Visiting Sydney, Australia? Visit our gallery and see our large range of prints in-store. See details here...
|
Aboriginal Social Organisation
The most important social order in aboriginal society is based on sex and age
Men and women have separate but complimentary roles at a religious level. However men are considered to control the most important sacred knowledge which is hidden from both women and children.
Age brings increased social status, as sacred knowledge increases though the various stages of initiation that aboriginal people pass through during their life. Younger people are required to acknowledge their elders high social standing and obey them, failure to do so would result in the withholding by the elders of important sacred information that is required for complete adult initiation. This applies to both men and women.
The nuclear Aboriginal family often consists of a man a number of wives and children.
The basic social group, a Band, consists of a number of families who travel together, and reside in a particular region, where sites that are significant to the group are found. These sites are places that link the community to the land at a cosmological level. Sacred knowledge concerning these sites, is normally held by the initiated men of the group, although in the central desert women also have their own stories that are kept secret from the opposite sex. The size of a Band varies according to social and ecological factors, in particular, water resources within the bands geographic region.
Bands make up a number of larger social sets. In areas such as Arnhem Land, large groups called clans exist. Membership to a clan is hereditary, most commonly membership is passed down from the father (patriarchal), Clan members must marry outside of their clan, and with clan membership comes certain sacred rights and responsibilities. Different clans speak a different dialect of their language group, which has been given to them by the ancestral beings. Thus, clan name refers to both a group of people and a language that has been given to a particular place; language is very much linked to a member's spirituality.
Desert communities do not have clans, their next level of social organisation are estate groups based upon a number of criteria of which descent is but part of the equation. The members of an Estate group or clan normally come together perhaps once or twice a year to perform rituals that are designed to ensure continuing social cohesion, maintain relationships with the land and ancestral beings and to guarantee the regeneration of both plants and animals.
The largest indigenous social unit is the tribal or language group. Due to their size, these groups exist outside of normal social interaction. Futhermore, it is not necessary that people within a tribal group speak the same language, more important is that their own homeland is part of the territory of that language, Warlpiri and Pintupi are both examples of a language group.
Simultaneously, while the above examples group people together according to country, other important affiliations exist such as moieties or totem groups. In Arnhem Land Moieties are a form of organisation that divide people into two complimentary groups. Moiety classification extends beyond basic social division of people and applies to the entire universe, thus plants and animals, sites and ancestral beings are also members. Moieties, form an individuals place not only at a social level, but relate the individual within the universe and its parts.
People from different tribal groups can belong to the same moiety, these memberships act to bind tribal groups together and set the rules for intermarriage and social behaviour. An Aboriginal person must marry someone of the opposite moiety. For example in North-east Arnhem Land a person of Dhuwa moiety must marry a person of the Yirritja Moiety.
The most important social organisation in Arnhem Land is the subsection; this system divides people into eight groups that reflect their kinship to other members of society. Like skin groups from the desert region, members of subsections take on a different membership to their mother or father and all members of their subsection are considered their brothers and sisters. A persons Kinship is expressed though art. Clans have their own special stories relating them in a unique way to the ancestral beings the land, plants and animals. Clan identity is sometimes expressed in specific art that relates to specific sites, ancestral beings, living creatures and stories that are affiliated with the clan. It is also expressed in geometric designs that belong to a clan; this is particularly relevant to Aboriginal people from Eastern and Central Arnhem Land.
Clan designs are an elaborate system that differentiates one place for another and one set of people from another. Clan design in Western Arnhem Land normally takes the form of geometric raak designs that are linked to the ancestral beings.
Skin groups are a major determinate factor in the types of relationships and the ceremonial function that individuals have within desert communities.
The kinship in Central and Western Australia is just as important as Arnhem Land. Although relationships with country are formed on a wider sense of principals that extend beyond decent. These include an association with the land though birth place, ritual and ceremony. Knowledge and rights to painting, ceremony and land is gained through one's father, mother or by links established by grandparents. Although not purely based on decent these rights in painting, land and ceremony are guarded closely.
In many parts of the desert region, skin groups or subsections; an essential component of an individuals identity, is incorporated into a persons name. For example, Paddy Japaltjarri Sims or Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi. These skin surnames are divided into eight subsection terms that are organized into four father-child pairs. Which both have a male and female equivalent. For example, Napaltjarri is the female equivalent to Tjapaltjarri. All people with the Tjapaltjarri skin name are considered brothers and all females we've been Nungarrayi skin name are considered sisters. Skin groups relate directly to the marriage system, the diagram describes the relationship. We can see from this diagram that a man of the Tjakamarra skin group must marry a women of the Napaltjarri skin group, furthermore their offspring do not inherit their father or their mothers skin name, but are either a Nupurula (female) or a Tjupurula (male). Offspring of Tjupurula (male) inherit the Grandfathers skin group (Tjakamarra), while the offspring of the Nupurula (female), become members of the Napangari/Tjapapngari skin group. Socially people of Tjupurula/Nupurula group consider all Napaltjarri to be mother and treat them with the same respect. Though this example we can see that Skin groups are a major determinate factor in the types of relationships and the ceremonial function that individuals have within desert communities.
Back To Aboriginal Art & Culture Home
|
|
|
