite firm, it is safer to let the blacks remain in inland Australia while you stay a few thousand miles away. Otherwise, your preconceived notions are almost sure to totter to their foundations; and nothing is more annoying than to have elaborately built-up, delightfully logical theories, played ninepins with by an old greybeard of a black, who apparently objects to his beliefs being classified, docketed, and pigeon-holed, until he has had his say.[13][14]
She concludes by expressing her sympathy with
Her books nonetheless went out of print, and only in recent decades has her work been retrieved and examined, either critically as embodying the flaws of colonial ethnography, or as an early example of feminist approaches in anthropology.[15]
Other works
Parker wrote several other minor works, including a cookery book (Kookaburra Cookery Book, 1911) which proved very popular; Walkabouts of Wur-run-nah(1918) and Woggheeguy: Australian Aboriginal Legends(1930). Her reminiscences of life at Bangate, My Bush Book, was only published posthumously, edited by her biographer, Marcie Muir.[16]
Notes
Citations
- ^ a b c d Muir 1990.
- ^ a b Evans 2011, p. 15.
- ^ Field 1909.
- ^ Rendell 1967.
- ^ Evans 2011, p. 14.
- ^ a b c Evans 2011, p. 16.
- ^ Parker & Lang 1898, p. 491.
- ^ Parker 1896.
- ^ Evans 2011, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Parker 1898.
- ^ Parker 1905.
- ^ Evans 2011, p. 19.
- ^ a b Parker 1905, p. 141.
- ^ Evans 2011, p. 22.
- ^ Evans 2011, pp. 19–21.
- ^ Parker & Muir 1982.
Sources
- Evans, Julie (2011). Founders, Firsts and Feminists: Women Leaders in Twentieth-century Australia (PDF). eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne. pp. 13–26.
- Muir, Marcie (1990). Catherine Eliza (Katie) Stow (1856–1940). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 12. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
- "Obituaries of the Week: Henry Field (1818–1909)". Observer. Vol. LXVI, no. 3, 515. South Australia. 13 February 1909.
- K. Langloh Parker (1896), Wikidata Q21120338
- K. Langloh Parker (1898), Wikidata Q21120391
- K. Langloh Parker (1905), Wikidata Q19086199
- Parker, K. Langloh; JSTOR 1253370.
- Parker, K. Langloh; Muir, Marcie (1982). My Bush Book: K. Langloh Parker's 1890s Story of Outback Station Life, with Background and Biography. Rigby. ISBN 978-0-727-01734-5.
- Rendell, Alan (1967). Newland, Ridgway William (1790–1864). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 2. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
Further reading
- Wise women of the dreamtime : Aboriginal tales of the ancestral powers. K. Langloh Parker, Johanna Lambert. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International. 1993. )
- ISBN 9780648656319.
- Singleton, Jane (2020). "What Katie Did" (PDF). SL Magazine. 13: 30–33.
External links
- Works by K. Langloh Parker at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about K. Langloh Parker at Internet Archive
- Works by K. Langloh Parker at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)