Gandanguurra: The Language of the Mountain People and Beyond

Author: Jim Barrett
ISBN: 9780994513502
A4, Paperback, 132 pages
Price will include $1 extra for p&h

How did I come to be interested in writing a book on an Aboriginal language ? … I am often asked. It really started almost 70 years ago when I took up bushwalking in the Blue Mountains, and a very special area there was the Burragorang Valley and its hinterland only about 15 km south-west of Katoomba.

The Burragorang was first settled by non-Aborigines in the 1820s, almost primarily by ex-convicts. In more recent times (the 1990s) I began writing books about the history of the Blue Mountains including the Burragorang Valley. Two very important books (in 1994 and 1995) were “Life in the Burragorang” and “Place Names of the Blue Mountains and Burragorang Valley.” During the two years of writing these two books I began to realise that in the 1800s another significant group also had formed a strong presence in the Burragorang, namely: descendants of the Gandanguurra people.

Jim Barrett, author