Reverend Dr John Fraser (1834 – 1904) was an Australian ethnologist, linguist, school headmaster and author of many scholarly works. He is known for his revised and expanded version of Lancelot Threlkeld's 1834 work, An Australian Grammar, with the new title An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E. Threlkeld; re-arranged, condensed and edited with an appendix by John Fraser (1892). In this, Fraser created new divisions and terminology for some Aboriginal groups in New South Wales.
Fraser was born in Perth, Scotland in 1834 and educated at the University of Edinburgh.[1]
He migrated to Australia and settled at Maitland, New South Wales. In 1861 he was appointed rector of the Presbyterian Maitland High School, before going on to establish his own school, known as Sauchie House (now Maitland Boys High School). There he remained as headmaster for about 20 years.[2]
Apart from being an advocate of Christian missions, Fraser was an ethnologist and linguist, with a particular interest in Australian Aboriginal languages. His book, The Aborigines of New South Wales,[3] won the 1882 Royal Society of New South Wales Prize,[1] and he wrote numerous scholarly articles and books.[2]
The work which won him most recognition was his much expanded and authoritative edition of L.E. Threlkeld's grammar[1] of the Awabakal language, An Australian Grammar.[4] Fraser's revised edition, containing much original material based on his own research, was published in 1892 as An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba or Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions and customs / by L.E. Threlkeld; re-arranged, condensed and edited with an appendix by John Fraser.[5]
In the preface, Fraser writes: "...but we have now come to know that this dialect was essentially the same as that spoken by the sub-tribes occupying the land where Sydney now stands, and that they all formed part of one great tribe, the Kuriggai".[6]
The book included a "Map of New South Wales as occupied by the native tribes", accompanied by descriptions and names decided upon by Fraser after "ten years' thought and inquiry on the location of our native tribes". In the text accompanying his map, Fraser writes:[5]
The New England tribe, the Yunggai has caused me much perplexity... I have...called this tribe the Yung-gai, from Yung – the name which the coast tribes give to New England...The Ngarego tribe belongs to Victoria rather than to New South Wales... Of these tribes, the Kamalarai tribe, Walarai, Ngaiamba, Bakanji, Waradhari, the Associated Tribes, the Ngarego, the Kuringgai, are names already established and in use; and most of them are formed from the local word for 'no'... The names Murrinjari, Wachigari, Paikalyung, Yakkajari, I have made, for these tribes have no general names for themselves.
His major work was not without its later critics.
Historian Niel Gunson wrote in 1974 that the work was "hampered by his peculiar theories of racial and linguistic origin".[1][7]
Anthropologist and ethnologist Norman Tindale (Aboriginal tribes of Australia, 1974) wrote[8] that there was such a
"literary need for major groupings that [Fraser] set out to provide them for New South Wales, coining entirely artificial terms for his 'Great tribes'. These were not based on field research and lacked aboriginal support. His names such as Yunggai, Wachigari and Yakkajari can be ignored as artifacts.[8] During the 1890s the idea spread and soon there was a rash of such terms...Some of these have entered, unfortunately, into popular literature, despite their dubious origins.
He goes on to list the Bangarang[9] (Pangerang) (Vic.); Booandik (Vic. & SA); Barkunjee (Barkindji) (NSW), Kurnai (Vic.), Thurrawal (Dharawal) (NSW), Wiradjuri (NSW) and Malegoondeet (?) (Vic.) as some of these names, and mentions R.H. Mathews, A.W. Howitt and John Mathew as promulgators of the "nations" concept.
Tindale later (under his entry for Awakabal, p. 200) refers to Kuringgai as an "arbitrary term...applied by Fraser", the Awabakal being the central tribe of the several to which Fraser applied the group term.[8]
The contents of Threlkeld's work are as follows:[4]
The contents of Fraser's edition are as follows:[5]
Fraser died in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in May 1904.[1]
