Pitjantjatjara people and their neighbours of the Western Desert
Pitjantjatjara people and their neighbours inhabited (and inhabit) a very arid environment of sandy, montane and shield desert, tussock grassland and scrub, with very low and variable rainfall. Their country lies in the eastern Western Desert, where the borders of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory meet. The very low population density ranged around 1 person per 80 to 200 km2 according to estimates. People had access to the resources of the southern fringe of the "Aboriginal grain belt", in which grass seed, other seeds and fruits, as well as small game were available, especially reptiles and small mammals; larger mammals and birds were rather rare. Portable, multi-functional implements characterised the technology, and seed-grinding implements were a feature. Except for temporary brush hides, no large facilities were used.
Settlement and mobility were rather a-seasonal, although ethnographers have reconstructed certain tendencies. Smaller, more mobile groups formed after summer rains. Depending on winter rains people formed larger groups for ceremonies around larger waters, or split up into smaller, more mobile groups. As temperatures rose people aggregated on permanent waters, and mobility was minimal.
Pitjantjatjara and their neighbours identified primarily according to intersecting isoglossic language identities (e.g. pitja – come/go), loosely related to large tracts of country, proportionate to population density. Other modes of identity included the generation moieties, recently introduced section systems, and personal totem according to place of conception or birth.
The ancestral cosmology emphasised long ancestral journeys connecting any one place with many others. Many ancestors were associated with increase sites and rites, and other rituals such as male initiation and erotic rituals. As well as sorcery and magic performed by ngankari sorcerer/healers, people across the region cooperated in a system of local increase rites, performed regularly to ensure the reproduction of food species and the onset of rains.
Western Desert governance included regional cooperation in rituals, especially male initiation, that instantiated ancestral law, and related to ancestral journeys that linked many groups in a network of cross-cutting links. Initiation rites in this region included a number of ordeals for male initiates including circumcision and subincision. The institution of kurdaitji included secret killings in retaliation for breaches of religious secrecy, as well as an explanation for untoward events. Relations of authority had a marked generational structure, as a senior generation not only had authority over juniors, but "looked after" them. The ethnography of the region stresses the achievement of personal autonomy by moving through the generational structure of authority, and the separation of the genders. Women enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy, expressed in secret women's rituals.
An "Aluridja" kin terminology, in which distant cross-cousins were distinguished from siblings, marked Western Desert kinship. The bestowal of infant girls had links with circumcision initiation, as a boy's circumciser became his future wife's father. Some exchange by men of sisters and daughters is reported and polygyny was generally low, with few man marrying more than two wives. A kin network with the form of a "shifting web" resulted from distant cross-cousin marriage, but with some sister and daughter exchange linking kin groups.
No consistent picture of Western Desert land tenure emerges from the ethnography, but it seems that clusters of sites were held on the basis of multiple links, including place of birth, conception, initiation and knowledge, father's country and mother's county (through various ties). The more connections a person had the stronger their claim. A link to one's own country through ancestral tracks conferred rights in more distant countries.
Within a strongly gendered division of labour, women made and used their own implements, but men and women performed some similar activities such as hunting small reptiles and winnowing Triodia grass. The range of teams and mode of cooperation were similar to those of Kûnai people except that mixed gender teams go unreported. Residence groups tended to have been smaller on average (about 14) than among coast peoples, with larger temporary aggregations of up to 300. Residence groups drew on a range of cognatic and affinal links including bride-service; and consisted of family camps and bachelor camps, and single women's camps in the larger residence groups.
Women distributed their product to residents of their own camp (or hearth-group) as well as to certain other close relatives. The customary division of large game by men is intricately described for this region. In contrast with Kûnai men, a husband had a primary duty to provide food to his wife's parents and not his own. As elsewhere, men and probably women consumed part of their product before returning to camp. Consumption restrictions reserved certain foods for older men, while these and others were forbidden to children.
Exchange occurred in everyday relations, when residence groups met, and at large ceremonies. Items in wider networks of exchange included weapons, items of apparel, ochres, pearl shell from the northwest, stone for artefacts, native tobacco from the north, wombat fur from the south, and sacred objects. Specialists exchanged their services for goods, and of course marriage took the form of an exchange.
Pitjantjatjara and their neighbours formed part of an extensive and continuous web of relations across the Western Desert. People to the margins of the region accommodated to the institutions of their neighbours further out, leading to some differentiation among Western Desert peoples. Pintubi for example modified their kin terminology towards the Warlpiri model. Institutions were undergoing a process of change at the threshold of colonisation, for example in the diffusion of section systems into the region.
(Back: Supplementary Materials)