Robert Tokinson
Introduction
Colonization of Australia dates from 40,000 years ago. All major areas, with the possible exception of the desert were occupied 20,000 years ago. The dingo, the only domesticated animal dates from 10,000 years ago and it never made it to Tasmania.
With the exception of Celebes gathers of beche de mer (sea slug) and some Melanesian traders in Arnhem Land, no contact with the rest of the world.
Suggests that they were probably not responsible for extinction of giant marsupials and claims that there is no correlation between environment and culture in Australia.
There are 200 distinct and mutually unintelligible languages in Australia and many Aborigines are multilingual (says that mom and dad may come from different languages groups – hard to believe).
Following Peterson he claims that they conserve effort and maximize leisure time.
Western Desert Culture
There is great uniformity throughout
the area and it seems to have changed little over the last 10,000 years.
Who are the Mardudjara?
Refers to people who live around Lake Disappointment.
Physical appearance: women 5’2" and men 5’6", relatively thin. Little clothing and disposable shoes are made to protect feet from hot earth.
Doing Field Work in the Desert
About 32 months of field work and made contact in conjunction with government welfare agencies.
Describes arduous temperatures, ubiquitous
flies, thieving dingoes, and the smell of natives and their offerings of
chewing tobacco from behind the ear and the fact that their language does
not have an either or construction which forces the interviewer to pose
questions in the positive or negative.
On their view of themselves and their culture (p. 13)
Interesting contrast between simple technology and environment and complex social organization and spiritual life.
The Dreamtime
A period of creation in the indistinct past (a long time ago) when the world was transformed from a featureless plain by countless ancestral beings. The beings were part human and animal and the Dreamtime is an account of their activities.
Some were travelers (djilganggudja) while others were home-bodies (ngurandadja). Wherever they went they left some fund of power in various locations which later animated spirit children that were ultimately born into human beings. After their worldly activities came to an end, they "died" and their essences became stones, natural features, celestial bodies, etc. They are their associated spirits retain ultimate control over plant, animal, and human fertility.
Dreamtime is believed to be the source of all power and new knowledge and humans may tap this reservoir. To maintain harmony with the power they must perform rituals and obey the law.
There seems to be no hierarchy of spirits (travelers are not more powerful than home-bodies) and humans do not have to prostrate themselves, merely performing the proper ritual is sufficient.
Religion and Mortality
"In myth, immoral and amoral actions acts are often, but not necessarily, followed by the kinds of unfortunate consequences that suggest punishment and thereby reflect a moral element.""(p. 17).
Their law tells the Aborigines which
Dreamtime behaviors are to be avoided and those that should be emulated.
When supernatural sanctions exist, humans are agents essential for their
execution.
Ensuring Continuity
By following Dreamtime laws they maintain a reciprocity with spirits who guarantee the environment. Although there is an ideology of non-change there is considerable dynamism in ritual life.
Chapter 2: Subsistence in a most marginal habitat
Ecological Setting
Live in the western side of the Gibson Desert. Most significant ecological features the useless Lake Disappointment which is saline and it is never visited because it is believed to be the home of cannibal beings (Ngayunangalgu).
Area dominated with sandhills and sand flats and spinifex grasses.
Rainfall of 5 to 10 inches per years but very erratic.
Water gained from rockholes, springs, and other catchments. Little is permanent.
Rely on about 50 plant species. The most important are:
Nearly all regarded it as one of the nastiest places on earth because of flies, ants, lack of water and temperature extremes.
The Western Desert as a Culture Area
Peoples there have the following in common:
Coping with the desert
Mobility and flexibility
From waterhole they exploit nearby resources to a maximum of 5 to 10 miles from the hole and then move to another site where the process is repeated. Movement to the next places if influenced by
Attitudes toward environment
Their culture has led to a maximization of resources from the environment.
Suggests that humans are not permitted
to transform the environment (save through burning of grasslands) since
this would be an affront to Dreamtime spirits.
Knowledge
Knowledge is critical to environmental exploitation. They do not have chronic rituals (as do Melanesians) to enhance luck in foraging although numerous rites are designed to maintain fertility of food resources.
Tools
Women: digging stick, wooden bowls, digging dishes of bark or wood, and small grinding stones.
Men: boomerang, spear, throwing spears with spear throwers, small flake knives, and shields (six inches with by three to four feet long – used for deflecting skipping boomerangs).
Appliances (large tools left on site): grinding stones and pounding stones (for bone). Also, instant tools (used then discarded) such as spindles and stone axes.
Shelter and Camp Layout
Area is cleared and sometimes burned (kill insects). Lean-tos are constructed for shade and sometimes depression are made. Bushes are used for storage racks.
Each family has its own fire and bachelors frequently congregate and create their own sleeping areas within the general camp.
Subsistence activities
Suggests that little labor time needed and little urgency in the food quest. Approximately 60-80 percent of diet is from women and diet is largely plants and small game.
Large game is shared with the entire band and portions give are determined by kinship patterns. Plants are shared largely within the family although non-family people who are old and infirm may receive portions.
Bulk of cooking done by women with the exception of pit cooking of large game by men.
Burning of grass has two purposes:
Red ochre, pearlshells, and stones of tool are the most commonly traded items. Gifts are given to fulfill kinship obligations, to in-laws, and to make friends.
Nutrition and Health
No nutritional problems – good protein supply.
Trachoma, intestinal ailments, and
boils are the most common ailments. Burns from campfires relatively common.
Head lice is endemic. Life expectancy seems to be 50-60 years.
Chapter 3: The Social Imperative
Kinship
The blueprint for social life.
Bifurcate merging kinship terminological system.
The world is classified into kin and strangers and strangers are ultimately put in the kin systems as distant kin. Then there are "other people" who are unclassifiable and therefore potentially dangerous and unusual (e.g., cannibalistic).
Kin terms are status terms and they are used as guides for interaction. However, there is variation under the same terms dependent on:
Because of inbreeding (not mentioned) there are multiple ways of egocentrically classifying the same person.
Kinship behavior ranges from complete avoidance to uninhibited joking ("rowdy exchanges of sexually explicit epithets and mock abuse, with much body contact and sexual horseplay, which amuse onlookers at least as much as the joking pair" (p. 47). Usually reserved for same-sex kin.
Perhaps in the middle ground (not mentioned as such) there is a restraint relationships which is marked by shame-embarrassment " which signals an asymmetry of status that call for a measure of deference, respect, obedience, authority, and so forth." (p. 47). It is exemplified restrictions on "behavior such as touching, joking, the direct passing of objects hand to hand, sitting together, visiting another’s camp, calling by name, looking directly at another member while talking, and arguing with or physically assaulting any members of certain kin categories." (p. 47).
Women have greater unrestricted relationships and men have more unrestricted relationships with women than with men.
The continuum of behavior toward
kin:
Ideal is a classificatory cross-cousin. But these individuals should be genealogically and geographically distant. Sister exchange is possible but rare since they prefer a long term form of reciprocity. The BM or FZH who removes the youth’s foreskin is likely to reciprocate (after "killing him") with a daughter for the youth.
[Slides used in class to discuss Mardudjara Marriage Patterns]
Wrong Marriages
Anyone who is not related to one
another as "spouse" regardless of the genealogical distance is regarded
as an incestuous marriage.
Local Organization
Says they are flexible with an absence of concern for boundaries and exclusiveness of group membership.
Estate and Range
The estate is the heartland of a patrilineal group. It contains ritual sites and waterholes that the group is strongly and intimately tied to. The range is a large area exploited by a band and the tie is largely economic. Normally, there will be an estate in the range to which the majority of the band belong. Bands, for a time owing to ecological circumstances, may move off of their estate but they always eventually return to it. Some individuals may develop strong attachments to more than one estate.
The Linguistic Unit.
Kinship is less important than religious factors for estate group membership. Those who must perform the important rituals are considered owners of the estate and this required ritual performance bonds them.
He describes the case of the Giinyu estate owners and the critical Yinifari rite they must perform. They maintain the hoard of special stones, wood boards, and other paraphernalia essential for the rite.
Estate owners tend not to exclude others from using their estate since it would be self-defeating if they had to enter the estate of another group during periods of privation.
The social categories regulate marriage although they are exogamous (so they are not "marriage classes" as he says, whatever that may mean) and they are not individual on the ground collections, so they are not groups.
In daily address or reference, kin terms are used, rarely personal names, and tekynonymy is common along with section names.
It is important to understand that these categories are defined egocentrically and not sociocentrically. It leads to a merging of own generation and +2 and –2 over and against –1 and +1 generation. Within group there is a relaxed relationship but between groups it is reserved since it denotes a relationship of authority, or respect and deference.
Burridge claims that this system does not lead to the creation of distinct corporate groups with exclusive membership. Rather it serves to:
Spiritual Preexistence
All people are infused with the spirit of a preexisting spirit-child which causes them to be born, or their mother’s to become pregnant. Prior to conception, they appear to the mother in the form of an animal which becomes the individual’s conception totem. However, they do not have any special ritual connection with the plant or animal as is common elsewhere in Australia. They do not believe in physiological impregnation by the father. The father of the child is the husband of the mother at the time of spiritual conception. Furthermore, the spirit child grows in the womb by supplying itself with what it needs for growth.
Birth
Reasons for infanticide:
Childhood
Indulgent care, feed on demand, parents are criticized if children cry frequently as not providing adequate care, and temper tantrums met with resignation by adults. Kids may use vulgar epithets, even though they have scant knowledge of what they mean. Refers to them as a child centered society.
For the first six years of life, children play in mixed play groups and play house and husbands and wives.
Sex is observed and regarded as a normal activity, even though adults attempt to have as much privacy as possible.
At ages 7-8 boys and girls separate into same-sex groups. Boys hang out with bachelors and are not expected to be productive. Girls may begin to stay with grandmothers and are expected to provide food. Around the ages of 11-12 girls are married but may spend considerable time with parents and husband lives with in-laws before moving off they move to husband’s place.
Male Initiation
Boys are initiated in groups who go through a series of rites in their transition to manhood. This relationship (yalburu) is of life long friendship and mutual support.
Tooth Evulsion
At the age of 10-12 boys have a front incisor knocked out with a stone and chisel.
Nose Piercing
The septum is pierced and a bone inserted. In a large gathering with mourners and activists kin in the ceremony.
Circumcision
The activists are the ones who do the surgery and later comfort the lad.
Stages:
He most demonstrate that he is a decent man who works hard and does not engage in too much sex which allows him during the next ten years to pass through numerous other ceremonies to gain ritual knowledge, as follows:
Intermediate Stages
Not all marriages are the consequence of circumcision betrothal but they may be a consequence of suitors simply requesting a wife. The wife may be young or old.
There may be conflicts between co-wives over husband’s sexual favoritism. Wives fully share in the rearing of one another’s children. A man may have up to three wives.
Premarital and extra-marital sex seem common. There are few restrictions other than incest considerations and that the wife does not neglect here wifely duties.
Spends much time talking about elopement and how it is problematic among the Mardudjara. The couple may be killed and kin try to talk them out of it.
Notes husbands and wives spend little time together and this may enhance the marriage bond because they don’t get on each other’s nerves.
Men have superior marriage rights
compared to women and they may punish (beat) them if they neglect their
duties and especially if they have been overly involved in extra-marital
affairs. Also, a man may offer his wife to another as an atonement for
an affront or to demonstrate hospitality to a visitor.
Growing Old
With age, men gain importance in the performance of ritual and are well supported by kin. However, if they become senile then their importance wanes and if they are decrepit they may be left to die lest they hamper the group.
Death and its Aftermath
Main concern is that the spirit of
the dead find a permanent home in the afterlife such that it does not interfere
with the living with whom it wants to remain.
Upon death there is emotional wailing by both sexes and attempts to inflict scalp wounds on themselves. An Activist relative will carry the body out of camp to bury it and the camp will be abandoned.
The dead person’s name is not uttered again and those with similar sounding names are renamed. During a two year mourning certain game animals are taboo. Then the bounds are removed from the grave and brought to the widow and then reburied.
Chapter 5: The Religious
Life
Basic religious elements include:
Men’s sacred sites and ritual celebrations are crucial to the well being of the community.
There is no ranking of religious rites one over the other. However, some rituals are powerful because they have objects of great power, danger, and sacredness because of their intimate linkage with the Dreamtime.
Men dominate religious life although women play important roles. In male initiation women are involved and he says they are essential although peripheral.
On male domination of religious life he says on page 88:
Mythology: there is more information
here on the Dreamtime than any place else. Children hear them from an early
age. When women tell myths they leave out mention of sacred objects that
men only know. There is no formal education in mythology. "Myths contextualize,
incorporate, and connect isolated elements into the broader scheme of things."
(p. 94).
Myths give all a feeling of spiritual
kinship with others and makes their natural geography come alive. Sometimes,
the myths lack drama (since they refer to spots were Dreamtime acts occurred)
and are told in a matter of fact way - other times they are quite dramatic.
Ritual.
In these rituals there are statuses of performers, in rank order
Ritual serves to unite groups rather than to separate them. This is in sharp contrast to Western Desert people and those who live in high density areas where rituals are jealously guarded and they are not shared between neighbors. Furthermore, totems among the Mardudjara serve to link individuals with places (estates) and they do not serve to link larger entities such as kinship groups to a cosmic order as they do elsewhere in Australia.
Songlines. Songs have both mythological and geographic references and highlights the mundane and extraordinary exploits of Dreamtime beings. In memorizing these songs men become familiar with hundreds of sites they have never visited.
In terms of ecological function, he notes (p. 104)
Mabarn. Men who use magic for socially approved ends and inherit these skills from their fathers. Their distinctiveness lies in their possession of psychic powers, special skills, and knowledge that gives them greater access to the spiritual realm. People rely on them for the treatment of chronic or worrisome illnesses.
Mabarn do their work by using an "x-ray examination" of individuals to discover the location and type of object doing harm and remove it with manipulation, pounding, or massaging the victim’s body. They are also used to recover missing objects, protect individuals from spiritual attack, predict events, and explain unusual phenomena. Although they usually work alone they sometimes join forces to deal with difficult issues or issues that effect the community.
They are not accorded a higher status than others.
Love Magic. Not common among the Mardudjara and they claim knowledge in this area is learned from other groups. Either sex may use it and it is designed to attract a new lover or renew passion in marriage. Sometimes elements of love magic is found in group rituals were it is designed to stimulate the assembled through simulated love making.
Sorcery. Usually done
by Marban and directed at neighboring groups and not against kin or associates.
People feel ambivalent about Marban because they have powers to harm and
heal. They employ malevolent spirits called marblu to engage in
sorcery. If a person is infected by a marblu sent by a sorcery a
diagnosis is performed with the goal of revealing the sorcerer in order
to confront him and not to engage in counter-sorcery.
Dynamic Elements in the Religious Life
Although the basic elements and structures of Dreamtime and the Law are said to remain unchanging new rituals and practices can develop through the rearrangement of basic themes.
The internal dynamism of religious life is found in four areas:
The Ideal at the Level of the Group and Society
Following the Law guarantees fertility,
social stability, and security.
The Realities of Group and Society
There exist a kind of ethnocentrism and suspicion of neighbors and especially of strangers.
Disputes are aired at meetings. If the guilt is established then the parties involved can devise a resolution. If guilt cannot be satisfactorily established then the groups may separate and perhaps meet again to resolve the issue. The families and kin involved have the right of self-help to resolve the issue through force if necessary.
If the group believes one of their own is guilty they may devise a punishment and if the guilty person wronged against another group, then he may be asked to face them unarmed and protected with only a shield to face their spears and boomerangs. Finally, disputes may be settled between groups through the exchange of sacred boards.
Barlgalu. The penis holding rite. It may be done to atone for affronts and may be used when strangers enter and it "pays for" their entry into foreign territory.
Nyubamadada. Is the female equivalent of the above where women lie atop of men for a few moments and signals peaceful intentions prior to the opening of a major meeting.
The Ideal at the Level of the Individual
The ideal person: