The Native Tribes of South Australia prints five essays on different tribes contributed by various authors including the Reverend George Taplin, and the Reverend C.W. Schürmann (also included is a native vocabulary by John Ogilvie Bennett). This copy is from the collection of Henry James Hillier (1875-1958), a schoolteacher at the Hermannsburg mission school. Hillier had a good knowledge of the Dieri and Aranda languages, and was also an experienced inland traveller who accompanied the 1901-1902 expedition led by J. W Gregory. The numerous ethnological and linguistic observations pencilled in the margins throughout this copy reflect long working relationships with the Carl Strehlow and other anthropologists of the time. Hillier was also an active ethnological collector who enriched the British Museum holdings of central desert artefacts, and an amateur water-colourist of some skill.