Associate:
Dated: 21 December 2012
Appendix A
Note: Blue crossed area indicates the only current overlap.
Yellow crossed area indicated a former overlap that is no longer current.
Appendix B
BIRTH TOTEMISM
The 'Balladonia statement'
42. One product of Professor Sansom's assertions of common cultural characteristics between the Western Desert and the Ngadju is that the latter shared the former's propensity to exhibit birth totemism. In his 2012 report Professor Sansom identifies a passage from Bates as her 'Balladonia statement' (185). Professor Sansom writes that in the passage in question, 'Bates wrote that kinship at Balladonia was reckoned in all lines (and, therefore, was cognatic)' (185). It was unclear to me to which passage Professor Sansom is referring as he provides no cross-reference to guide the reader to the originating text. He provides a clue, writing that I cite this extract in paragraph 259 of my report (185). There I reproduce a passage from Bates's folio 12/289 in which she discusses the, 'various tribes composing the Jinyila nation' (ibid). This does not appear to accord with Professor Sansom's reference. I assume then that Professor Sansom has made an error in his cross referencing to my report.
43. There is a second clue in the same paragraph (185). Professor Sansom adds that I rely on the 'Balladonia statement' when 'asserting the historical continuity to the system of cognation in Ngadju country' (185) and cross references this to paragraph 328 of my report. At this reference (328 of my 2009 report) I refer the reader to an earlier paragraph of my report (Palmer 2009, 208) where I cite a passage from Bates which I consider to be consistent with the rule of cognation. So the Bates's passage Professor Sansom is considering is the one I cite (in part) in my paragraph 208. I am then able to identify the location of this in Professor Sansom's 2012 report and find it at paragraph 52, which reproduces paragraph 99 of his 2004 report. This is taken from White's edited version of Bates's manuscripts (Bates 1985, 87-8). I make the assumption that this quotation is what Professor Sansom later calls, the 'Balladonia Statement'.
44. The text, as reproduced from Bates's manuscript by White is as follows:
In the pedigrees collected there was no distinct rule as to descent, Children may follow their father's or mother's animal named area, according to the importance of such area. Mother's brothers will sometimes decide the division of their sister's children, and a child may be given some special district as a mark of favour, that is, if a wild fruit man is visiting an opossum district, and a child is born to him in that district, or has already been born but has not been entered into its own area, it will be formally entered into the opossum division and will, if a girl, probably be promised to one of the opossum men, or if a boy, he will belong to the opossum men for initiation when his time arrives.
Bates 1985, 87-88, footnote by editor, I.White.
45. Professor Sansom cites this passage (52) as he did in his earlier report (Professor Sansom 2004, 99). In my further report of 2009 I made the following comment with respect to this way of thinking.
Professor Sansom states that he accepts and endorses the conclusion that, 'these people had birth totems; that is a child was given the totem associated with its place of birth' (White 1985, 112). He states further that 'birth-totemism is indeed the system of totemic affiliation for the majority of the Western Desert peoples' (Professor Sansom 2004, 101). He cites Cane (2002) and Hamilton and vachon (1986) in support of this view (ibid). He adds that, 'the people to whom Daisy bates attributes both birth-totemism and multiple potential affiliations to country have distinguishing social and cultural institutions that are similar to or the same as those found among people of the Western Desert cultural bloc' (Professor Sansom 2004, 101).
46. Professor Sansom judges White's observation (in the footnote 16) to be 'an important observation' which he accepts and endorses (53).
47. Professor Sansom extrapolates on the White footnote to conclude that the people of the area in question (north of Esperance and running eastward through Fraser Range, Balladonia and towards and perhaps beyond the Hampton Plains) had birth totems, having multiple pathways to country.
In this way, she discovered a system of cognation distinguished also by recognition of birth-totemism, which gave each individual a personal and distinguishing tie to a totem place. The tie to the place of one's birth-totem is a tie or connection to a site in country that is a tie or connection not based on descent. Recruitment to descent group and country is thus based on mixed criteria (as among people of the Western Desert cultural bloc). Classically there were two forms of connection.
48. Professor Sansom has written that the, 'Western Desert ethnography can be treated as indicative of trends that would have characterised the normative system of the Ngadju when it still retained most elements of its classic expression' (Professor Sansom 2004, 210; cf. Palmer 2009, 213). My understanding of this statement was that Professor Sansom held the view that there had been a substantial change in Ngadju local organisation as it had lost aspects of its customary content; in this case birth or conception totemism. The significance of Western Desert ethnography to the Ngadju is a continuing theme in Professor Sansom's 2012 report (e.g. 54, 55 and 62). So too is his opinion that the Ngadju have suffered cultural loss. Professor Sansom states (185-189) that the loss of birth totemism is both a 'shift' and a 'loss of personal and special totemic connection' (187) and consequently there is now no 'essential mediating spirit' (ibid). It seems to me that a 'loss' of a cultural attribute, particularly if it is judged 'essential' is rather more than a 'shift'. In my view, based on my reading of these accounts, Professor Sansom is identifying what for him is to be judged a substantial discontinuity. This interpretation is further supported by Professor Sansom's identifying a lack of contemporary birth totemism amongst the Ngadju as one of the many examples of what he terms 'Ngadju exceptionalism', that is, an absence in the contemporary account that does not accord with what is to be expected. I return to Professor Sansom's discussion of 'exceptionalism' in the following chapter of this report.
49. Professor Sansom's conclusion that loss of Ngadju birth totemism is evidence of a discontinuity relies on a set of inter-related propositions. These can be summaries as follows:
In times past Ngadju had birth totems;
Bates said the Ngadju had birth totems;
The Ngadju were like the Western Desert which had birth totems;
Amongst the Ngadju birth totemism is now gone;
There is a lack of continuity of customary belief and practice.
50. The initial proposition ('the Ngadju had birth totemism') relies then on the second and third propositions together as the basis for its veracity. In my view there are good reasons to question whether the data support such a conclusion and its present-day consequences relating to discontinuity and loss. I have already discussed the applicability of the western Desert to the Ngadju above... I concluded, as I did in my further report (2009, 230) that while the Western Desert culture may be helpful to an understanding of some aspects of Ngadju culture, its usefulness is limited and it should not be used to determine prior cultural practices by close analogue, as Professor Sansom would have it (Palmer 2009, 223-230). I stated my reasons for concluding that Bates's materials on totemism and local organisation were unsatisfactory and therefore could provide little comfort for developing a concluded view (Ibid, 231-273).
51. This brings us back to the passage cited by Professor Sansom that Bates wrote in relation to her discussion of 'marriage laws' and which I cited above in paragraph 44. I have reproduced the relevant pages in my possession from the Bates's manuscripts which provided the basis for the final text that White redacted to compile her edited version of Bates's 'Native Tribes of Western Australia' (White 1985). These pages are Appendix A-4 to this report. This extract has original page numbers (see Palmer 2009, 80-81) but appears incomplete. While folios 5/94 to 5/102 are sequential, my copies then jump to 5/106, so pages 5/103-105 are apparently missing. While working on this material I annotated the text in some places to identify the relevant location in White 1985 as well as clarifying some lettering or numbers which were unclear in my copy. Bates also appears to have added comment in her own hand.
52. My qualifications regarding the degree to which this reference is helpful in an attempt to establish that the Ngadju had birth totems is based on three considerations: applicability, reliability and interpretability.
Applicability
53. Bates may have been writing of an area 'north of Esperance and running eastward through Fraser Range, Balladonia and towards and perhaps beyond the Hampton Plains' (Bates 1985, 86). However, White indicates in her footnote 16 (see paragraph 45 above) that the area being discussed by Bates was west of the Desert cultures, which would place it north of the application area (White 1985, 112, footnote 16). The field data used by Bates and upon which she appears to have based her conclusions are genealogies. These are taken from 'Drollinya' (Toolinna rockhole, site 5712; 8/96), Thomas River (8/97) and Balladonia (5/99). Her field data and discussion relating to circumcision (5/101) support a conclusion that she was examining aspects of an interface between south western or Noongar culture and Ngadju, rather than any aspect of Western Desert culture.
54. While I consider there to be enough evidence to relate two of Bates's genealogies to the Ngadju claim area, it remains unclear whether her general comment relating to the descent of totems and marriage laws related to the Ngadju, the noongar or to both. Bates does not make any reference to desert cultures either explicitly or implicitly.
Reliability
55. Bates states that she gained her information from, 'the few natives from those districts who were interrogated' at which point White, her editor, inserts in square brackets 'see introduction', but gives no page number. This is possibly a reference to White's short biographic account of Bates in her Introduction. There White reports that Bates visited Esperance, 'and as far north as the Goldfields' in the period 1907-08 (White 1985,6). However, Bates's own explanation of her Balladonia materials was that she got them while at Esperance, where she, 'caught a couple of natives from that district' (Bates 1985, 12). It seems more unlikely then that Bates ever visited Fraser Range or Balladonia as Professor Sansom appears to imply (80). By Bates's own admission the statement she made 'cannot be certified' (Bates 1985, 86). Her statements in this regard are then, in my view, provisional, generally drawn and should not be relied upon.
56. I have set down my reasons for treating the Bates material with caution in my further report (Palmer 2009, 84-86, 203-207). I note that Professor Sansom has not responded to these criticism of the potential reliability of Bates's work (ibid, 205-6). I am in agreement with Mr Wood who does not consider that Bates provided 'a succinct, complete and invaluable statement' about how people in this area gained rights to land (Wood 2010, 64) as Professor Sansom has stated (Sansom 2004, 197; cf 2012, 83 and 86).
Interpretability
57. In my view Professor Sansom's conclusions in his paragraph 54 (cited in paragraph 47 above) are something of a leap from the material discussed in his paragraph 53. While I do not discount it as being a possible interpretation of the text, I am not convinced that it is the most obvious. My reasons for reaching this conclusion are based on a consideration of the originating text, not merely that part of it reproduced by White in her edited version of the Bates's manuscript.
58. An examination of the Bates materials demonstrates the enormity of the editing job done by White in reproducing the text which is now available to Professor Sansom. What it also shows is that some of the detail is lost and the emphasis of Bates's account diminished. Folio 8/96 for example shows that Bates was interested in 'laws of marriage' which she relates to totemic exogamy or endogamy. Her genealogies show that a person could marry a person of the same totem but there is no rule in this regard as in the genealogy provided at this reference the parents were totemically endogamous, the children all exogamous (ibid). Some children obtained their father's totem, some their mother's totem. This and her other genealogical materials led Bates to conclude that, 'no distinct rule as to descent is followed' (ibid, 5/106). She appears to be of the view that the totem is derived from the 'animal names area' or from a natural species common to the region (ibid, 5/101). The data she presents are poorly developed and it remains uncertain as to what Bates was recording. In this then I agree with Mr Wood who rightly concludes that Bates 'was long on listing her informants' totems in great detail but short on how they acquired them' (Wood 2010, 65).
59. Bates's account of the derivation of totemism is notably bereft of reference to birth. The general principle appears to be cognatic descent: 'Children may follow their father's or mother's animal named area, according to the importance of such area' (Bates 1985, 87). A totem then is a matter of descent, not place of birth. Alternatively, a totem may be bestowed by a mother's brother but no reason is provided by Bates to explain the choice. Another explanation offered by Bates is that a totem may be given, 'as a mark of favour'. Bates gives an illustrative example, saying that a person of the 'wild fruit totem' might visit a 'possum district' where a son is born to him, 'or has already been born but has not been entered into its own area', and the son gains the possum totem. The relevance of birth is then limited to just one of four examples (descent, bestowal, birth, father visiting). This is not a system that has birth at its heart. In the genealogies that I discuss above, most totems appear to have been gained via descent, from either parent, rather than by some other principle. In short then, my reading of the text does not support the conclusion that Bates was describing 'birth totemism' as White (in my view) erroneously concluded and as Professor Sansom would also have it.
60. In my view it is not possible to interpret with any certainty what was the system Bates described. It is for these reasons that I am of the view that Bates's material needs to be treated with caution (Palmer 2009, 84-86) and why I concluded that admitting Bates's material to an assessment of customary practices needs to be done with substantial qualification (ibid, 264-271; 2010, 84-86).
61. Professor Sansom does not share my reservations. He proposes that these data from Bates are evidence of the existence of a fundamental birth totemism, such that it was in earlier times 'regarded as important' (186). I can see no justification from the tests studied for reaching this conclusion beyond the footnote of Bates's editor, White, which I discuss above (see paragraph 30). Professor Sansom, on the basis of this assumption then speculates that the Ngadju system now bereft of this aspect of its former cultural fundamentals has lost the 'essential mediating spirit' (188). Mr Wood is of the view that for the areas discussed here personal birth or conception totems cannot be verified from Bates's materials, although he does not rule out the possibility (Wood 2010, 67). In this Wood and I are in agreement.
Appendix C
The Balladonia statement
In her Native Tribes of Western Australia, Daisy Bates groups together those people living north of Esperance, eastward through the Fraser Range to Balladonia and on beyond to Hampton Plains, as a single cultural entity. (The area covered would include the lands of both the Ngadju and the Kalaaku.) She then makes an important set of observations, beginning by referring to the family trees she had collected from people who belonged to this zone:
'In the pedigrees collected there was no distinct rule as to descent. Children may follow their father's or mother's animal named area, according to the importance of such area. Mother's brothers will sometimes decide the division of their sister's children, and a child may be given some special district as a mark of favour, that is, if a wild fruit man is visiting an opossum district, and a child is born to him in that district, or has already been born but has not been entered into its own area, it will be formally entered into the opossum division and, if a girl, probably be promised to one of the opossum men, or if a boy, he will belong to the opossum men for initiation when his time arrives.' (Bates 1985:87-8)
The separate question is answered as follows: