WARUMUNGU RECIPROCITIES AND SIGNS
We have a good example of the pattern of reigning reciprocities from Warumungu life in 1901 by Spencer and Gillen, and it is one which directly relates to Stanner’s exception:
“In the Warramunga, Tjingilli, Gnanji,Binbinga, Mara and other tribes, amongst whom the daughter is given away by her mother’s brother, a curious custom in regard to hair is associated with what may be described as a form of betrothal ceremony. One day, during the course of preparing for a sacred ceremony in the Warramunga tribe, we saw a Tjupila man cut a small lock of hair from the whiskers of a Tjapeltjeri man, the lock then presented to a Thapanunga man, who placed it beneath his arm-band. Immediately after this, a Thakomara man in the same way cut a lock from the whiskers of a Thapanunga man and gave it to a Tjapeltjeri man. The meaning of this was that the Tjapeltjeri man, whose hair was cut, will present the Thapanunga man, to whom the hair was given, with a wife (his sister’s daughter), the woman in question being the sister (blood or tribal) if the man by whom the hair was cut. In just the same way a Thapanunga man gives a woman to a Tjapeltjeri man, and she is the sister of a Thakomara man.” (Spencer and Gillen 1904 1969:603)
In other words:
“In both of these ceremonies we see clearly the relationship existing between the brother of the woman whose daughter is being promised and the man to whom she is promised. In the fact that the hair is cut off and presented by the brother of the betrothed girl, we also have an indication of the special relationship which always exists between a man and the brother of his wife, as well as, very probably, an indication that the man in question acquiesces in the betrothal of his sister.” (S&G 1969:604)
In thinking about these matters it is useful to recall how marriages are used for purposes of diplomacy and of cementing alliances amongst European ruling families. Links between countries are no small thing.
Spencer and Gillen spell out the extent to which the whiskers send a public message:
“The whiskers are worn under the arm-band as an emblem of betrothal, which is called makuntalthi, the actual cutting off of the whiskers being called tanunga. It is no uncommon thing in the Warramunga, Tjingili and Gnanji tribes to see men thus carrying small locks of hair about. It is a simple plan of publicly announcing the fact that a special girl has been promised to one special man, and it very soon becomes known who are the parties concerned. The lock of hair is subsequently given to the betrothed girl and carried about by her, both as a sign to her and to others that she is betrothed, and as a kind of magic charm to defend her against the advances of other men.” (S&G 1969:604)
As Spencer and Gillen note the relationship between brothers-in-law – termed kalya kalya in Warumungu malungku (relations) terminology – is important. (Kalya kalya also means ‘husband’ when a woman is speaking.)
I see that the term for the relationship between brothers-in-law is also described as punji in the Warumungu Picture Dictionary. Punji (or Bunji) I understand to be term used over a wider area which means something like “best friend, good mate”. It is, in my experience, certainly indicative of a warm relationship.
But simple exchanges of their respective sisters between two sets of brothers cannot account for the realities of Warumungu Ways.
The same pattern of exchange of their respective ‘sister’s daughter’ (‘actual’ or ‘classificatory’?) as documented by Spencer and Gillen was explained to me by senior lawmen during my work on the Warumungu land claim in early 1980s.
They (now deceased) were A.M. Jappaljarri and M.T. Jappanangka. The former was the acknowledged expert on Wirnkarra (Dreaming law) matters and the latter was a senior man for the area of the town of Tennant Creek. They took a special delight in telling me about this exchange relationship as they tried to educate me in their ways.
And i was surprised to realise that these two important exchange partners were within one moiety – Wurlurru – in a situation where marriage is regarded as taking place between different moieties. While they are in the same moiety they are in separate father-son subsections within that moiety.
If you restrict your analysis to the role of simple brother-sister exchange between two sets of brothers and sisters, at one level, marriage can be seen as a matter between two moieities . (I, (Jappaljarri), marry your (Jakkamarra) sister (Nakkamarra), you (Jakkamarra) marry my sister (Naljarri).
These types of Brother-Sister paired marriage arrangements may be found in parts of New Guinea. The respective offspring of the marriage may then enter into another set of exchanges.
But Warumungu life is much more sophisticated than that. The offspring of Brother and Sister marriage exchanges do not repeat the pattern of their parents but (ideally) marry into another ‘strand’ of the opposite moiety.
Life has been raised to another level of articulation to that of those comparatively simple Brother-Sister exchange foundations which may be found in New Guinea.
One possible reason for locating life on a higher level – apart from the obvious role of life exploring life’s possibilities – is that it reduces the risk of collapse into a state of nature. Freud, when learning about the Ways of this country’s First Peoples, found them to be typified by a horror of the risk of incest.
There is a complex configuration of relationships in Warumungu life, and a host of exchanges taking place. Spencer and Gillen, for example, proceeded from writing about the role of a man’s hair in marriage arrangements to look at the role of exchanges of hair when a man dies, and others may have to avenge him.
But here the focus is on the role of exchange as it relates to the ‘descent’ or otherwise of mangaya and the implications this has for the right of Warumungu peoples to define relations vis-à-vis country free from Western preconceptions of “how they should do it”.
Just as a man’s sister’s daughter is of special significance in the exchange relationship that man has with another man, from whom he will receive a wife (the second man’s sister’s daughter) so too is a sister’s son important.
A sister’s son has very important ceremonial roles to play for that man. Without his sister’s son (and others like him) a man is just as incomplete in the important ceremonial sphere of life as he would be on the domestic sphere without a wife.
I think it is correct to say that few non-indigenous people, outside of professional anthropologists, have any real appreciation of the sheer complexity of the higher level exchange ‘games’ in play in First Peoples lives.
The collective and cumulative investment of real time and real energy into these ‘games’ meant that no single person had a right to suspend the workings of the system in their own favour.
Any individual attempt to short-circuit the workings of these complex interplays of exchange and alliances can be expected to raise howls of protest, which is clearly what happened in the account provided to Stanner in 1934.
Stanner’s exception provides us with the insights necessary to move beyond the picture as formed by Spencer and Gillen.
It may well be that, in 1901, with the impacts of direct colonisation on Warumungu life only a few decades old, there was still an extraordinary high degree of correct marriages possible for Warumungu people.
But, by the early 1930s, when Stanner arrived, Warumungu life perhaps
was knocked off kilter to the extent that one man had – of necessity or otherwise – opted for a form of marriage which would result in him ‘losing himself’ in terms of mangaya continuity.
Stanner noted:
“I received the impression from my informants that a native views with distaste the loss of his son to the other moiety, and would thus only contract the type of marriage which have this result (that is A1=A2) as a last resort. This would explain their infrequency. Naturally enough, a man likes his totemic line to be carried on without interruption. The loss by death of male children is often bitterly regretted….” (Stanner 1935 1979:30)
But, from the perspective of the mother’s brother so too may be the loss of a sister’s son – a special nephew in the other moiety who would otherwise have important roles to play.
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