Wiil and Minong people of the south coast of the Southwest and its hinterland

Wiil and Minong people inhabited  a region of coast, estuaries, and heathy hinterland, with a “Mediterranean” climate of moderate winter rainfall, and a medium - high population density of perhaps 1 person per 12 - 25 km2. The country of Minong people lay between King George Sound in the east, perhaps to Bremer Bay in the west, while Wiil people inhabited country to the north of the Stirling Range. The habitats of heath and mulga, and forests to the west, provided a broad array of resources. While people exploited fish of the river-basins, estuaries and rivers, there was little emphasis on marine resources except for the occasional seal or beached whale. Characteristic features of the technologies of the region included the kodj hammer-hatchet and taap saw-knife, the use of fish traps, and sewn kangaroo-skin cloaks. People did not use canoes.

            Mobility and settlement had a marked seasonality. In the summer dry-season larger residence groups formed at permanent waters and at the coast for the fishing. In autumn people moved inland from the coast to fish the rivers and hunt large mammals. The winter wet-season saw smaller groups on ephemeral waters and winter-wet depressions, and the formation of some larger groups for fishing. In spring people moved to form large groups on permanent waters and moved to the coast.

            People identified according to broad region, like Kûnai people. These identities were relative to a perspective, such as Wiil, “northerners”. Totemic identities included patri-groups, patrifilial semi-moieties, matri-moieties, and personal totems by gift or exchange.

            At least some local totemic ancestral sites were connected by ancestral journeys. Minong people apparently did not subscribe to doctrines about the presence of wakal serpents on their country – a widespread doctrine in the southwest. Wiil and Minong may have had increase procedures.  Mulgar sorcerer/healer/magicians had a similar role to  Yuwaaliyaay wirreenun.

            Wiil and Minong governance shared essential features with other regions – a  concept of moral law, male socialisation through initiation, and “self-help” modes of redress, but male initiation did not involve mutilation or secret rites apparently. Male leaders were recognised, but data are insufficient to make a judgement about gender relations.

            A Kariera-like kin terminology structured the social universe of kin, but with the extension of relative age-differences in the senior generation to their children in one’s own generation. It differentiated distant cross-cousins from close ones, prescribing marriage to a distant relative (probably a cross-cousin). Infant bestowal was practised, and wives were probably exchanged between patri-groups and semi-moieties. Polygyny reached low to moderate levels.

            Countries were probably held by patri-groups, perhaps related to patrifilial semi-moieties. A person had use-rights in their spouse’s country, the country of a totem conferred on one as a gift by a mother’s “brother”, and through other ties.

                  A mix of work-teams similar to other regions can be inferred, but no mixed gender teams are reported. Both men and women spun possum fur and ground seed, and both burned off the country in game drives; otherwise the genders had distinct tasks. Residence groups usually included about 20 people but perhaps up to 90. Bride service may have been followed by patrilocal residence, and anecdotal evidence suggests that some residence groups formed around a core of brothers.

            A few distinctive features modified the general pattern of distribution according to gender. Men reserved part of their kill for their wives; a group of women apparently shared rights in grass seed; and the owner of a dog enjoyed the greater part of the kill. As elsewhere, men and women each ate part of their own product before returning to camp.

            Consumption restrictions were related to fertility and hunting success. Certain meats including quail were reserved for older men, and goanna eggs to older men and women; these and others restriction applied to  children, pubescent boys and girls, and pregnant women. Consumption restrictions also applied to male initiates.

            Exchanges included those of marriage and compensation for injury or death. The end of a boy’s initiation journey was the occasion for a large scale gift-giving in the form of payment by the boy’s kin to his guardians, as well as return gifts. These linked people of a wide region in “trade” relations in which people obtained goods that were not locally available, sometimes through barter. Items included spear sticks, stone flakes, throwing-sticks, food, and banksia honey.

            The ethnographic sources give an impression of tension between, on the one hand, local autonomy and differentiation, and on the other, regional links and cooperation through initiation journeys and marriage. The latter were intended to ameliorate endemic conflict, notably between Minong and Wiil people. Sources for other areas of the southwest give the impression of an overall cultural similarity to Wiil and Minong, with variation in moiety and semi-moiety organisation constituting the most obvious differences. However, population density on the west coast was markedly higher. Wiil and Minong were aware of the very different cultures of the goldfields and the desert.

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