Women, Rites and Sites

Aboriginal women's cultural knowledge

Peggy Brock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000248364
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book challenges a number of widespread preconceptions about Aboriginal society and its interaction with the wider non-Aboriginal society. It builds on recent scholarship that has drastically changed the view of Aboriginal women propagated by nineteenth and early twentieth century reports. These reporters unconsciously based their assessments on their knowledge of their own society; they could not conceive of women undertaking autonomous economic activity. These observations were made by men, and some women, imposing their cultural values on Aboriginal society, and dealing primarily with Aboriginal men. They were influenced by the fact that in white society political and religious power was in the hands of men; they shared the common assumption that the female roles of wife and mother carried as little power and authority in Aboriginal society as they did in western society.

This collection of essays, which includes accounts ranging from traditional societies to societies reacting to decades of interaction with non-Aboriginal culture, explores the active role of women in Aboriginal cultural and religious life.

It demonstrates the cultural authority possessed by women; it records the pivotal role of women as repositories of cultural knowledge and in the struggle to maintain or rebuild the means of passing on that knowledge.

Women, Rites & Sites should be read by all people interested in Aboriginal-white relations, in Aboriginal culture and women's studies.

1
RETROSPECT, AND PROSPECT

Looking back over 50 years

Catherine H. Berndt

PEOPLE ALWAYS use the past selectively, whether it is their own past or someone else’s. Even reasonably well substantiated ‘facts’ can never be seen in their total context, and ‘the whole truth’ is an elusive and largely relative concept. Interpretations and re-interpretations are inevitable, in written as well as orally and graphically transmitted material. Continuities, dislocations, changing emphases, even definition of such terms as ‘tradition, traditional’, belong within this dimension. So does the question of knowledge, or information, about the past.

Questions

The issues noted here have specific reference to South Australia, and to Aboriginal people, but they are also of more general concern: what women know about mythological and historic sites, and related matters, in contrast to what men know; how the situation has changed through time; how to explore these questions; and how to avoid or redress a gender imbalance in this respect. The problems (and they are problems) are much less simple than they appear on the surface.

When I began to prepare this chapter I intended to keep it fairly impersonal, drawing on data derived from fieldwork experiences without spelling out research procedures. This is not the place for an account of research designs and techniques. Nevertheless, the ‘how’ aspect of research is directly relevant. Not least, it is about ‘who’ in relation to ‘what’: who is asking, who is being asked, what are the questions? Who is witnessing or participating in (or excluded from) what, when and where, in what circumstances? And so on.

Such questions have provided an indispensable framework in all the field research I have been involved in over the years. One major emphasis, however, was present from the very beginning (in 1941). Ooldea was my first experience with Aboriginal people. My husband was with me and we worked as a wife-husband team, but our perspectives were different. He concentrated on men, I concentrated on women. This was an acceptable and approved division of labour in Aboriginal communities where gender distinctions were conventionally defined. In that respect I was conforming with the local rules. Later, in some areas (in the Wave Hill camp in the Northern Territory, for instance), as a stranger I was at first invited to attend men-only ritual performances, or hear men-only songs and other verbal material. I invariably declined. Aligning myself with women was not only regarded by women (and men) as the proper thing to do, it also gave me a better insight into women’s views on everyday and religious affairs, including the kinds of unspoken or not-publicly-expressed knowledge shared by men and women as a basis of collaboration or interdependence between them.

Times and places

The places I turn to now are Ooldea, near the Transcontinental Railway Line, in 1941; the lower River Murray, including Point McLeay and Murray Bridge in the early 1940s, along with Adelaide city and a number of country towns; and Oodnadatta and adjacent areas in 1944.

Ooldea

Ooldea siding, on the railway line between Adelaide (via Port Pirie) and Perth, was in 1941 home to a few fettlers and gangers and their families, a watering halt for steam engines, an optional stop for travellers on the main passenger trains, and a supply-stop for the weekly tea-and-sugar train. About four miles north of the line, on flat ground among the sandhills, was Yuldi Gabi, Ooldea Water or Ooldea ‘Soak’, where the United Aborigines Mission had established a small settlement in 1933. In 1941 the mission was working not only to ‘protect’ Aboriginal people from the kinds of contact they were experiencing with non-Aborigines along the line and to convert them to Christianity, but also to abolish traditional Aboriginal culture, generally, and in that particular area. However, the missionaries were not at first openly antagonistic to our research. They had cooperated in 1939 with the Board for Anthropological Research of the University of Adelaide, in an expedition of which my husband had been a member.

We did not want to locate our field base at the mission station, and the missionaries seemed to be opposed to our living in the Aboriginal camp. In any case, the camp was fairly mobile, moving at intervals to make fresh windbreaks and shelters on the sandy slopes and hollows above the soak. We finally chose a clearing half way down to it, beside the track that people usually used in coming and going to get water or to visit the mission station for rations or work. Mostly they would pause at our camp, so that apart from the time we spent with them in their own camp setting, we were able to meet most of them in that way too.

The Aboriginal population at Ooldea was mobile in another sense, not only in camping arrangements. People came and went along the railway line. Some had come originally from farther west — from Karonie and Laverton, for instance. From time to time little groups emerged from the ‘spinifex country’ to the north, toward the central ranges. When columns of smoke appeared on the northern horizon, moving closer, missionaries would hurry to send out clothing so that the newcomers would not arrive naked at the soak. This influx of people speaking no English and bringing their own ceremonies and religious rites was exciting in a different sense to the local people. In their struggle to find and keep a foothold in the European-dominated situation, they were in the process of losing or submerging much of their traditional knowledge and activities. The new arrivals were like a breath of fresh air, a re-vitalizing force, enhancing their awareness of their own Aboriginal identity. The differences between them were a source of discussion and comment, but almost insignificant in comparison with the differences between all of them on one hand, and non-Aborigines on the other.

People on their way to and from the soak gathered to watch as we pitched our tents and arranged our windbreaks and open fire, and several of them joined in to arrange the branches and get buckets of water. After that we settled down to learn how to ‘hear and understand and talk properly’ with them. A shifting assortment of women helped me, along with a few ‘regulars’, in what was at first a rather difficult task for all of us. It improved gradually, as I tried to build up a sizeable vocabulary, and women taught me short songs and stories along with conversational material. They were patient and friendly, but in the beginning the process seemed painfully slow.

As regards sites, some of the stories that were told to me, especially in the first few weeks, included no place names at all. When I asked about these, the answer was that the events had happened ‘out spinifex’ and had no specific locations—or if they had, the story-teller didn’t know them. As I came to know the women better (and vice versa), and to be less dependent on English in simple discussions and translations, I realised that there could be other reasons as well. In regard to mamu, for instance, malignant spirit-characters, many stories and many ordinary comments dealt with mamu in general: they could be anywhere and everywhere. Adults as well as children were warned to beware of potential dangers in various shapes: apparently harmless stone spear-heads lying in the sand (strong winds that changed the contours of the more exposed sandhills used to uncover hundreds of these blades); or strangers who could not easily be identified; or seemingly familiar persons, even close relatives. They might be mamu in disguise. Virtually all mamu were believed to be hostile to human beings, even when they pretended to be friendly. Nevertheless, some were of the Dreaming, inhabitants of the land from the Beginning; and in their case, site names were built into their stories—with two provisos: the names could be omitted if the storyteller insisted that she was ignorant, or if she thought that it would be too hard to explain to me where the site was located or that I would not really be interested. That applied also to other stories.

In the last couple of months, I noticed that more djugurbal tjukurpa (Dreaming) stories and discussions were forthcoming without any pressure on my part. Among them were ‘star’ stories and other material which women had previously remarked, in passing, were men’s business. Site names were more likely to be attached to stories of this kind. Also, aside from the camp ceremonies, and other ritual proceedings, women offered to show me dances that were not to be seen by men.

When we first arrived at Ooldea there were about 200 people in the main camp. A few weeks later, following heavy rains that they expected would fill the waterholes in the ‘spinifex country’ to the north and north-west, all but about 80 of them set off in that direction. Then the numbers began to build up again as groups gathered at Ooldea for the ceremonial season at new-moon time in August. Participants came from the west and along the railway line as well as from the north, until there were between 400 and 500. Small ceremonies and less elaborate ritual affairs had been going on at intervals, on other occasions, but this large-scale complex of activities was very different indeed. In one dimension, at the level of interpersonal relations, it allowed plenty of scope for informal discussions and plans, exchange of news and gossip—and the passing on of topical information about sites and resources as well as about the whereabouts of other people. At another, it afforded entertainment in the shape of ordinary ceremonies and songs. And, above all, there was the organising of the various aspects of the central raison d’etre of the whole assembly—the religious rituals, and the supporting arrangements (such as supply of food and other necessities) that made them possible.

For everyone there, not only for myself, this concentrated mixture of scenes provided opportunities to engage in discussions about people and places and events; to affirm or re-assert their own knowledge and expertise; or (for younger people or those from other areas, for instance) to learn more about any or all of these things, including the rules governing partial or total prohibitions and exclusions. I was able to see and to hear what women did and said, separately or in conjunction with men, and to compare this with what they had been telling me. Of course, a great deal escaped me, especially in regard to finer points but also in regard to the complex field of meanings and interpretations. At least I was not the only one in that position, nor the only young woman who was a ‘learner’ with a long way to go in the process of understanding. That applied to most if not all young women, even to those who were better equipped to take full advantage of that process in their local setting.

Two things were quite clear, in everyday affairs but even more prominently in the ceremonial and ritual context. First: women handled their roles, their part in such activities, with authority and confidence: they knew what they were doing and what they should be doing, and how all this fitted in with what men were doing. They acknowledged conceptually a realm of what could be designated ‘men’s business’ as contrasted with ‘women’s business’, and a fluctuating intermediate zone where these two overlapped.

Second: the women who acted with authority and articulate directions were mostly middle-aged, not old enough to be physically incapacitated nor so young as to be ill-equipped for such responsibility. They knew how to balance their own authority against men’s, and how to deal with the more conspicuous and vocal dominance sometimes displayed by men. I did not realise that at first, just as I did not realise what I later interpreted as ‘independent interdependence’ in overall interrelations between men and women. The discrepancies between what I was told at first (e.g. ‘Only men talk about the stars!’) and what I was told later were rather like a verbal screen, adjusted to cope with ignorant enquirers—or, in some cases, ignorant or not very well informed respondents.

We were at Ooldea for a little over six months. If we had been in a position to stay longer, even for only another six months, and I had been able to become more fluent, I am sure that my knowledge of women’s knowledge would have accelerated and expanded at an increasing rate. This was plain when later, on a short visit to the Warburton Range area in Western Australia, I was introduced to women’s song sequences and rites on the basis of what I already knew and could talk about with them. It was especially evident at Balgo, also in Western Australia, on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, where the vocabulary I had acquired at Ooldea was useful among Gugadja and Mandjildjara speakers, as were other features of ‘Ooldea Desert culture’. In research there between early in 1958 and late in 1985, I paid particular attention to women’s associations with land (as well as to women’s rituals), the ‘land maps’ they carried in their heads, and the myths and songs that were, they believed, inseparable from the actual sites. With a longer period at Ooldea I am reasonably sure I could have done almost the same there—notwithstanding what even at that time seemed to be the imminent destruction of much of the local Aboriginal heritage.

Oodnadatta; Macumba

Oodnadatta in 1944 was a small town in northern South Australia, on the railway line between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. Some women of partly Aboriginal physical descent and partly Aboriginal cultural upbringing lived in the town, but the main Aboriginal camp was a short distance away. We stayed at the unpretentious little pub in the town, because at that time we were trying to explore relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. We were also examining written documents, such as police records, at Oodnadatta as well as in Port Augusta and other country towns. We visited Ernabella and various station properties on the way there, and later camped near Macumba station to participate in an initiation sequence. The people involved in the initiation activities included men, women and children from a wide range of pastoral stations. Not everyone from the town camp took part, but most had some share in the overall proceedings and some links with those who did. There was an air of effervescence, almost a ‘holiday’ atmosphere (especially for the station people), alongside the serious and emotionally intense ritual component that provided the explicit reason for it all.

Again, I concentrated on working with women. Although I did not record a great deal in the way of myths and songs, it was obvious that women were well informed about their territorial linkages, and their own place in religious matters. When they covered their heads on ritual occasions, in their own camps, or while their husbands were welcomed with a penis-holding rite, this was simply polite behaviour and not a sign of ‘exclusion’.

Three quotations are relevant to this area, and to the main theme, in different ways, although none of them refer directly to sites.

The first (R.M. and C.H. Berndt 1951: 183–5) is from a short account of a two-part semi-sacred ceremony with mixed Aranda and Antingari elements, part of a preliminary sequence leading to the initiation ritual that was to follow a few weeks later.

Just before sunset, nearly all the men, women and children gathered at the Antingari camp. The men clustered in a circle about one large fire, and near them the women and children were gathered around three smaller fires. Then the songs began.

The men beat on the ground, in unison, with boomerangs and short sticks. Women clapped their thighs with both hands together, keeping time to the rhythm and making a sonorous background to the singing. Middle-agea and older women took a prominent part, helping to decide the order in which the songs should be sung, and sometimes altering the pitch of their voices to sing in harmony…

A new song was started up, and women and children lay down and pulled blankets over their heads, while the men kept on singing … Then suddenly the women and children lifted their heads; they flung aside their blankets, and stretched out their right hands, with a long-drawn ‘Ahhh!’ towards a figure that came dancing into the light. [The tall headdress worn by this dancer was a thread-cross] a wanigi or waniga, which among the Antingari, southern Aranda and Pidjandjara people is usually shown only in the sacred or totemic rituals that initiated men perform [in men-only contexts, although rather similar headdresses were worn in public ceremonies at Ooldea. After an interval for supper in the various family camps, voices came calling from one camp to another that tne second performance was about to start]. This time, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Spelling
• Maps
• Figures
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Retrospect, and Prospect: Looking back after 50 years
• 2 Antikirinja Women’s Song Knowledge 1963–72: Its significance in Antikirinja culture
• 3 Rites for Sites or Sites for Rites?: The dynamics of women’s cultural life in the Musgraves
• 4 Digging Deep: Aboriginal women in the Oodnadatta region of South Australia in the 1980s
• 5 ‘Women Talking up Big’: Aboriginal women as cultural custodians, a South Australian example
• 6 The Status of Women’s Cultural Knowledge: Aboriginal society in north-east South Australia
• 7 Roles Revisited: The women of southern South Australia
• Index