KURTUNGURLU
One Central Australian term for the men who provide these ceremonial and mentoring services is ‘kurtungurlu’.
I am never sure if Warumungu/Alyaywarra usage of ‘kurtungurlu’, as I heard it during land claim research in the 19080s, is a case of using a Warpliri term or not. If it was, it was a case of Warumungu people using a Warlpiri term which rested on long-established Warumungu practico-conceptual foundations.
From what i understand of Warlpiri matters, ‘kurtungurlu’ is part of a complementary opposite pair with ‘kirda ‘. Meggitt (p. 203) gives gira and guruŋulu.
This kurtungurlu-kirda distinction may sometimes be translated into English as “manager” and “owner”. This may be based on the role of owners and managers on pastoral stations, which is where many First Peoples would have encountered such roles while working as stockmen.
While we, using contemporary notions of rights in private property, automatically privilege ‘owner’ over ‘manager’ (owner is superior to manager) this may not be the actually basis for the distinction as used by First Peoples in Central Australia.
Pastoral Station Managers are typically in charge of everyday operations and present on the ground. While there are, of course, ‘owner-managers’ there are also cases where the ‘owner’ is a more remote figure – with great status as befits cattlemen’s own image of their place in the scheme of Australian life - who attends the Pastoral Station from time to time.
(All ‘owners’ are or were actually holders of pastoral leases, and many were horrified when they discovered, with the recognition of native title and the Wik decision, that the weak form of title they held may not be a form of exclusive possession. Having ‘land’ is very much part of a lifestyle which is deemed to provide a place in the Anglo-Australian social structure. Compare the extent of ‘ruling class’ land holdings in the United Kingdom.)
For other English glosses of kurtungurlu-kirda type of distinction – and a good account of the problem of accepting ‘kirda’ as owner in an Anglo-Australian legal sense – see Maddock 1972 1982:51-52.
I do know that kurtungurlu was used during the 1980s by some Warumungu/Alyawarra men to refer to men from the opposite moiety who played an important role in life. However, at this time the term had a wide circulation as a result of land claim Hearings involving Warlpiri speakers, and was also subject to much debate amongst researchers and lawyers.
Strehlow records it also for Arrente speakers, although his characterisation of kutuŋula as ‘temporary hired servants, so to speak’ is at complete odds with Warumungu practices. (Strehlow “Aranda Traditions” 1947 1968:132)
I was told by D.R. Jappanangka, a Warumungu man who had been raised by an Alyawarra man after the death of his father, of kurtungurlu “You gotta have ‘em!” He was most emphatic. Life could not be regarded as complete without them and the services they provide. An old kurtungurlu had instructed him and his brother in their country. There was no sense i could detect of such highly esteemed mentors being in any sense comparable to ‘temporary hired servants’.
Stanner noted a similar term to kurtungurlu in 1934:
“The father of one’s wife (if mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter) is ngunyara; if sister’s son’s daughter, is lambara, or kulngulu …” (Stanner 1935 1979:10)
The Warumungu land claim report of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner equates Stanner’s ‘kulngulu’ with ‘kurtungurlu’ (1988:57).
Neither ngunyara nor kulngulu are recorded in Jane Simpson’s ‘Preliminary Vocabulary of the Warumungu Language” (n.d. 1980). She gives jurtalja for WM, WF (page 9) and ?lamparra as “? woman’s son-in-law (JS)” .
Lamparra is a term i associate with Warlmanpa and Warlpiri speakers, but i never made a study of Warumungu relationship terms when i was working or living in their country. Wish i had.
Mary Laughren, in her relational set analysis of Warlpiri Kinship Structure, says:
“At the individual level, the relator P-1MP +M-1 means that for a man, his father-in-law (i.e., his child’s mother’s father) belongs to the same set as his sister’s child. While a man calls his father-in-law lamparra and considers him to belong to a generation higher than his own, the father-in-law refers to his son-in-law as maternal uncle ngamirni in recognition of the fact that the latter belongs to M, the set containing the former’s mother.” (1982:84 footnote 7. Note that both instances of ‘-1’ in the relator above are superscripts not available here. Now corrected but check against original)
Warumungu also have ngamirni for Mother’s Brother. (Simpson nd:24) and Disbray Warumungu Picture Dictionary 2005:6-7, 93)
None of Stanner’s three terms for father-in-law are recorded in Smantha Disbray and ‘Warumungu speakers’ 2005 ‘Warumungu Picture Dictionary’. Father-in-law appears to have been overlooked as part of the malungku (relations) section?
It is tempting to regard calling your son-in-law your Mother’s Brother as something which is due to the role of classificatory kinship rather than lived reality. But Stanner noted the difference in usage of the term for father-in-law between a marriage between a man and his mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter as opposed to the marriage between a man and his sister’s son’s daughter. Both of these women will be in the right punttu (sub-section).
In regard to generational/reproductive matters in life as it is lived, the likelihood of a man’s son-in-law being his own mother’s brother seems odd, but when the probably differences in age of marriage for the woman (15?) who becomes the mother and her brother (30?) are taken into account, it is possible that the man who marries his sister’s son’s daughter is also the mother’s brother of his own father-in-law. There were certainly accounts of older men having acquired much younger wives.
"SISTER’S SONS"
The concept of kurtungurlu, as general understood by non-indigenous researchers, involves men who are categorised (using English) as ‘sister’s sons’.
I think it is often acknowledged that, within this category there will be men who would also be identified as ‘sister’s sons’ (by European means of reckoning), along with other men.
The 1982 paper of David Nash provides an “An Etymological Note on Warlpiri kurdungurlu” provides a comprehensive and astute analysis of both ‘kirda’ and ‘kurdungurlu’ from a well-informed linguistic perspective.
In his 1962 ethnographic account of Warlpiri “Desert People” M. J. Meggitt (using a different orthography) suggests, in relation to the Warlpiri term guruŋulu that, as guruŋu-lu, it means “those who give arm-blood for ritual decorations”.
“The Phillip Creek men assert that the donors of arm-blood for a ceremony should not only be members of the opposite patrimoiety to the actors but should also be the close brothers-in-law of the latter. This convention has probably been adopted from the Warramunga at Phillip Creek, who say that ideally the actor’s father-in-law should give the arm-blood (vide Spencer and Gillen, 1904, p. 597).”
Phillip Creek, to the north of Tennant Creek, was a place of confinement (on Warumungu country) for various First Peoples including Warlpiri during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Meggitt continued:
“In any case, the men themselves often ignored the rule during the gadjiga ceremonies initiation ceremonies that I witnessed at Phillip Creek.” (ibid)
When First Peoples 'ignore the rule' then, rather than accusing them of not properly embodying their own culture (as is sometimes the case) it is probably necessary to recast the understanding of the rule in wider terms.
Meggitt’s Spencer and Gillen reference (1904:.597) was quoted at the outset of this piece of writing. The prior documentation of Warumungu practices (prior to Warlpiri people being confined at Phillip Creek) regarding armblood lends support to his suggestion that Warlpiri men were influenced by Warumungu practices.
It is clear from the Spencer and Gillen account that giving arm-blood was only one aspect, important thought it may be, of the prestations and counterprestations which comprise the relationships between Wurlurru and Kingili men.
One striking feature of related exchanges during these high rituals, as documented by Spencer and Gillen, was the highly structured sexual sharing of certain men's wives to ensure that the decorations did not fall off in ceremonies.
A full description of these relationships - armblood, circumcision, sexual privileges - reveals a very different notion of 'being related by blood' than is the usual meaning of that expression in Western life.
I have not read Chris Knight's 1987 Ph D thesis "Menstruation and the Origins of Culture" but he explores a 'rich vein' of some similar aspects of life regarding the role of blood and culture.
Rather than following Chris Knight, what can be said is that, amongst some First Peoples in this country, male solidarity is expressed by means which involve blood - and, in its socio-cultural context, this appears to reduce the risk of 'spilling blood' by acts of aggression.
Solidarity between men to ensure life's balance is maintained was/is not a simple ideology but a living reality, however contrary that may appear to modern eyes.
Relationships between men need to be understood within this major feature of First Peoples Ways.
Associate with this, in Warumungu life, is a major division between the world of men and the world of women.
The work of Diane Bell (e.g. "Daughters of the Dreaming') would be usefully consulted for a senior woman's view of such matters.
Annette Hamilton has written the two worlds in relation to Pitjantjatjarra speaking peoples. Keen writes:
"… Annette Hamilton depicts men's and women's domains in the east of the Western Desert as separate spheres of 'homosociality', both more separate and more equal than in northern Australia" (Keen 2004 2008:247)
'Homosociality'? Hmm. Men's domain, Women's domain. Men's World. Women's World. Whatever it is called - the concept of these two worlds seems to fit with Warumungu realities.
One of the first instructions I was given by senior men, when I commenced research on the original Warumungu land claim in early 1980, was "A man does not get around with women." I followed this instruction.
According the Central Land Council engaged a woman anthropologist to work with women. Large meetings of the 'claimants' saw a large group of women and a large group of men, typically listening to the non-indigenous lawyer at the front of the meeting (and on that stance, see Hall on The Silent Language).
My own view is that relationships between Warumungu men and women are complementary. Both men and women are culture carriers.
However, this distinction between what is known by senior men and others (women, uninitiated men, children) is a very real one. The world of senior lawmen is not the same as that understood by junior men.
It seemed to me that, unlike the original and aborted 1982 Warumungu land claim, in the 1985 Warumungu land claim, proceedings were dominated by women and junior men.
Curious forces had sidelined me as an enabler to the senior lawmen and those same forces had not replaced a male anthropologist to assist the senior men. I think this resulted in some real losses (of land recognised by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner) for Warumungu people.
Anyone who had properly read Spencer and Gillen, including Gillen's Diary and Spencer's field notebooks, could not possibly come to the narrow descent-based dogma interpretation of Warumungu Ways which informed the findings of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner in the 1985 Warumungu Land Claim report.
The Aboriginal Land Commissioner, while taking the high moral ground in the introduction to his Report, obeyed his cultural masters and withheld official Anglo-Australian recognition of Aboriginal ownership to a large part of the claim - desert land which, as with Wakaya country to the East, may prove to be rich in mineral resources.
In Warumungu life there is a major division between two complementary opposite components - man and woman - and a major division between two complementary opposite divisions - Wurlurru and Kingili.
Both of these arrangements are solutions to some of life's problems. Life is never as simple as some theorists consider it to be. Rather than trying to force life as lived to comply with some preconceived idea, one challenge for a conceptual craftsperson is to overcome the limits which have been imposed in order to make some kind of sense out of a confusing experience and to refashion those limits to better fit with life as lived.
Using both-and thinking and adopting a complementary opposite mentality is useful in bridging the incisions cut across life-flows by the often divisive and manipulative either-or logic of modern master narratives.
Levi-Strauss touches on the role of dual organisation as a 'principle of organisation' as 'a method for solving multiple problems' in his chapter on "The Bipartie Ideology of the Amerindians" in his 1991 work published in English in 1995 "The Story of Lynx".
It is clear to anyone who is familiar with First Peoples Ways in this country - where 'moieties' abound - that complementary opposition has served as a key method for solving multiple problems.
One problem for modern anthropology is that it lacked sufficient understanding of the role of solving those problems for the formation of First Peoples institutionalised practices.
As Ray Norris recently wrote, in The Conversation, regarding the paradigm problem:
"The prevailing paradigm in Elkin's time was that Aboriginal culture was primitive … So an anthropologist might study the Aboriginal people as objects, just as a biologist might study insects under a microscope... Even now, the paradigm lives on..." (http://theconversation.com/aboriignal-people-how-to-understand-their-science-23835 accessed 25-4-2014)
Ken Maddock was one of the anthropologists who played a leading role in raising awareness of the importance of such complementary opposite relationships in First Peoples Ways.
His early focus was with Dalabon people further to the north of Warumungu people. Dalabon people have a gidjan-djungkayi distinction which appears to be very similar to the kirda-kurdungurlu distinction.
In his 1972 book “The Australian Aborigines – A Portrait of their Society’” Ken wrote:
“A gidjan may wear a design, perform a dance and sit down at a place only if a djungkayi permits it. It is this man who decides upon the place, selects the design and paints its outlines on the dancer’s body, and stipulates the dance to be performed. The djungkayi will even instruct the gidjan in the steps of the dance…. A man is djungkayi for a place, and hence for the associated dances and designs, if his mother belonged to the clan in whose estate it is located. He will call the place and its ritual by the kinship term which means ‘mother’. ” (Maddock 1972 1982:47)
I quote that excerpt because it conveys something of the flavour of the relationship and counteracts the tendency of our modern minds to insist on a locus of responsibility within a single individual – and, in the case of some forms of anthropology, to see relationships of authority in narrow ‘vertical’ patrilineal terms.
It also stands in stark contrast to the Strehlow view of the role of kutungula in Arrente (Aranda) Ways. {insert special character for ng}
From a semiotic perspective which regards the painting of designs on men’s bodies as an external display of the otherwise invisible structuring of neural systems, the key role of a ‘significant other’ in applying these visible designs can be regarded as a statement also in regard to the means by which the person is formed as a member of a social universe.
Spencer and Gillen record how the right to bestow the design is hotly contested when breached:
“On one occasion, in the Warramunga tribe, we saw a father-in-law in a state of great anger because, without his permission, another man had taken upon himself the privilege of decorating his son-in-law.” (1969:598)
After the a great armed display and threat, some of the older men “… managed to effect and a reconciliation between him and the delinquent …” the situation quietened down and the offender “… offered to give up his work to the father-in-law …” (ibid)
This instance, which renders visible underlying relationships, certainly confirms the role of father-in-law for Stanner’s kulŋulu (in the event of the wife being sister’s son’s daughter?).
It also serves to confirm the rule mentioned by Meggett, but note that when the pride of place of father-in-law was affirmed other men continued to play their part.
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