Body and Soul: An Aboriginal View

This extraordinary book describes the conceptualisation of the human body, soul, and health by the Kukatja people, who now live at Balgo, in the far north of Western Australia.

To date, this book represents the only published attempt to assemble an account of the views of an Aboriginal people concerning the body and its soul or spirit, how they function, understanding their healthiness, applying  suitable traditional medical practices to keep them operating efficiently and finally showing how all these intermesh to form a coherent system of knowledge.

No one else has taken the approach made by Peile, and enquired into how the entire set of beliefs and practices related to well-being can be conceptualised as an individual person, to make it a unified body and soul