Quest Under Capricorn

This ‘Quest' book from David Attenborough is different to the others I have read, in that it's primary focus is different. Rather than being a quest to capture animals for zoos and museums, or to photograph animals, it is more an anthropological study. I note that most of his other quest books contain ‘Zoo' in the title, so it's not like there wasn't a clue. It was published in 1963.

The topic of Capricorn passes through Australia about 2/3 of the way up, and given the area Attenborough spends his time I guess the title means literally around the line of Capricorn, rather than below. The areas he spends time are all in the Northern Territory, between Darwin and Alice Springs, around Alice Springs - west and east. His focus is almost solely Aboriginal culture and art.

That being said, despite the time wasted reading it to myself in his voice, this was a quick read of around 160 pages, accompanied by a few colour photographs and a lot of black and white photographs of generally very good quality.

Attenborough gets the balance between the European history and the Aboriginal history right for me, and mixes in small amounts about the animals and birds with the main Aboriginal culture and art focus. He is very sensitive in his approach with the Aboriginal communities, and in many ways portrays views ahead of his time with regard to the respect they deserve and the effects of colonialism on them.

Cleverly, Attenborough was able to gain the trust of certain elder Aboriginals who were able to share many of the more secret elements to the culture that were forbidden to women and uninitiated younger men, on the basis that Attenborough was neither of these. This was surprising, but obviously a great win for the collecting and recording of this information from an anthropological perspective.

4 stars