Social Organization

Although there was a fundamental similarity among the cultures of Aboriginal Australia, there were also areas of significant variation in their social systems, religious beliefs and technology. Ellis (1978: 1) and Peterson (1976: 50-71 ) suggest the existence of three major cultural areas

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from the recent past extending into South Australia (Fig 2.1). The Murray/South East cultural area, part of the much larger cultural complex of the Murray/Darling Basin,

encompassed the tribes of the Murray River as well as the Coorong and the tribes east and south of the Mount Lofty Ranges. The Jirawirung and Ngawait were part of a major linguistic group, the Meru, which extended west along the Murray River from the Pyap Bend and south towards Lake Alexandrina (Tindale 1974) and included the Ngaiawang, Nganguruku and Ngintait speakers.

The Jirawirung and Ngawait people lived in social groups similar to those recorded for other regions of Aboriginal Australia. Several families consisting of a group of related males, their wives, children, other relatives and often friends lived together in bands from 50 to 75

individuals. A band was primarily an economic entity

providing mutual benefit in the daily hunting and gathering activities. The territory over which a band moved has been defined by Stanner as the 'range'.

The range was the tract or orbit over which the group, including its nucleus and adherents, ordinarily hunted and foraged to maintain life (Stanner 1965: 2).

A band's composition, however, was in a constant state of flux with individuals and family groups often moving freely from one band to another.

Each person also belonged to a particular descent group or clan. A band would have members belonging to several

FIGURE 2.1

Aboriginal cultural areas, South Australia.

Although there was a fundamental similarity among the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, there were areas where social systems, languages, religious beliefs and

technologies differed. The Jirawirung and Ngawait were part of the Murray/South East Cultural Area of Australia.

C e n t r a l L a k e s C u l t u r e A r e a W e s t e r n D e s e r t C u l t u r e A r e a M u r r a y / l t u r e 2 0 0 k m A r e a

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different clans. Clan members had spiritual and

mythological ties to a particular tract of land, their own territory or 'estate'. Stanner defined a clan estate as a

...traditionally recognized locus ('c o u n t r y 'home', 'ground', 'dreaming place') of some kind of patrilineal descent group forming the core or nucleus of the

territorial group (Stanner 1965: 2).

The clan therefore, had specific ownership rights, based on a spiritual mandate, to certain tracts of land. A

Ngawait clan estate included a substantial frontage of river (perhaps 2 Kilometres) and stretched across the floodplains, up the cliffs and scarps and out into the mallee for some 30 Kilometres, or a walking distance of one to two days (Howitt 1904: 52). Likely inclusions in a clan estate would have been valuable natural resources such as stone quarries or ochre deposits, access to which would have been controlled by senior clan members. Three clans of the Ngawait, the

Barmerara Meru, the Narwijerook (Eyre 1845: 219) and the Karsinbola (Eyre 1842), had tracts of land bordering the

shore of Lake Bonney which was called Barmera or alternatively Nookampka. Other clans that have been

identified in the Riverland were the Willoo, Rankbirit and

Yerraruk (Taplin 1879: 28). These three clans were

Jirawirung speakers and owned estates upstream from Lake Bonney.

The boundaries of a clan's estate were mutually

established and respected. Schell, one of the few European settlers who had contact with the Jirawirung and Ngawait and who recounted his experiences, observed,

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The blacks were very particular regarding their tribal

[clan] boundaries. Heaps of stones were used as letter boxes, and if one tribe wanted to meet another, at a corroboree, sticks in which notches and cuts had been made would be left at the stone letterboxes (Murray Pioneer 30 April 1914).

Permission had to be obtained from a clan member before any individual or band could enter and utilise the resources in another clan's estate.

No individual of any neighbouring family or tribe could hunt or walk over the land of another without permission from the head of the family group which owned it, and a stranger on it might legally be put to death (Howitt

1904: 52).

Movement of individuals was not entirely restricted to the range or tribal boundaries. Eyre (1845: 219-222) documented a meeting at his residence at Moorundie on the lower Murray between a number of Ngawait (mainly from the Narwijerook clan) and the Lower Murray people. The purpose of the gathering was to perform the initiation ceremonies for several young boys belonging to both tribes and apparently to avenge the deaths of several Narwijerook. Eyre's

accounts of the Murray tribes indicate that there was

considerable social and ceremonial contact along the River with regular movement of large groups of individuals.

Hawden, Eyre and Sturt followed well used Aboriginal

pathways along the course of the river and Sturt recounts a meeting with an elder near the western border of Jirawirung land:

In the course of the afternoon the old man joined us, and got into the boat. As far as we could understand from his signs, we were at no great distance from some remarkable change or other....he pointed due south, as

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if to indicate that such would be our future course; and he concluded his information, such as it was, by

describing the roaring sea, and the height of the waves. It was evident this old man had been upon the coast, and we were therefore highly delighted at the prospect thus held out to us of reaching it (Sturt 1833: 142).