Word: walkabout
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1966-1966
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...question census form and a language guide in eight tongues as disparate as Serbo-Croatian and Maltese. When they dealt with the "abos" -Australia's bug-eating, boomerang-throwing aborigines-census takers had to use sign language after they had finally discovered their quarry in mid-"walkabout." Abos, after all, spend their lives on the prowl in the wastes beyond the Great Dividing Range, running down witchetty grubs and wallabies from Birdsville to Alice Springs. When intercepted, the abos tended to be surly, not because of any contempt for civilized counting procedures, but because a 1901 constitutional amendment demands...