Stanner noted this tendency in 1958 (Stanner, W.E.H 1979:47).

An approach that emphasises the flexible adaptation of Aboriginal traditional culture leads to a better understanding of the conflict and accommodation that followed contact, described in the next

chapter, and the reasons for the specific character of Aboriginal post-colonial relations in the

Kimberley today, described in the remainder of the thesis. The chapter begins with a description of the organisation of subsistence activity and material life, then in turn examines patterns of land-use and land-tenure, gender relations, myth and ritual, and the exercise of authority. All these elements are closely i n t e r d e p e n d e n t in Aboriginal practice and still structure to a great extent contemporary Aboriginal life.

Economic Co-operation

When the first colonists arrived Aborigines

populated every corner of the Kimberley. From the desert to the coast, with the riverine plains and broken hilly country between, they occupied at

least three ecological zones, spoke at least thirty distinct languages and many more dialects (Hudson, J. and McConvell, P. 1984:22), and hunted and foraged in small bands on a range of territories named and owned by local patrilineal descent groups. It is not easy to identify the regional networks that linked the members of these bands to each other. The concept of ’t r i b e ’, as Berndt has suggested, is inappropriate (Berndt, R.M. 1959) since there were no large political groups, no

means of exerting authority over numbers of people, and no concerted action at the ’t r ibal’ level.

There was some identification with a regional language group (Kolig, E. 1977:39, Vaszolyi, E. 1980:253) but the only significant manifestation of

regional networks were the major ceremonial

gathering's at which several hundred people would be present for short periods. The groups participating in these have been described as forming cultural blocs (Ackerman, K. 1980:234-42) although these were un-named and their members did not co-operate

in any other activities. The description of

Aboriginal social structure in the Kimberley must therefore begin at the level of small groups of kin exploiting a restricted area of land with a stone and wood technology.

Until relatively recently in archeological terms^ Aborigines possessed a remarkably uniform

technology across the continent with "...a varied and efficient toolkit, including stone, bone and wood tools, and no doubt many other items made of organic materials that have not survived the

archeological record" (Flood, J. 1983:139). From about 5000 years ago innovations in tool

manufacture introduced considerable diversity across the continent (Flood, J. 1983:192). Innovation, however, did not extend to

domestication of plant species, animal species (except, perhaps, the dingo), pottery, or the working of metals (see Flood, J. 1983:219). The conservatism and simplicity in the range of

technology contrasts with an extreme diversity in late pre-historic times in the style of artefact production. Elkin declared it ’remarkable’ to find so many differences in material culture in the Kimberley region:

...the making of stone spear-heads by

pressure-flaking is only practised in the northern parts of the area; the spear here is composite, with a shaft consisting of

bamboo at the ’womera’ [spear-thrower] end,

and wood at the end to which the point is

attached, but further south, the spear is

simply a long pointed stick; the spear-

throwers in these parts also differ, and, indeed, I do not think any were used in Dampier Land until recently. A heavy shield with rounded ends is made in the La Grange district, while in Dampier Land and along the Fitzroy a iightwood shield with pointed ends and a markedly convex face is made; but there are no shields at all in northern Kimberley except amongst the Wurara who make a thick cumbersome weapon of a very light wood. Boomerangs of different types are made

in the eastern and southern regions

respectively, but are not made at all in the northern region; bull-roarers have a special key-like pattern in the Karadjeri tribe, no pattern at all in the Bardi, and concentric circles in Eastern Kimberley, but they were

not made by the northern tribes until

recently, and crudely, by the Wurara; and so me might go on (Elkin, A.P. 1932:298).

Aborigines, then, expioited the)** environment with a small range of stone, bone and wood tools subject to a kind of ’cultural involution’ that produced almost endless variations upon this basic toolkit. On the basis of these variations Elkin identifies four main areas of material culture in the

Kimberley - La Grange and district, Dampier Land and the Fitzroy valley, Eastern Kimberley, and the North and Central Kimberley (Elkin A.P., 1932:298). Kin relations set the framework for co-operation in daily life, yet it is difficult to find any simple and direct isomorphism between the means by which Aborigines reproduced and sustained themselves physically, and the reproduction of coherent social groups. There is no obvious determining relationship between the level of technology, the ecological circumstances, the actual process of joint exploitation of the country, and the complex rules of social organisation. Aborigines did enter into, indeed were born into, highly regularised

relationships, but these placed few limits on the forms of economic cooperation, which varied from place to place, season to season, and according to

individual circumstances. In the southeast Kimberley, and probably throughout the fertile valleys of the Fitzroy and Ord rivers systems, during the rainy season abundant food would allow gatherings of more than one hundred and fifty people to stay in one place for perhaps three months (Kaberry, P. 1939:30). Clusters of hearths around a central resource were sited so that each group was oriented towards the direction of their own territory (Kaberry, P. 1939:29, Hernandez, T.

1941:211). A number of hearths made up a grouping of relatives, each hearth presided over by one or more wives (Kaberry, P. 1939:31). Unmarried young men camped together (Love, J.R.B. 1936:31). As the dry season approached and the rivers dried up into a series of gradually shrinking water-holes, the gathering split up into smaller and smaller groups roaming over larger tracts of land (Kaberry, P. 1939:30 ) .

The most readily apparent correlation of residence and economic co-operation is along the lines of gender. Phyllis Kaberry lived with Gidja (Lungga) groups in 1935 and followed their wet seasons

pursuits, offering the most detailed description of the day to day life of an Aboriginal encampment with particular concentration on gender roles. In

general a camp comprised people of both sexes who divided tasks .such -fckect the men hunted

kangaroo, the women foraged for vegetable foods and small game, tended the hearth and looked after

children. In general; also.economic activity was carried out by very small groups, pairs or

individuals. Even these broad generalisations,

however, had common exceptions. In the southeast Kimberley occasionally a large group of men and women would circle an area and burn it off. The men would spear large game running from the flames

while women captured smaller game and reptiles (Kaberry, P. 1939:18). Women probably co-operated in this kind of activity among the Karadjeri also (Piddington, M. & Piddington, R. 1932:345), though perhaps not among those to the north and east, the Worora (Love, J.R.B. 1936:15). In these co­

operative drives the older men took charge of decision-making (Kaberry, P. 1939:18). Gender divisions were not always strict; sometimes a man would go hunting with his wife (Kaberry, P.

1939:18), but more frequently men hunted together. The typical composition of a hunting party probably varied as much as in the eastern Western Desert where Hamilton in recent times observed that a pair was the most frequent number, almost twice as

common as either a single hunter or three together. More than four was very seldom seen, and more than six never (Hamilton, A. 1980:10).

In general men hunted kangaroos while women

gathered vegetable food and reptiles, but it was not unknown for women to catch large kangaroo with dogs (Love, J.R.B. 1936:33), the difference being

that women sat and ate the prized parts on the spot while men would only do this if far from home

(Kaberry, P. 1939:22,34). Women provided the bulk of food by foraging (Kaberry, P. 1939:32), but the desire for the men’s contribution of kangaroo

outweighed its simple dietary contribution.

Kangaroo meat was craved by both men and women even when other food was plentiful (Kaberry, P.

1939:26). It was as obligatory for a man to go hunting as it was for a woman to forage (Kaberry,

P. 1939:24). Hunting was more arduous and less certain of success than women’s work (Kaberry, P. 1939:15), but both required skill. In the males’ case it lay in making weapons and tracking and approaching prey (Kaberry, P. 1939:13). On

returning to camp the hunter would signal the kind of kill he had made when still at a distance

because of the excitement his approach would cause. He would usually prepare, cook, and distribute it himself according to convention, most of his

obligations being to his wife’s kin (Kaberry, P. 1939:32). If the hunter caught nothing he would be ashamed, and if persistently lazy or unlucky would be criticised, attacked and beaten by the womenfolk (Kaberry, P. 1939:26).

Women usually went about their work in groups, and these could be composed of co-wives, mother and daughters, women of neighbouring hearths, affinal relatives, or simply ’mates’ (Kaberry, P. 1939:29). Old women would frequently go off on their own

(Kaberry, P. 1939:21). Children would accompany their parents, the young being tended by the older. Until puberty, they were dependent on their parents for food,although they were not themselves required to share what they did find. Boys foraged alongside girls even after the beginning of their initiation by circumcision at seven or eight years old; they did not hunt with the men until after puberty

(Kaberry, P. 1939:63-4). Foraging was a leisurely business. It afforded women a good deal of variety and occasional excitement, coupled with control over their own economic activity and the exercise of skill. Companionship of other women was one of its attractions, and no women observed by Kaberry grumbled, felt resentful of their role, or bored

(Kaberry, P. 1939:23,36). Nevertheless,the bulk of

a family’s food was provided by these women. During the dry season lily roots, seeds, yams, tubers, pandanus and boab nuts were a part of the diet. During the wet season berries, fruits, wild honey, frogs, and white ant larvae were collected. There was minimal preparation of food. Much of it was eaten raw. Reptiles and fish were cooked on hot coais, and some seeds were ground into flour and cooked in cakes (Kaberry, P. 1939:11,32). Even during the severe drought of 1935 Aboriginal women never came in empty-handed (Kaberry, P. 1939:20), though much of their spoils were either eaten on the spot or given away according to no fixed rule before the male hunter returned to camp (Kaberry, P. 1939:31,33,34 ) .

What is observable in Aboriginal life without

interrogation of the people themselves seems highly variable, contingent, and difficult to

characterise. Neither the level of technology nor the common forms of gaining subsistence is so highly patterned as to offer an immediately

recognisable structure. Where structure is apparent in Aboriginal social life it is not so much in the observable activities of groups of individuals but in the relations they say they have with each other - kinship and territorial relations.

Land Tenure and Land Use

It was Radcliffe-Brown who attempted to establish a direct and formal relationship between the activity of hunting and gathering and the social structure of those who practised it. His systematisation of Aboriginal practice contrasts in its simplicity

with the observations of most other ethnographers.3 He claimed three universal characteristics of

Aboriginal social and economic life:

1) The basis of social organisation everywhere in Australia was the patrilineal descent group or clan

(Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1930, 1951). Those who used the clan territory, which Radcliffe-Brown called the horde, consisted of these males, their

unmarried sisters and daughters, and their wives who were members of other patrilineal descent groups.

2) Each horde owned a territory, or ’estate’,4

which it was constrained to use, being forbidden to exploit the territory of others.

3) The horde operated as a cohesive political and economic unit.

In 1962 L.R. Hiatt criticised this conception on the grounds that it did not accord with the

observation of ethnographers (1962, see also 1966, 1984) and initiated the vital distinction between land-use and land-rights (Peterson, N. 1986:19,24). Gumbert has summed up a number of criticisms on more conceptual grounds (Gumbert, M. 1984:71-82), in a convincing explanation of the intellectual genesis of Radcliffe-Brown’s approach;which

contrasts the need in the 1930s to discover in the Aboriginal case "the elementary cell of society

3 A regional study of the Kiaberley suffers both because of the diversity of linguistic and cultural groups and the paucity of information on each of thea. This chapter attempts to make as auch reference to Kimberley sources as possible, but inevitably has to draw on studies outside the region to describe aspects of Aboriginal culture where every indication is that similar observations apply to Kiaberley groups.