An Aborigines' Community

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31077, 4 June 1966, Page 4

An Aborigines' Community

Kinship and Conflict. By L. R. Hiatt Australian National University. 166 pp.

Australian Aborigines were at one time regarded as barely human. Without clothes, crops or . chieftains, they seemed to be relics of some earlier period of human evolution. This view died only very slowly. As knowledge accumulated of the richness and complexity of Aboriginal ritual, art and belief it was realised that they had made a remarkably successful adaptation to an unusually difficult natural environment In a monograph of more than usual interest Dr. Hiatt describes the strategic problems of kinship and conflict among a group of Aborigines who have only recently abandoned their nomadic existence to live on a government settlement The author has two main aims, to correct the impression that Aborigines are automata who mechanically follow tribal law in everything they do, and to present an analysis of disputes in an

Aborigine community, mostly over women.

In an analysis of the system of prescriptive marriage at Maningrida, Dr. Hiatt is able to show that there is not simply one rule governing marriage choice, that a man should marry his "mother’s, mother’s, brother’s daughter’s daughter,” but a whole hierarchy of rules. In an environment where there are no strangers and everyone is kin to everyone else, the whole community is interlaced by a' series of partially overlapping marriage claims. In the marriage market a Gidjingali had certain assets (nieces mainly) with which to satisfy various claims on him for wives and to achieve brides and allies for himself. Present and future demands had to be balanced against each other and decisions made in the light of the probable future decisions of his fellows. This operation was complicated by the fact that the women themselves have considerable autonomy as well as interests shared with brothers, uncles, husbands and sons.

Although at Maningrida there was virtually complete agreement about the form of marriage prescribed, only a small proportion of men married in accordance with the rule. There was a variety of factors which upset the allocation of brides, for example, many men had no female relatives of the kind prescribed by the marriage rule. Although the ethic of generosity did much to regulate conduct, there was still plenty of room for conflict No fonnal authority existed to deal with such disputes. There was, however, a community of people with a set of common values and with formally defined rights and obligations. On rare occasions individuals did achieve their ends by disregarding the rights of others and the code of good conduct but usually they attempted to justify their actions by appealing to an accepted rule or value. Community opinion about the merits of a dispute, Dr. Hiatt found, clearly influenced the behaviour of the participants and affected the outcome.