White man's dreaming

By Christine Stevens

Book Description

White Man's Dreaming presents a profound examination of what happens when two vastly different spiritual worlds collide. Christine Stevens chronicles the complex and often painful encounter between Lutheran missionaries and the Diyari Aboriginal people at South Australia's Killalpaninna Mission from 1866 to 1915.

This compelling narrative reveals how Prussian Lutheran settlers, driven by their desire to share their faith with indigenous peoples, established a remote desert mission that would forever alter both cultures. Stevens explores the intricate web of dependence that developed as missionaries appropriated Aboriginal land while simultaneously relying on Diyari labor, creating an uneasy coexistence between European and indigenous ways of life.

The book illuminates the spiritual confusion experienced by the Diyari people as they navigated between their ancestral beliefs and imposed Christian teachings. Despite the missionaries' limited success in conversion, their dedication to documenting Diyari language, customs, and religious practices preserved invaluable cultural knowledge for future generations.

Drawing from extensive correspondence between missionaries and their supporters, along with interviews from surviving families, Stevens crafts a narrative that transcends simple historical documentation. The work serves as a meditation on cultural resilience, spiritual adaptation, and the enduring strength of the human spirit when confronted with profound change.

This powerful account offers readers insight into how opposing belief systems can both clash and coexist, providing valuable lessons about cultural understanding and spiritual transformation.