walkaboutn.

1828 Sydney Gaz. 2 Jan. 3/3 When the executioner had adjusted the rope, and was about to pull the cap over his eyes..he said, in a tone of deep feeling,..‘Bail more walk about’, meaning that his wanderings were all over.]

1897 W. E. Roth Ethnol. Stud. N.-W.-Central Queensland Aborigines ix. 132 The ‘Walk-about’ is perhaps..one of the most important institutions in vogue among the aboriginals, and yet one on account of which their white brethren will, as often as not, hold them up to ridicule and contempt. To the settlers it is considered in the light of an excuse for a holiday or for shirking the work upon which the blacks would otherwise be employed.

1898 K. Langloh Parker More Austral. Legendary Tales p. ix Should the local tribes know nothing of what I wanted to hear, I would get them to make enquiries of wandering Blacks from other tribes whom they might meet during their periodic ‘walk-abouts’.

1899 W. E. Roth Rep. to Commissioner Police 3 Their walk-about extends on the one hand up the Eastern coast of the Peninsula as far as perhaps as the Stewart River.

1910 Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 13/4 Shearing over, black brother was sent off on his walk-about, the squatter supplying him with..a few garments.

1927 M. M. Bennett Christison of Lammermoor xxv. 227 The manager would give them [sc. blackfellows] rations and let them..go off for a month's ‘walkabout’, picnicking, and fishing at favourite waterholes.

1935 M. Gilmore More Recoll. 34 ‘The Dead Water’ was a..waterhole at which no black sat, because all the group in whose walk-about it had been were killed out.

1979 New S. Wales Parl. Papers (1980–1) 3rd Sess. IV. 598 White people think walkabout is going for a walk into the bush and lying in the sun and doing a bit of fishing. Walkabout the Aboriginal way is where a man or a woman goes out to a sacred place. As you go to a cathedral the Aboriginal does this.

2003 B. Plotkin Soulcraft iv. 77 During his walkabout, the aboriginal youth wanders into the bush alone for several weeks or months, avoiding the company and conversation of other humans.

1908 J. Gunn We of Never-never 218 The day after that was filled in with preparations for a walk~about, and the next again found us camped at Bitter Springs.

1942 Let. 11 May in J. Ackland & R. Ackland Word from John (1944) 173 Just returned from a four days' walk about, and..the trip included two nights in Tel Aviv.

1946 ‘M. Innes’ From London Far i. vii. 58 I proposed a walkabout. We were to stroll through Auld Reekie's dusk together.

1974 ‘G. Black’ Golden Cockatrice i. 9 I've been doing a year's exchange teaching in Hong Kong... These academic walkabouts fascinate me.

1990 Village Voice (N.Y.) 30 Jan. 62/4 Her first novel is..a walkabout, ranging from northern Australian rain forests to New York City.

1911 Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Nov. 14/1 The Abo. Protection officials are doing their best to carry out an unworkable Act..and the niggers have ‘gone walkabout alonga bush’ in mobs.

1927 R. S. Browne Journalist's Memories 291 Black brother and his spouse, or sister, or mother may ‘go walk-about’, and live on 'possum.

1938 X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) xxii. 330 Wha' name—you go walkabout?

1944 ‘S. Campion’ Pommy Cow 250 Oh, Mo, my mind's going walkabout.

1950 ‘N. Shute’ Town like Alice iii. 82 These bloody boongs, they're always going walkabout.

1974 D. Ireland Burn 15 You like Billy the best even though he's gone away on walkabout and Gordon's got brains and working in the city.

1989 J. Conway Road from Coorain (1990) iv. 63 Jack's only defect so far as station management was concerned was that at any time he might feel the aboriginal need to go ‘on walkabout’.

1999 C. Hulme Manslaughter United xxiii. 210 My depositions have gone walkabouts so, at the moment, I can't prove what I said. No one can find them anywhere.

2004 S. Egger & D. McClymont Melbourne (ed. 5) 25 While he was mission-raised, Namatjira regularly went walkabout, and his paintings describe the landscape he loved.