Ernest Ailred Worms

Ernest Ailred Worms (27 August 1891 - 1963) was a German missionary who lived and worked among Indigenous Australians. He became an expert in Aboriginal languages, and an important contributor to the development of both Australian studies of native languages, and to the ethnography of the continent's Indigenous peoples.

Early life

Ernest Ailred Worms was born on 27 August 1891 at Bochum, Germany.^[1]

He joined the Pallottines,^[1] a Roman Catholic order founded in 1835 by Saint Vincent Pallotti,^[2] when he was 20 years old, but his studies were interrupted by conscription and later wounds sustained on the Russian Front in World War I.^[1]

After recovering from his wounds, he studied languages at the Oriental Seminary in Berlin from 1918 to 1920, before being ordained as a Pallotine priest in 1920.^[3]

Work

Before going to Australia, Worms was director of studies for the Pallotines in Rossel, East Prussia.^[3]

Worms spent his first period of missionary work in Broome, Western Australia, where he served as parish priest for eight years^[4] from 1930.^[3] There, his interest in ethnography led to particular studies among the Bardi people, whose traditional lands are to the north of Broome.

Stolen bones

In 1935 Worms came across the large body of an Aboriginal person wrapped for burial in bark and, as was a widespread custom, placed in the fork of a tree. He gathered the remains and dispatched them to Limburg. Worms was quite aware that he was violating the law against the unauthorised export of ethnological materials in doing so, and therefore requested anonymity. The remains, together with other skeletal material, was repatriated and restored to the Bardi Jawi, who laid them to rest in an offshore cave, in November 2015.^[5]

Works

Worms, Ernest (December 1942). "Sense of Smell of the Australian Aborigines. A Psychological and Linguistic Study of the Natives of the Kimberley Division". Oceania. 13 (2): 107–130. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1942.tb00373.x. JSTOR 40327982.
Worms, E. A. (January–June 1950). "Feuer und Feuerzeuge in Sage und Brauch der Nordwest-Australier". Anthropos. 45 (1/3): 145–164. JSTOR 40450834.
Worms, E. A. (December 1950). "Djamar, the Creator. A Myth of the Bād (West Kimberley, Australia)". Anthropos. 45 (4/6): 641–658. JSTOR 40449333.
Worms, E. A. (May–August 1952). "Djamar and His Relation to Other Culture Heroes". Anthropos. 47 (3/4): 539–560. JSTOR 40449676.
Worms, E. A. (1957). "Australian Mythological Terms: Their Etymology and Dispersion". Anthropos. 52 (5/6): 732–768. JSTOR 40453110.
Worms, E. A. (1959). "Verbannungslied eines australischen Wildbeuters. Ein Beitrag zur Lyrik der Bād". Anthropos. 54 (1/2): 154–168. JSTOR 40454331.
Worms, Ernest A. (1968): Australische eingeborenen religionen. Translated by M.J. Wilson, D. O'Donovan, M. Charlesworth as Australian Aboriginal religions, Spectrum Publications, for Nelen Yubu Missiological Unit, 1986. ISBN 0867860995

Notes

Citations

^ a b c Worms 1986, p. xii.
^ Price, Bridie (28 June 2014). "Who we are". Society of the Catholic Apostolate. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
^ a b c Worms 1986, p. xiii.
^ Burke 2011, p. 118.
^ Parke 2015.

Sources

Burke, Paul (2011). Law's Anthropology: From Ethnography to Expert Testimony in Native Title. ANU E Press. ISBN 978-1-921-86243-4.
McGregor, William B. (23 November 2015). "Frs. Hermann Nekes and Ernest Worms's "Australian Languages"". Anthropos. 102 (1): 99–114. doi:10.5771/0257-9774-2007-1-99. JSTOR 40466792.
Parke, Erin (23 November 2015). "Stolen ancestral remains repatriated to Western Australia after years of negotiations". Australian National University.
Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
Worms, E.A. (1986). Australian Aboriginal Religions:. Nelen Yubu missiological series. translated by M.J. Wilson, D. O'Donovan, M. Charlesworth, from Australische eingeborenen religionen. Spectrum Publications for Nelen Yubu Missiological Unit. ISBN 978-0-86786-099-3. Retrieved 22 September 2024.