The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus Page A
Authors: Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus
One of the early Protectors, a magistrate named F. J. Gillen, teamed up with Melbourne biology professor Baldwin Spencer to write two important books on the Aborigines of central Australia. Spencer and Gillen’s pioneering work soon inspired anthropologists, including A. R. Radcliffe Brown and W. Lloyd Warner, to record native Australian culture before it vanished. For their part, Spencer and Gillen became so closely associated with the Aranda that they were eventually initiated into the tribe—without, one hopes, having a tooth knocked out.
What the Aborigines have since done for themselves, of course, is more important than anything a magistrate or an anthropologist could do for them. One day, in the 1960s, a man named Bill Kurtzman saw a young Aborigine girl peering through the fence at a tennis court in Barellan, New South Wales. Kurtzman encouraged her to enter the court to see if she liked the game. The young girl turned out to be a member of the Wiradjuri tribe; her name was Evonne Goolagong, and such was her aptitude for tennis that by age 18 she was playing at Wimbledon. Ms. Goolagong went on to win 14 Grand Slam titles, four Australian Opens, a French Open, and Wimbledon Championships in 1971 and 1980.
We would do well to remember that every human being on earth is descended from hunters and gatherers, and we should not underestimate any of them.
CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY
The landscape of central Australia featured broad plains with groves of acacia, dry creek beds lined with gum trees, and occasional mountain ranges rising 2,500 to 5,000 feet above sea level. Each rocky outcrop, hot spring, or water hole had a name and a sacred history. Wild yams and other tubers were there to be dug up with sticks, and there were pools of standing water with ducks, pelicans, spoonbills, and ibis. The Aborigines used oval shelters called wurleys and ephemeral lean-tos called mia-mia. Night found them sleeping in scooped-out hollows, sometimes covered with a kangaroo hide. Day might find them cooking sedge bulbs in hot ashes, like the foragers of Wadi Kubbaniya.
Many Australian tribes, as mentioned earlier, were divided into two opposing moieties. Each moiety, in turn, was divided into six or more clans, each claiming descent from a different ancestor. Men of a specific clan in one moiety were supposed to marry women of a specific clan in the other moiety. In the case of the Arabana tribe, for example, men of the Dingo clan married women of the Waterhen clan, men of the Cicada clan married women of the Crow clan, and so on. Even if she were of the proper clan, a bride might only be eligible for marriage if she were classified as the groom’s “mother’s elder brother’s daughter.”
Needless to say, the section/subsection system greatly reduced one’s choice of a wife. To get around this problem, eligible girls were often betrothed to their future husbands early in life, though they continued to live with their parents until their teens. Sometimes a youth’s relatives arranged for his circumcision to be done by a man whose future daughters would be nupas, or eligible brides, for him. This ritual told the youth whom to seek out when the time came. The section system also affected polygamy; a hunter who decided that he could support a second wife might wind up marrying his first wife’s sister, because no one else was eligible.
Each central Australian group owned foraging rights to its territory, but just as with Basarwa territories, the land might be shared with neighbors in good years. Each local band was led by a senior male, called an alatunja by the Aranda. Within limits the post was hereditary, passing from father to son or, if no son existed, to a brother or brother’s son. The authority of the alatunja did not extend outside his descent group, and he relied on the advice of a small group of male elders.
In large agricultural societies, hereditary leadership is often linked to social inequality. In the case of
What the Aborigines have since done for themselves, of course, is more important than anything a magistrate or an anthropologist could do for them. One day, in the 1960s, a man named Bill Kurtzman saw a young Aborigine girl peering through the fence at a tennis court in Barellan, New South Wales. Kurtzman encouraged her to enter the court to see if she liked the game. The young girl turned out to be a member of the Wiradjuri tribe; her name was Evonne Goolagong, and such was her aptitude for tennis that by age 18 she was playing at Wimbledon. Ms. Goolagong went on to win 14 Grand Slam titles, four Australian Opens, a French Open, and Wimbledon Championships in 1971 and 1980.
We would do well to remember that every human being on earth is descended from hunters and gatherers, and we should not underestimate any of them.
CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY
The landscape of central Australia featured broad plains with groves of acacia, dry creek beds lined with gum trees, and occasional mountain ranges rising 2,500 to 5,000 feet above sea level. Each rocky outcrop, hot spring, or water hole had a name and a sacred history. Wild yams and other tubers were there to be dug up with sticks, and there were pools of standing water with ducks, pelicans, spoonbills, and ibis. The Aborigines used oval shelters called wurleys and ephemeral lean-tos called mia-mia. Night found them sleeping in scooped-out hollows, sometimes covered with a kangaroo hide. Day might find them cooking sedge bulbs in hot ashes, like the foragers of Wadi Kubbaniya.
Many Australian tribes, as mentioned earlier, were divided into two opposing moieties. Each moiety, in turn, was divided into six or more clans, each claiming descent from a different ancestor. Men of a specific clan in one moiety were supposed to marry women of a specific clan in the other moiety. In the case of the Arabana tribe, for example, men of the Dingo clan married women of the Waterhen clan, men of the Cicada clan married women of the Crow clan, and so on. Even if she were of the proper clan, a bride might only be eligible for marriage if she were classified as the groom’s “mother’s elder brother’s daughter.”
Needless to say, the section/subsection system greatly reduced one’s choice of a wife. To get around this problem, eligible girls were often betrothed to their future husbands early in life, though they continued to live with their parents until their teens. Sometimes a youth’s relatives arranged for his circumcision to be done by a man whose future daughters would be nupas, or eligible brides, for him. This ritual told the youth whom to seek out when the time came. The section system also affected polygamy; a hunter who decided that he could support a second wife might wind up marrying his first wife’s sister, because no one else was eligible.
Each central Australian group owned foraging rights to its territory, but just as with Basarwa territories, the land might be shared with neighbors in good years. Each local band was led by a senior male, called an alatunja by the Aranda. Within limits the post was hereditary, passing from father to son or, if no son existed, to a brother or brother’s son. The authority of the alatunja did not extend outside his descent group, and he relied on the advice of a small group of male elders.
In large agricultural societies, hereditary leadership is often linked to social inequality. In the case of
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