MEMOIR 
27 
sympathies appear, from Gillen's letters to Spencer, to have 
been closely akin to his own, were thoroughly in touch with 
their savage neighbours, and set an example, all too rare, of 
the spirit in which civilized men should deal with those 
easily corrupted folk, who remain, culturally, in a state of 
arrested childhood. Spencer and Gillen continued to be 
friends and partners right up to the latter's death in 1912— 
so much so that, when in 1927 Spencer published in his book 
The Arunta a final account of them revised in the light of a 
recent visit, he affectionately set Gillen's name by the side of 
his own on the title-page. The book is dedicated to Sir 
James Frazer, who is called ‘our master’. 
In 1896, then, as well as in each of the two succeeding 
years, Spencer and Gillen worked amongst the Arunta at 
Alice Springs together with the Urabunna tribe of the 
adjoining Lake Eyre district. The results of their investiga¬ 
tions were given to the world in The Native Tribes of Central 
Australia (Macmillan, 1899), the proofs being read by Tylor 
and Frazer, the latter of whom undertook their final revision 
and, in fact, saw the book through the press. Tylor, it 
appears, had helped to find them a publisher, but it was 
Frazer who spent infinite time and trouble in putting into 
shape information somewhat hastily transcribed from rough 
notes, which often were originally jotted down in little better 
than pidgin-English, as a grateful letter from Spencer freely 
confesses. From 1897 onwards Spencer and Frazer, the 
anthropologist of the field and the anthropologist of the 
study, are in constant communication, no doubt with great 
advantage on both sides. Indeed, Spencer's long letters to 
the author of The Golden Bough ., some of them written from 
strange addresses such as Charlotte Waters or Barrow Creek, 
provide a running commentary on his progress as a dis¬ 
coverer, and would be well worth publishing in full if only 
for their methodological value, as showing how a well-trained 
