Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Legends and Poems from the Land of the Sleeping Crocodile

AI KNANANUK HO AI KNANOIK NOUSI RAI TIMUR RAI NOUSI LAFAEK DUKUR or Legends and Poems from Timor the Land of the Sleeping Crocodile was written by Cliff Morris.

The following biography comes from A Traveller's Dictionary in Tetun-English and English-Tetun from the Land of the Sleeping Crocodile East Timor

"Cliff Morris went to East Timor as a twenty year old soldier during 1942 where he learned about the complexities of the Animist religion and to admire the Timorese people for their common human concern for all people. On visiting the island in 1973 accompanied by his son Peter, he learned how the friendship so freely given in 1942 had cost the people very dearly in the revenge carried out by the Japanese, after the departure of the Australian troops."

"He resolved to commit his life to do something of everlasting good for the people. For ten years he struggled to completing a 10,000 word Tetun-English dictionary from his own fading memory, then with the help of Paulo Quintao da Costa who authenticated the word list, it was finally published by the Australian National University in 1984 as a memorial to all those who lost their lives in Timor in the war against the Japanese. In 1983 he travelled Australia looking for people who were well versed in the story telling of the Animist religion and from this work produced a small book containing some of the village stories and poems to save them from being lost as they are probably no longer told in their country of origin."

The book, Legends and Poems from Timor the Land of the Sleeping Crocodile, has been digitised and made available, free, to schools in East Timor by the Seaton OLPC User Group and Caval. Thanks to Caval for investigating copyright and digitising at no cost.

Contents ....... 2MB pdf
Chapter 1 ...... 6MB pdf
Chapter 2a .... 7MB pdf
Chapter 2b .... 5MB pdf
Chapter 3 ...... 13MB pdf
Chapter 4a .... 6MB pdf
Chapter 4b .... 6MB pdf
Chapter 4c .... 9MB pdf
Chapter 4d .... 2MB pdf
Chapter 5a .... 8MB pdf
Chapter 5b .... 5MB pdf
Chapter 5c .... 4MB pdf
Chapter 6 ...... 1MB pdf
Chapter 7 ...... 7MB pdf
Uncorrected OCR 245kB text

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2 Comments:

Blogger Lee Smith said...

Thank you. I am writing a novel. One of the major characters is a girl from Timor; the time is 1945 in Manila. I needed some language and literature help and was looking forward to spending several hundred dollars on books, etc., until I found this site and all the things it links to. Of course one of the things I was in hot pursuit of was Cliff Morris's Legends and Poems. Now I also have Masteress van Klinken. She is a God-send. Well, long live Australia.

Lee Smith, native New Yorker, we're living now right by the Dallas-Fort Worth airpost.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012 9:28:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Lee

I am glad this helped

Tony

Tuesday, June 05, 2012 5:05:00 PM  

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