Some cross-references to other published literature are made in the notes and comments to individual texts. Here we give a brief, but more general treatment of available resources.
For the Nunggubuyu specifically there is as yet no general ethnographic work. However, van der Leeden's essay on Nunggubuyu mythology contains useful background ethnographic material (1975), and this is the most pertinent reference currently available. It is hoped that van der Leeden will soon publish additional material from his substantial fieldwork at Numbulwar. His clan terms are the names of clan territorial centres; his symbols for sub-moieties are converted into my clan names as follows: MaI = Murungun clan(s), MbI = Ngalmi (centre: Anba:li) and inland Numamudidi (centre: Amalibil); MaII= Nun-dhiribala (centre: Wurindi) and Nunggargalug (centre: Waldhar); MbII (originally mainly Warndarang-speaking) = Nunggangulgu, Nung-gumajbar, and Nunggayinybalany.
Van der Leeden gives background information on the Gunabibi and Ru:l rituals (see also my texts 46-48 and 57. below), and presents summaries of several myths. His stories A and B are variants of my texts 3-5; his story C is a distinct myth closely related to A and B; his story D is a version of my texts 6-7; his story E is the same as my text 8; his story F does not correspond directly to any of my texts. van der Leeden and I worked independently but he had worked with some of the same men who narrated texts for me (Ma:di, Reuben).
However, the largest previous collection of Nunggubuyu texts (consisting entirely of myths) was published by mimeo at Numbulwar by Rev. Earl Hughes in two small volumes (Hughes 1969, 1970). In the 1969 volume the correspondences to my texts are these: Hu 2 = He 1 and 2; Hu 5 = He 3-5; Hu 6 = He 15-16; Hu 7 = He 11-12; Hu 8 = He 13; Hu 9 = He 10; Hu 13 = He 17; Hu 14 = He 6-7; Hu 16 = He 8. (Hu = Hughes; He = Heath.) The others (Hu 1, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 15) do not correspond exactly to my texts, but I do have a version of Hu 10 which I was unable to prepare for publication at this time. Hu 4 corresponds to a text I am publishing in my volume on Mara.
In Hughes (1970), here abbreviated Hu2, the correspondences are: Hu2 1 = He 35; Hu2 5 is related both to He 3-5 and (more particularly) to He 43; Hu2 6 and 7 should be connected to He 39. The others are not directly related. Hu2 72 is a Nunggubuyu version of a major myth for the Anindhilyagwa-speaking people of Bickerton Island (Turner 1974).
As this last point suggests, some of the texts here "belong" in a sense to non-Nunggubuyu peoples in the area, chiefly to the south (Warndarang, Mara, etc.) but also to some extent to the east (Anindhilyagwa). "Tribal" boundaries mean very little in this area and we cannot easily establish boundaries between Nunggubuyu and non-Nunggubuyu mythology since the Nunggubuyu have always been aware of myths of adjoining people (some myths, of course, actually cut across tribal boundaries and so are joint property, but the Nunggubuyu also know myths which do not involve their own territory and some texts in this collection are of that type). We should therefore briefly mention non-Nunggubuyu sources which may be of value here.
For the Anindhilyagwa-speaking people we have the aforementioned Turner (1974) which discusses several myths which link those people with the Nunggubuyu on the mainland; this reference is most pertinent in connection with my texts 29 (Jajabun, same as Turner's "Blaur") and 35.
For the area to the south we can mention two articles by Capell on mythology and one by Elkin on the Yabuduruwa ritual. Capell (1960a), "Myths and Tales of the Nunggubuyu," deals partly with what I consider "core" Nunggubuyu myths but also with myths of formerly Warndarang-speaking people in the Rose and Roper River areas who now speak Nunggubuyu. His text 1 and commentary thereto deal with the Gunabibi mythology (cf. my texts 30-33), but he also mentions Goanna (my texts 25-26). His texts 2 and 3 relate to my texts 1-2; his text 4 to my texts 18-19 (his commentary also involves Nagaran, cf. my texts 27-28); his text 5 is a fragment of the Goanna myth (my texts 25-26); his text 6 really includes material from several distinct myths, including a python (unfortunately unidentified-perhaps the olive python but a distinct myth from my texts 102), groper fish (my text 23), and the two men who fell into a hole (= one of my Mara texts referred to above, also found in Hughes (1969), text 10). Capell's text 7 is related to my text 14, his 8 to my 11, his 9 to my 12, and his 10 to my 17.
Capell's other article (1960b), "The Warndarang and Other Tribal Myths of the Yabuduruwa Ritual," is primarily useful for its lengthy Warndarang text on Goanna, which should be consulted by readers interested in my relatively concise texts 25-26. Capell's article also has some short texts from tribes inland, to the west, which are not directly relevant to us.
For the southern area my own materials on the Ngandi and Mara languages are also of use. In the Ngandi volume (Heath 1978a), text 10 is a "rainbow serpent" myth which is related, though not identical in substance, to my texts on Gunabibi mythology, particularly texts 32-32, though in my texts it is mosquitoes and not a serpent who does the destruction. Actually, the Ngandi text relates to the Mambali semimoiety Gunabibi tradition, while the Nunggubuyu texts relate to the Murungun tradition (cf. van der Leeden 1975:49, 56), so the connection is not direct.
In the forthcoming Mara volume I have a few myth texts dealing with the Gunabibi mythology, a large Olive Python myth, and a number of others not directly related to attested Nunggubuyu texts. The Olive Python text is distinct from the local Nunggubuyu version (my texts 1-2); it contains segments related to the fragment of the Sand Goanna myth in my texts 25-26 (particularly 25) in which the two mothers-in-law in my text are identified as the two Pythons in the Mara version.
For the southern and southwestern area Elkin (l97l) should also be consulted; it deals with the Yabuduruwa ritual, which is not practised by the core Nunggubuyu clans but which involves mythology which is represented to a limited extent in the present collection. It includes English summaries of southern versions of the Sand Goanna myth, differing somewhat from Capell's version (cf. Bern 1979), and a lengthy summary of the Nagaran story (cf. my texts 27-28).
Relatively little published material is available on the peoples immediately to the north (i.e. the southern groups of Yuulngu-language speakers) such as the Ritharngu. I have some myth material in Ritharngu but it did not appear in my published text collection because my principal Ritharngu informants regarded all mythical material as at least slightly secret. For more northerly Yuulngu groups, and to some extent for the whole Yuulngu area, see Berndt (1951, 1952) and Warner (1969).
References given above have focused on mythological traditions and are thus mainly relevant to my myth texts (1 to 45). For background on material culture, kinship relations, and so forth readers may consult some of the same publications already mentioned along with some others. Some general works on Australian Aboriginals are Elkin (1938) and its subsequent editions, R. M. and C. H. Berndt (1965), and Maddock (1972). Relatively general ethnographic works on neighbors of the Nunggubuyu are Turner (l974) and Warner (1969), both already cited (Warner's book was originally published in 1937), and Thomson (1949) is also worth examining. On material culture of the nearby Groote Eylandters see Tindale (l925-26) and forthcoming publications by D. Levitt on ethnobotany. See Specht (1958) for an introduction to ethnobotany on the Top End of Arnhem Land using taxonomy which is now rather outdated. Biernoff (1978) is useful for understanding human/land relationships in the area. For some general background on the recent history of Aboriginals in the region see R. M. and C. H. Berndt (1970), but this work deals chiefly with groups north of the Nunggubuyu.
As for Nunggubuyu music (particularly wungubal type with didjeridus, see texts 65-68), much has been recorded by A. Moyle and J. Stubington and some by myself and van der Leeden. It is mostly on deposit at the Institute in Canberra and is accessible to scholars but we have not yet produced definitive word transcriptions and there is no comprehensive general publication on it, though a brief introduction is available in the form of Biernoff (l974). (Biernoff is a social anthropologist, not a musicologist or linguist.) Discs containing Nunggubuyu and other music from the region from A. Moyle's collections are available from the Institute and (in the United States) from Humanities Press.
As for the Nunggubuyu language, the dictionary and grammar in the present multiple-volume work can be expected to materialise soon. A Nunggubuyu-English dictionary is available (Hughes 1971) but it needs revision and uses morpheme-boundary and transcriptional conventions which are quite distinct from mine. For the grammar, I have previously published an article on the demonstrative system (Heath 1980c); there are some other references but I do not consider their data and analyses sufficiently accurate to recommend them.
Other works on neighboring languages which I have published or am publishing are given under my name in the bibliography. All of the major publications contain text collections including at least some ethnographic texts comparable to those in this volume.
It is important to note that the textual material in this volume is not secret-sacred, though some myths and rites dealt with contain such material not presented here. Some publications just mentioned describe secret material and care should be exercised in their use.