Ngarinyin people and their neighbours of the northwest Kimberley
Ngarinyin people and their neighbours inhabited (and many still inhabit) the rugged Kimberley plateau and its western coast. With its tropical monsoon climate of high summer rainfall and regular cyclones, the plateau is clothed mainly by woodland, broken by rivers and gorges. The rugged coast breaks up into gorges and islands. People probably lived at a low to medium density [check] of about 1 person per 10-25 km2 on the plateau, to a very high population density on parts of the coast.
The food resources were typical of the tropical north: Dioscorea yams as well as tropical fruit trees featured as staples, and people processed toxic cycad palm nuts. People exploited the riverine resources of the rocky interior, as well as coastal and island resources. Using double-layered rafts, men hunted dugong and turtle in inlets and between the islands, negotiating huge tidal currents.
Settlement and mobility displayed a marked seasonality. In the summer wet season inland residence groups formed on higher round, living in huts and caves, making occasional visits to the coast. At the end of the wet season people moved down into the valleys and camped by pools. They remained in the valleys through the dry season, burning off the grasses, and coming together into large groups for ceremonies. In the “hot time” before the onset of rains residence groups concentrated at permanent waters, then moved up-country as the rains approached.
Named languages, such as Ngarinyin and Worrorra, related to broad tracts of country. People also identified by patri-moiety and patri-groups, some of which cut across language –identity. The countries of patri-groups of the same moiety conjoined to form long swathes, each intersecting with country of the opposite moiety. Individual links to groups and country included the place of one’s spirit conception, one’s father’s mother's group and country, and totemic identity bestowed by a “father’s father” (father’s father’s “brother”) belonging to a group other than one’s own.
The cosmology of Ngarinyin people and their neighbours centred on the totemic wanjina ancestors, and the wunggurr pythons associated (like the wanjina) with rain and with conception. The wanjina were associated with clouds, depicted in many galleries of rock-art. Long and short ancestral journeys connected ancestral sites in a cross-cutting network. Regular repainting of the wanjina by members of each patri-group and their close kin was thought necessary for the reproduction of food species and for the seasonal recurrence of rains. The cosmology thus gave equal weight to celestial and terrestrial/aquatic domains. Barnman, who combined roles of sorcerer, healer, magician and rain-maker, were dominant figures.
Modes of governance bore some similarities to the other regions. Neighbouring groups cooperated in the performance of initiation and exchange ceremonies, with totemic patri-groups as holders of sacra and sites associated with the wanjina. Resources of male power included the barnman role, the role of patri-group elder, polygynous marriage, and one’s position in the wurnan exchange network. The high level of polygyny suggests that gender relations were relative unequal.
As in the other regions, a person’s social universe consisted of people classified as kin. Kinship was structured by an Aranda-like kin terminology, modified by Omaha skewing, giving it an asymmetric character with relatives on the father’s side distinct from those on the mother’s side. People extended kin terms to patri-groups as wholes in some contexts (e.g. one’s “father’s mother” group). A man married a cross-cousin classified as “father’s mother”, who was often a woman of his father’s mother’s patri-group. Polygyny was high, with men marrying up to seven (recorded in the ethnography) and perhaps as many as eleven wives (recorded in oral tradition) recorded.
The marriage system gave rise to asymmetrical networks in which women of one group married men of another, and women of the second group married men of a third and so on – with some groups connected in circles by such marriages in circles. Some groups were linked by reciprocal marriages through “wrong” marriages and multiple lineages. The asymmetrical sequences were ideally linked to exchange relations in the wurnan exchange network. High polygyny increased demographic differences between groups, and led to cycles of growth and decline.
An individual has formal use-rights in the country of their own patri-group, their country of conception, and their mother’s, father’s mother’s, and daughter’s husband’s country. Certain of these overlapped with spouse’s country, and a person may have had a claim to country linked to his or her own through totemic ancestral tracks.
Both men and women engaged in fire-drives for game, and the genders may have cooperated in using fish-dams. Otherwise men’s and women’s productive tasks were distinct. A similar range of work teams to those of other regions can be inferred from the rather scanty evidence. The size of residence groups go unrecorded, but indigenous concepts suggest a range from three family groups to large groups for ceremonies. I infer a mix of cognatic and affinal ties in the formation of residence groups, representing members of several patri-groups.
As in other regions, men and women consumed part of their product before returning to the home-base. The general pattern of distribution was similar to other regions; a Worrorra man was supposed to share food with his wife's parents, his own parents (as among Kûnai people), and others of the residence group, and with his children. Women distributed their product mainly in their own camp (“hearth group”) and to certain other close relatives. Wurnan relations also structured distribution after a communal hunt. Men could restrict distribution by declaring a hunting ground and its game “taboo”, and imposed other restrictions. Consumption restrictions were imposed on children, and certain foods including long yams were reserved for adults.[add others]
Occasions for exchanges included marriage and initiation, and gifts to wanjina ancestors. The wurnan exchange network linked patri-groups in set sequences for exchanges, ideally, including marriages. Exchange items included meat, honey, ochres, stone spear-points wrapped in paperbark, bamboo spears, songs, and sacred objects. Exchange transactions took place at ceremony grounds among other places.
Ngarinyin, Worrorra, Wunambal and Gamberre people and people of neighbouring languages formed a network of people with similar institutions, living across a range of environments, but centred on the Kimberley plateau. They shared the wanjina and wunggurr cosmologies and participated in the wurnan exchange network, although these also linked them to their neighbours of distinct language families.
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