Povinelli AustralianAborigines

"Where We Gana Go Now": Foraging Practices and Their Meanings among the Belyuen Australian Aborigines Author(s): Elizabeth
A. Povinelli Source: Human Ecology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 169-202 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4603046 . Accessed: 10/04/2013 23:25
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Human Ecology, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1992
"Where We Gana Go Now": Foraging Practices and Their Meanings Among the Belyuen Australian Aborigines
Elizabeth A. Povinellil Established approaches to human hunting-gathering behavior have failed to integrate economic, political, and cultural motivations and to describe the rich array of meanings foragers derivefrom theirpractices. This essay examines an Australian Aboriginal community'sforaging and settlement behavior. It argues that in order to understand the forn and meaning of Australian Aboriginal economic practices, researchers must attend to local and regional economic, historical, and ecological constraints on foraging behavior. Equally important are local understandings of the productive potential of foraging activity, including a capacity to maintain the physical and mythic topology of the countryside and human body.
KEY WORDS: coastal hunter-gatherers; Australian Aborigines; land use; land conflict; indigenous meaning.
INTRODUCTION In this essay, I examine data collected from January 1989 to January 19902 and enumerate the multiple and often competing cultural, economic,
'Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, 265 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853.
2In addition to this work, during my first stay at Belyuen from October 15, 1984 to July 21,
1985, I went on 85 foraging trips and spent the dry season at an outstation on the west coast of the Cox Peninsula. During a short visit to the community from June 12, 1987 to July 13, 1987, I went on another 17 foraging trips and spent the weekends at two other west coast outstations. Measurements of gross food weights were made by hand springs, or, in the case of the larger sea and land mammals, by measurement and comparison to previously recorded weights of the species. In all, I recorded 532 foraging trips made by Belyuen men and women to sites on the Cox Peninsula and in the Port Patterson area. I was present on 282 of these trips. On others, I gathered relevant information from the senior man or woman on the trip. In figuring food composition tables, I have followed Betty Meehan (1982) and Jon Altman's (1987) use of in-field weight calculations, which, like theirs, were very similar to Thomas and Corden's results (1977). I have used their standard conversion tables for figuring the values 169
0300-7839192/0600-0169$06.5010 ? 1992 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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and political motivationsfor Belyuen Aborigines'selection and use of sites. What are the ecological and political-economic constraints on people's temporal and spatial use of the Cox Peninsula?What social, political, and culturalmeaningsarise from this use? My purposeis to portraythe multiple meanings and uses of hunting-gatheringin north Australia, its role as a symbolicworld, and as a method for grapplingwith regional political-economic structures.Criticalthroughoutthe essay is the local notion that the health and productivityof the countrysidedepends upon regular human visits; sites must be occupied, used, talked about. This ideology of land-use influences the foragingpracticesof Belyuen Aboriginesand their emergent meanings.It also affectswhat strategiesBelyuenpeople develop to compete with other groups for control of regional lands. In particular,I look at the productivityof "justsitting"in the countryside,both from a local and regional perspective.Thus, this discussiondovetails with other examinations of how "socialrelationsof production"3are hidden costs to marinehunting (Yesner, 1987, p. 288). It differs from related discussionsby presentingthe local view that social relations between countrysideand people are produced by the apparentlycostly, nonproductivepracticessuch as sitting and talking. Belyuen is located in the middle of the Cox Peninsula across the harbor from Darwin, Northern Territory (Fig. 1). The community has approximately 200 members from the Laragiya and a number of Daly River language groups, primarily the Wagaitj4 and Beringgin (Tryon, 1974) some of whom migrated to the Peninsula at least by 1880. The Delissaville Settlement, as Belyuen was then known, was created in the 1930s in order to move these Aboriginal groups inland from the coast. In 1979, the community was incorporated as the Belyuen Land Trust.
of flesh and kilocaloric gains. In addition, The Human Nutrition Unit, Department of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, analyzed several species of shellfish, vegetable, and Crustacea that Vic Cherikoff gathered in 1985 and 1987. 3The entire quote is: "Much of the real cost of marine hunting, however, involves not so much the technology as the social relations of production, ranging from the cost of maintaining family or clan territories in order to restrict access to areas where resources aggregate (anadromous fishing locales, productive shellfish beds, sea mammal haul-outs) to the cost of maintaining the structure of whaling crews and the ceremonial apparatus necessary for effective whale hunts" (Yesner, 1987, p. 288). 41he Wagaitj and Beringgen are subdivided into several language groups, the former into the Kiyuk, Wadjigiyn, Emiyenggal, and Menthayenggal and the latter into the Marriamu and Marritjeban. In this essay, Emiyenggal terms are used, indicated by an E.
Belyuen Australian Aborigines
171
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"*WHAT WE GANA DO": OVERVIEW OF THE LOCAL POLITICAL-ECONOMY On the patios of their homes and on the wind-swept beaches of their outstations, Belyuen men and women hungry or "itchy" to be walking around often query one another: "where we go" or "what we do" today? Answers people give are influenced by the season or time of day, by the composition of the group, and by trade interests such as what foods local stores are buying. Oftentimes to the question "where we go?" a woman remarks on the current fatness or sweetness of a food: "maybe today that crab im fat." If others agree, the questioning continues: where should we look for the food? Certainly women are asking, in part, what area will provide them with the highest caloric return for their effort (Wilmsen, 1973; Heffley, 1981). But alongside such economic considerations are important cultural, historical, and political ones. Familiar, for instance, to Australianists are Aborigines' avoidance of places deemed dangerous for mythical or historical reasons; perhaps they are homes to dangerous Dreamings or sites of colonial atrocities (Biernoff, 1978). Among hunter-gatherer people more generally, foraging activity plays an important role in the development of self-knowledge, identity, and power (Ingold, 1987, 1988; Ridington, 1987). For Belyuen men and women, hunting, fishing, and collecting trips provide them with opportunities to acquire knowledge about themselves and the mythical and ecological countryside. They then use this knowledge to enhance their status and authority over local lands during land-use conflicts (such as the Kenbi land claim; see Brandl, Haritos, and Walsh, 1979). Seasonality itself takes on new meaning in Aboriginal Australia today. Three seasons are commonly identified in subtropical north Australiathe "buildup" or hot humid months from September to October, the "wet" or rainy monsoonal season from November to February, and the "dry" cool season from March to August (Harris, 1980; Jones and Bowler, 1980). Belyuen Aborigines also note a tourist season: that part of the year when tourists return "like flocks of birds" to the northeastern coast of the Cox Peninsula. Thus, seasonality, history, myth, and personal whim, as well as ecological and economic constraints influence Belyuen Aborigines' decisions about where to go and how much time to take on a foraging trip. The claim that Australian Aborigines have always made about the power and significance of their hunting, fishing, and collecting practices have not been adequately addressed by Western foraging models or by humanistic studies of their society. For Aborigines, foraging is a way of attending to, re-enacting, and ensuring the physical and mythical reproduction of the environment, the human body, and the social group. Rather than cultural meanings and social forms being extrinsic to foraging
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behavior or hunting-gatheringbeing a poor cousin to ritual's role in the productionof culturalmeaningand solidarity, foragingprovidesAborigines with the intricate knowledge of the physical and mythical landscape that imbues ritual metaphorwith meaning,as foragingprovides the group with foods (Povinelli, 1991a). For Belyuen persons, the links between their political-economic and culturalpractices are well-articulated: their foraging activity reproduces cultural and social identity, even as it becomes the means by which they produce their economic and political well-being. Abstractingthe shape and functionof premodernhumangroupsfrom Belyuen's complex embeddednessin local and regionalpolitical-economic and cultural environmentsis made difficult by the contemporaryimportance of grocery foods and the longevity and unsettled nature of a local land claim (for other critiquessee Leacock and Lee, 1982; Schrire, 1984; Wilmsen, 1989). On the one hand, the land claim has forced many people to reevaluate how they use local lands. On the other hand, market foods comprise 88% of the total dietary needs of the Belyuen community,providing a significantbuffer to the vicissitudesof the hunt (Table I).5 While bush foods representonly about 12%of the Belyuen diet, they are, nonetheless, economicallysignificantin three ways. First, they provide an importantsupplementto the diet. Most purchasedfoods are nutritionally poor: sugars (and alcohol), fats, and refined grains, primarilywhite flour. While researchers have shown "that Australian native plants are richer sources of some nutrients than one might expect on the basis of
Table I. The Monetary and Caloric Values of Foods Purchased from Local Groceries Foods Sugars (kg) Sugars (1) Milk (kg) Milk (1) Cereals Roots/legumes Vegetables (canned & fresh) Tobacco Fats Nuts Fruits Meat Eggs Kg/liters 5330 9366.0 452.4 364 8211.8 1341.6 1585.5 33.85 486 26 697.58 9807.07 38.9 kcalories/kg 2145325 3812202 24401820 2629900 30794250 1577000 586635 4252500 6000 523125 29421300 64947.5 Expenditure (A$) 8658 27185.60 3689.40 364 18176.60 4596.80 2077.40 70296.20 1768 832 1638 216923.20 5460
5Thisis based on Betty Meehan's(1982) estimate that the regularintake of persons average 2200 calories per day. The real caloric need may be lower than this average since many people do not engage in strenuousactivityon the community.
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comparisonwith similar cultivatedplants" (Brand et al., 1983; Brand and Cherikoff,1985, p. 41), Belyuen women do not collect native plants in any abundance,preferringto collect animal sea-products(Table II). They concentrate on the collection of sea-snails (mainly Telescopiumtelescopium,
Nerita sp., hermit crabs [Paguridae sp.], mangrove 'worms' [Teredo sp.]),
mudcrabs (Scylla serrata),and a wide variety of fish. The drop of plant foods from the foragingrepertoirereflects patterns observed among other hunter-gatherers(Hawkes, Hill, and O'Connell, 1986). Most notable are the absences from the diet of Belyuen families of the cycad nut (Cycad
media) and the "pumpkin yam" (Amorphophallus galbra). These foods had
symbolic and ritual importanceto the precolonial diet and are abundant and easy to collect. However,both requireintensivepreparationto remove toxins. The diminishingimportanceof native plant foods to the Aboriginal diet is further seen by comparingwomen's knowledgewith the actual use of plant foods. Provisionally,it appears that of 125 identified plant taxa, 54 are said to be miya (plant food), though only 27 are considered safe to eat because knowledge of techniques for removing toxins are either still remembered or necessary.Yet, only ten of these are regularlycollected. The fresh seafoods women do collect provide a good source of protein (Collier and Hobson, 1987) and offset an otherwise general "lack of fresh food [purchased] at the local store and, when it is available, its cost" (Coombs, Brandl, and Snowdon, 1983, p. 356; Anderson, 1982; Povinelli, 1991a). Seaproductsand other bush foods also provideneeded calories during periods of scarcity in the community.Most Belyuen adults receive some form of governmentwelfare benefit; they and most other AustralianAborigines live well below the povertyline (Fisk and Young, 1982;Fisk, 1985). On alternateweeks, unemploymentand social securitybenefits are distributed, the former mostly to young and middle-aged men, and the latter mostly to older women. Although, in general, each group spends money on different items (men on alcohol and women on food and household goods), both groups spend it quickly,creatingbimonthlycycles of scarcity (Coombs, Brandl, and Snowdon, 1983; Altman, 1987; Povinelli, 1991b). During these times bush foods providean importantsupplementto people's diet.6 Finally, the physical exercise people get while foraging is often as importantto their health as the foraged foods themselves.This is probably the most neglected health aspect of modern hunter-gathereractivity, al6Coombs, Brandl, and Snowdon report that in the early 1980s Belyuen families had a severe cycle of periodic scarcity. Household heads "suffered constant headaches, . . . from hunger, . . . and from anxiety about finding enough food for the youngsters in their care" (1983, pp. 356-357). Although an increase in unemployment benefits has helped mitigate the problem somewhat, the cycle remains (cf. Povinelli, ms).
Belyuen Australian Aborigines Table II. The Contribution of Bush Foods to the Belyuen Diet from January 1989 to January 1990 A. An overview of the composition of Belyven hunter-gathering activieies Gross weight (kg) Shellfish Crustacea Inland "meat" Fish-stingray Sea mammals Eggs Vegetable Total 64.66 597.9 2455 2518.1 2462 1613 353.2 10063.86 Kilocalories 51727 305835.6 5468657.4 2414858 5287275 161300 400255 14089908
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B. The collection of vegetable products Gross (kg) Dioscorea transversa Potatoes & bush palms Fruits/sugargrass Nuts Total (kg) Total (kcal) 279.75 15.05055 50 8.3925 Flesh (kg) 279.75 15.05055 25 0.3357 353.19305 kcal 363675 19565.72 15000 2014.2 400254.9 C. The collection of shellfish Total (kg) from nine sites Hermit crab Nerita lineata Nerita didymus Telescopium telescopium Batissa violacea Mactra obesa Mangrove "worm" Chiton Crassostrea amasa Terebralia palustris 68.72525 20.2539 10.12695 113.67175 2.89075 30.67925 30.0265 7.6465 0.746 3.5435 Other 3.73 5.0355 1.119 2.238 0.373 7.087 Total 72.46 25.29 11.25 115.9 2.891 31.05 37.11 7.647 0.746 3.544
though Belyuen persons say an important reason they "walk around le bush" is because it makes them "feel light" (fit).
"WHAT TIME WE GO"
Abstractingpremodernconditionsfrom modern practiceswould also be hard in communities such as Belyuen where hunting-gatheringconsumes a large amount of time but provides a small amount of calories. Table III presents temporal aspects of Belyuen hunting, fishing, and col-
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lecting trips. It shows that a significantdifference exists between the total time people spend on a foragingtrip and the time they spend actuallyhunting, fishing, and collecting. The total "lapsed time" people spent in the bush (the time between when a group left and returnedto the community) increased from a low in the wet, rainy season to a high in the cool, dry season (Table IIIA). In some periods of the dry season this time doubled. Not only did people spend more time away from the Belyuen community in the dry season, they used more sites and sections of the Peninsula (Fig. 2). However,the time people spent huntingwas a small subset of the lapsed from the wet to the dry season (Tatime and did not increase significantly ble IIIB). People also did not increase the range of foods they collected (Fig. 2). In fact, manypeople on huntingtrips "do nothing"from a narrow economic standpoint:they sit on the beach, exchange gossip, and tell sto-
Table III. Temporal Aspects of Belyuen Aborgines Hunter-Gathering Activity A. Total and average "lapsed time" spent on hunter-gatherer activities Total hr Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 93 131.75 159.5 182.5 104 125.25 281.5 393.75 473.25 296.35 80.25 146 W/author 80 114.75 155.5 120.5 77 93.75 257 198.75 292.75 178.35 49.25 127 Avg. hr 4.89 4.38 4.83 6.08 4.52 3.8 9.08 8.75 8.76 7.41 4.01 4.42 W/author 5.33 4.41 5.02 5.74 4.05 3.9 10.28 8.61 8.71 7.43 4.91 5.3
B. Total and average "person hours" spent on trips into the countryside compared to times spent hunting and gathering T in bush Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 743.75 1123.5 1099.75 1299 536.5 659.75 1658 1524.75 1408.5 1176.4 550 1441.7 Avg in bush 43.32 40.13 39.28 55.79 31.39 46.58 100.59 64.96 59.7 66.1 50 66.72 T hunting 369 706.75 523.15 404.5 371.25 340.5 446 368.65 335.45 344.8 214.7 678.95 Avg hunting 19.92 26.39 17.37 18.39 19.36 24.32 28.09 12.86 14.63 14.62 21.47 30.04 Avg no. adults No./T trips 6.8 8 7.6 7.9 7.6 9.2 9.1 6.7 7.1 9.3 8.6 11.5 19/33 28/42 30/45 22/40 19/33 15/41 16/42 24/51 23/64 18/48 11/47 22/46

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Fig. 2. Number of products collected and of named-sites visited over the course of 1989-1990.
ries. The benefits they achieve by "justsitting"accrue in areas other than individualor group subsistence. While people use the Cox Peninsula more during the dry season, in was lower May,June, and November,the time they spent in the countryside a useful is than would be expected. Easily explained,this anomaly starting point for a discussionof the local meanings of hunting and gatheringacof "justsitting."The Kenbi land claim, lodged tivityand of the productivity is for a in 1979, large portion of the Cox Peninsula,Port PattersonIslands,
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and the Bynoe Harbourregions. Because the NorthernTerritoryGovernment appealed the legality of the claim on several grounds, it dragged through the Australiancourts for the next decade.7In 1989, parts of the claim were finally heard in May, June, and November.In order to participate in the hearings,people were forced to decrease their use of Cox Peninsula. As the claim sputteredon, its endless grind and use of time became a source of irony for older Belyuen women. Aboriginesbelieve that their practices activityin the countryside,includingdiscursiveand non-discursive such as story-telling,camping, and foraging, ensures the reproductionof material,ecological, and mythiclandscapes.Not to monitor and to discuss day-to-dayevents that occur in the countryside(e.g., foods collected, who became sick after passing by a Dreaming site) is to invite disaster. Such junneglect, women say, explainsthe thick overgrowthof once-productive gles and mangroves.Even as the land claim offered Aborigines a chance to gain legal tenure over Cox Peninsulalands, because of the time it consumed, it also invited mythicand economic hardship."Maybethis country think we nuku im (lie to her)" was an apt way one older woman put the for country. needs of acting politicallyand productively often contradictory Though asked to say how the Peninsulawas a living,productivelandscape, Belyuen men and women were not able to "hunt and mind" country in order to make it so.8 It is interesting,then, that in November, when the claim ran daily for three and a half weeks, people averagednearly5 hours per-day in the bush and their hunting hours actually proportionallyincreased. The tenacity women displayed in "going bush" after 8 hours in court and in increasing their relative hours hunting can be read in two main ways-as an index of the ideologicalimportanceof hunting-gathering or as a palpablemeasureof the importanceof the subsistenceeconomy to the local diet. Examiningthe meanings women draw from their foraging practices and how they use them in local politics shows a productivebenefit to "just From a local perspectivethe two major intersitting"in the countryside.9 are its caloric contributionto houseactive levels of foraging'sproductivity hold diet, and its reproduction of local socio-cultural identity and the landscape.Regularforagingtrips are seen to ensure ecophysical-mythical
7The claim is currentlybeing appealed.
81n the precolonialperiod large ritual complexesalso took people away from the bush for
extendedperiods of time. In some senses, land claims are new ritualsAboriginesengage in to ensure the continuityof the landscape. 9For women's traditionalrole in the Aboriginaleconomy,see Kaberry(1939), Gale (1974), and Meehan (1977); for women'smodern politicaleconomic activitiessee Bell (1983), Gale (1983), and Merlan (1988).
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nomic survival by maintaining the conditions for productive hunts- a healthy landscape and a functioningsocial group. As people collect foods they monitor ecological conditions and "give"their sweat and language to the countryside.Giving language and sweat allows the countrysideto recognize the foragersand, thereby,provide an abundanceof foods. Comparing some aspects of men's and women's foraging practices shows a difference in these two aspects of productivity. Men's huntingis more productive in terms of caloric returnper time; women's foragingis more productive in its regularmaintenanceof the countryside.One can see why this
Type
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Fig. 3. A comparison of the difficulty of hunter-gathering activities vs. the return from those activities. f:s/e (seashore and estaurine creeks) returns are for fish, rays, and prawns; f:m (mangrove) returns are for crab and seasnails; f:b (blacksoil plains) returns for longneck turtles; m:s (sea) returns are for sea mammals.
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is so by comparingthree women's activities (crabbing,fishing, and longneck turtle hunting) to men's sea-hunting(Fig. 3). Figure 3 demonstratesthe productivityof several types of foraging trips. Other than when they collect long-neck turtles, women get a good return for their effort.10And women rarely base a foraging trip on longneck turtle hunting.Instead, they stop at a swampon their way to or from a fishing or crabbingsite. Likewise,women usually go to the coast to dig yams both because the tubersare easier to extractand because of the proximity of sea products.Foraging trips for animal sea products also vary in their productivity. Clearlyone reasonwomen spend four times more fishing than they do crabbingis because fishing is so much more productivethan Women's economic productivity, crabbing.'1 however, pales in comparison to men's. Men spend only a thirdof the time sea-huntingthat women spend on all three of their activities.But they produce almost twice as much. Men's practiceis so productive,one wonderswhy they do not go hunting more often. Here the marketforces discussed above intrude and show some hidden costs to men's activities.After buyingfoods, alcohol, and small commodities,few people have money left over for the purchaseof dinghies or the petrol needed to run them. But as long as we continue to focus simply on the quantityof food capturedor foraged, we fail to grasp other benefits of these activities.One thing they garneris a culturalidentity and local political and social standing. Local women, in particular,manipulate food collection practices to position themselvesbetter vis-'a-vis men. They do so by engaging in a wide variety of foraging practices consistently over time. Just as some people are better at carpentrythan at plumbing,so Belyuen people are better at some food collection practicesthan at others. Some women can find honey in a rainstormwhen no bees are flying. Others can find the underground root "hairs"of yams long after a fire has passed throughan area and pigs have trampledthe ground.12 However, most women also engage in a range of hunting practices, even typically male activities like spear-fishingand shooting. Women are often used to spot game for male marksmen.By custom the animal (and plant food) "belongsto" the person who spots it first; the owner has the rights to say how its parts are distributed.Even when women are not physicallyalong on a hunt, they make sure they are "in on it." They do this by buyingthe cartridges,by lending the family gun, or by
101 base my analysis of energy expenditure on Vander et al. (1975).
'IBelyuen women seem to have increased their production efficiency unlike the Gunwinggu women Altman described (1987, pp. 89-95) due in main to technological changes in their fishing tools. '2The yam is conceptualized as a human body. Women follow the taper roots (the yam's "hair") when the main vine has burned away from the ground.
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buying the petrol for the car or boat. In this way they ensure that part of the catch is returned to them. Belyuen women and men alike rank food collection activitieson the basis of their perceived cultural authenticity.People say that what makes one activity "more"authentic than another is both the activity'slikeness to past Aboriginalpracticesand the degree to which it divergesfrom nonAboriginalpractices.Because most food collectionpracticesbear some kinship to the past, practicallyeverythingis an authenticAboriginalpractice, even line and drag-net fishing.13However, if they wish to garner social authority,Belyuen men and women must demonstratea competence and prowess in a foragingactivityother than line-fishingand drag-nettingsince "any bedagut(whiteman)"can catch a fish that way. Those in search of status and authoritymust spend a significantamount of time in the bush and "sebiz(know) hunting straightthrough":crabbing,yam-digging,longand mangroveworm and honey collecting. neck turtle hunting,spearfishing, Skills in these activities confer prestige. For example, the ability to hunt in the mangrove establishes an authentic Belyuen identity for both sexes that is pervasive and persuasive. In the past, it is said, knowledgeable, "clever"women and men were expert crab collectors.Cleverwomen could sense where crabs would be clustered in the mangrove.They went in any mangrove,filled one or severalbags, and were finishedbefore other people Whether past Befound one crab. Whether this is true or not is unclear.14 to find numbers of crabs is perwomen were able large consistently lyuen than the fact that articulate these practices as less people haps important who know and are able to real traditions, distinguishingbetween those practicetheir traditionsand those who do not. To "sebi(understand)mud" (to be able to deal with it) is to perform a culturalidentity and presence that carries over to other more overtlysocial and political practices.Likewise, people gain personal authoritythrough their knowledge of the surroundingcountryside.Above I noted that older women can name at least 125 plant taxa. Rather than as a sign of lost knowledge,women see this
13Present Aborigines and past western explorers report that Daly River Aborigines used pandanus string (Pandanus spiralis and Livistonia humilis) nets and lines for fishing in inland
swamps(Basedow, 1906). to store the crabsuntil they Large"cages"(deep holes) were dug and filled with salt-water and clever huntingpractices were needed. However,the correlationbetween clever-women may or may not have been linked to the surplusproductionof crab. It is equallyplausible that in the past the collectionof numerousbagsof crabswouldhave been said to be wasteful and "greedy."Indeed, one of the uses of the earthen cages was to keep the crabs fresh until they could be taken to Belyuenor Darwinand sold. It is not clear, therefore,whether women were takingadvantageof old storagetechniquesfor new surplusproductionneeds, or whetherthe entire projectwas developedas the need for money and goods progressed. Currently, manywomen get "justenough"crabs,sayingthat they do not need "more and more."
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as knowledge retained.And, although the cohesive identity of the hunting women can unravelif she begins to "like woman and the authority-bearing herself too much" (become conceited), the prestige women derive from their foragingpracticesconfers privilegessuch as the right to decide where to forage and the duty to speak duringsacred sites mappingor land claim hearings. Women also use their foragingpracticesto underminemen's authority in the community.They do this by devaluing the time men spend in the bush. By constantly claiming that men always drink and never hunt (the little amount of time it takes men to collect their foods is here used againstthem), alwaysfight and never contributeto the grocerybill, Belyuen women diminish,with the help of men's own self-description,male contributions to the diet. Moreover,women tend to foregroundthe total number what some women of people that go on "women'strips"and to background are doing on the trip-nothing from a strict economic perspective.From a local vantage point, however,the entire group is seen as contributingto the foragingsite "looks"on with pleasthe maintenanceof the countryside; ure at its "children,"thereby becoming "sweet" (a productive foraging place). Because of their more regular and continuous foraging activities, women are able to representmen's practiceas selective and erratic.In this way, persistenceand continuityin food collection are valued above the caloric productivityand efficiencyof trips. Of course, the importanceplaced on the overall time people spend at sites and the overall numberof people on a hunt runs contraryto the importancecertain western analyses place on efficiency:how much can a person produce in a certain amount of time. are engaged in a political In other words,Aboriginesand Anglo-Australians of their labor, and over the use struggle over the value and significance what based on lands of they produce. It is to and development regional this use of lands that I now turn. For along with patterns women display for what they hunt and the time they take doing so are general patterns to how they use the various regions of the Cox Peninsula.
"WHERE WE GANA GO"
(culThe Cox Peninsula includes a variety of local "environments" (Strehlow, of it use tural, ecological, and personal) that motivate people's 1970; Peterson, 1976; F. Myers, 1986). Any given location is likely to include a number of criss-crossingmythic and historical sites, camps, and tracks.A place can be identified,for example, as part of a longer track on E) traveled, as a site where a Bewhich the Frog Dreaming(wutwutnyini, fish trap, and as a locale a seasonal operated ancestors lyuen family's
183
nearby to where a sea-serpentDreaming(therrawin, E) swamped an elder man'sdinghy.People's knowledgeof mythicand historicalsites, camps,and tracks orients them to places. Much as their ethnobiologicalcalendar lets them know what foods are in season, their historical and mythological knowledge suggests to them how and where to use a place -or to avoid it altogether. Local Aborigines say that they find themselves in places in three senses: they end up in one place rather than another; they are provided with names, totems (or "dreamings"), and personalitiesfrom places (Munn, 1970; Peterson, 1972; F. Myers, 1986); and they gain from places the discursive frames with which to organize a cohesive and viable social group. Anthropologistshave generally examined Aborigines'ecological, cultural, and social "placement" separately,employingeconomic, symbolic,and sociolinguistic perspectives with little effort to interrelate them (but see Brody, 1982; Wilmsen and Vossen, 1990). For Belyuen persons all three ways of being situated are discursiveand productive.On the one hand, when women find foods at a site they believe the country is telling them that they are "rightfor" (belong to) it. They then find accountsthat explain why this is so. For example,perhapsa mangrovewhere a woman has consistent luck was also frequented by her deceased mother. On the other hand, everyday and historical narrativesabout a group's experiences on hunting and camping trips "produce"a cohesive social group.'5The importance of group cohesion should not be underestimated. The social and mythicties that motivate a group to share what it collects are as important as individualproduction.Thus people use places not only to get foods but to remind a group that it is and should function as a unit-a point especially importantin contemporary Australianland politics. Not only do people find themselves in specific localities, but their personal and group identity"adheres"there, influencingthe selection and use of sites. By "adheres"I mean to evoke not only the complex cultural relationship that exists among persons, groups, and places including totemic, birth,and burialrelations,but also those relationsthat growbetween humansand places based on everyday,intimateinteractions.People believe places know their language and sweat and respond by providingan abundance of foods (Merlan, 1981). Moreover, Belyuen Aborigines perceive places, like people, as having certain "personality" traits-contours and characteristics that make them appealingto some but not to other people. Certainlythe responsibilitiesbeholden on individualswho have the same name as a place, who have a conception Dreaming from a place, or who
'5This has been well-documented in the sociolinguistic literature (see Goodwin, 1981; Gumperz, 1982; Schiffrin, 1987).
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Povinelli
have relatives buried at a place influence the number of times they visit and camp there. But also influentialare more everyday(non-ritual)sentiwomen mental bonds. Havingwatchedsites grow and adaptyear-after-year, like relatives are say that they feel related to them, "like family."Places one longs to visit. Deceased relatives can themselves be remembered (in local parlance "visited")by going to a site where relatives acted in some memorable way. Other associations of places with deceased persons can disrupttrips and outstations.For example,when a deceased woman'sspirit bothered members of a west coast outstation for several weeks, the camp was abandoned. But importantly,while guidelines exist for the use and abandonmentof sites, people also constantly "test" places. Is this still a good place to collect crab? Has a spirit been sufficientlyappeased? Such day-to-day"testing"of ecological and mythic environmentscreates strong interpersonal(because Belyuen Aboriginessee places as analogous to persons) relationshipsamong individuals,groups, and places. As a group,BelyuenAboriginesperceivethemselvesas a "sea people" (wagaitj, E; seashore). This can be seen in people's culturaland economic practices. Most known sacred or named sites are located on or near the shore. Of seven outstationsall but one are located on the coast. Roughly 80% of all foraging trips stop at the seashore, although they often utilize inland sites along the way. And most foods people collect are associated with the sea. Belyuen Aborigines also identify other Aboriginalgroups by their ecological habitats (paperbarkpeople, swamp people, desert people, and island people). For example, a popular Belyuen story describes how the children of inland-dwellingrelatives ran terrified from coastal waters and how their parents were uncomfortablecamping on the beach. This story and other similarones remarkupon what Belyuen Aboriginesbelieve to be a powerful compulsion between types of environmentsand groups of people. People are compelled towardcertainplaces and repulsedby others. Generally, though, Belyuen Aborgines have a strong wish to live on or near the coast of the Cox Peninsula.Older people describe the seaside camps of their youth, Anglo-Australianattempts to force them onto the inland Delissaville and Katherine Settlements in the 1930s-50s, and their back to the Cox Peninsulacoast. Although long walks,framedas "escapes," of the Pacific War, youngerpeople do not have the spectacularbackground they similarly describe a desire to live at their families' various coastal campgrounds. Apart from its culturaland social importance,the Peninsula is composed of various ecological environmentsoffering people a range of foods and materials.The Cox Peninsulaand local islandsare typicalof the Northern Territory'scoastal tip. Generally the region has beach and mangroves around the seaward coast, patches of dense vine tangle, and inland open
185
Past forests, monsoon forests, grasslands,and swamplands(Brock, 1988).16 colonial and postcolonialattemptsto develop the land throughmining,agricultural,and pastoral industriesand residentialand commercialschemes have modified each of these environments.In several failed agricultural ventures, colonial planters cleared large sections of the northernand central open forests, drainedwetlands, and introducednew species, the most significantecologicallyand economicallybeing cattle, pigs, and variousfruit of waterbores trees such as the mango (K. Myers,1986).The multiplication in the Belyuen Communityarea and in the non-Aboriginal'Wagait Resilowered the water table (Whitling, dential Development' have significantly 1990). Commercial fisheries and pearl shell farms have decreased the amount of fish, crustacea,and shellfish availableto Aborigines.Moreover, the proximityof Darwin and its reliance on port trade and commercial fishing have affected the migratorypatternsof fish, sea turtles, and mammals. While some changeshave occurredover a long period of time, others have been more abrupt. Belyuen women note that, in their lives, creeks have dried, swampshave given way to open plains or paperbarkforests (or have simply disappeared,due to gravel mining, along with the long-neck turtles [Cheloniasp.] women hunt), and coastal dense vine tangles, once have given way the gatheringgroundsfor long yams (Dioscoreatransversa), to residentialhouses or squattershacks (Foley, 1978). Women avoid using resources(such as yams, fruits,and crab) that remainnear these residences because they fear hostile encounterswith Anglo-Australians and their dogs. Cultural and ecological constraintsand motivationsinteract:mythic and historicalsites are found within ecological zones, but ecological zones are framedand understoodas part of people's culturaland historicalselves. Beyond the scope of this paper, but certainlyrelevant to the question of why people choose one site rather than another, are local discursiveprinciples: how people in small scale communities interactivelyconstitute a group (cf. Povinelli,ms; Brenneis and Myers, 1984) and how people's ecological savoir-faire (in the local creole, sebi) intersectswith local rules for agreeingand disagreeing(Pomerantz,1984;Liberman,1985). For example, a person having a preference or skill for a certain foraging activity, say long-neckturtle hunting,will suggestthe groupstop by a local swamp.Con16While there are numerous surveys of the general ecology, fauna, and flora of Northern
Australia, and more specifically, surveys of mangrove formation and zonation, of floodplain dynamics, and of the interaction between introduced and indigenous fauna and flora, very little research has described or analyzed the ecology of the Cox Peninsula region. One map of Indian Island prepared in the 1960s, distinguishes four dominant vegetative types on the island: MF (Monsoon Forest), DVT (Dense Vine Tangle), OF (Open Forest), and Man (Mangrove). Along with the classification of reef and swamp vegetation zones, these four categories can be usefully extended as vegetation type classifications for the region.
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Povinelli
interests textual factors such as listeners'ages, kinship,and language-group influence whether they will agree, disagree, or acquiesce. of local cultural,historical,and ecologicalmoThe complexinteraction tivationsfor how people choose a foragingand campingground is seen in their use of six mangroveand estuarinesites on the Peninsula:two eastern two northernsites, Bemandjeliand Belurriya, sites, Madpiland Bitbinbiyirrk; Figure 4 shows the and two northwesternsites, Bagadjet and Binbinya.17 percentageof use an averageforagingtrip makesof four of the surrounding Table IV predictsthe amount of foods they would have colenvironments. lected if they had used each place an equal numberof times (assumingthat does not drop from increasedusage). Though seafoods are not productivity the only foods people collect at these sites, they can be usefully compared from place to place. Nor did people only collect foods listed in Table IV. In particular,the two western sites, Bagadjetand Binbinya,were used significantlymore in the dry season than indicatedby Table IV. Because I was camping at Bemandjelion the north coast, I was not able to collect data region. In 1985 and 1987 on how western outstationsused the surrounding I stayed at west coast outstations.At several points I refer to this earlier data. After describingsix sites and some local factorsaffectinguse of them, I examine how these local practicesrelate to regional and national issues. How is "justsitting"at sites productivefrom a regional perspective?
Six Mangroves and Their Uses Bagadjet is a hunting camp located behind a vast mangrove, near a large estuarine creek on the northwest coast of the Cox Peninsula. A small
Table IV. Differing Returns (kg) by Place at Equivalent Numbers of Trips (Region in Parentheses) Gross weight Fish Bitbinbiyirrk (E) Binbinya (W)
Belurriya (N)
Snails 607.2 89.8 48.6 70.3 159.3
Crab
-
Trips 11* 6 19* 3.5 7* 9.5 66 53* 1.3 21* 3.1
Kcalories 102009.6 369640.9

114093.6
241.8
104.1
175.7 147 37.1 334.2
Madpil (E) Bemandjeli (N) Bagadjet (W)
61.7 384.8 14.5
150759.3 452527.9 213597.7
17j
do not give precise locations due to the ongoing nature of the land claim.
187
cE
U.
ag o
cc
a .0~~~~~~~~
;t~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0~~~~~~~~
> U ei
~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~
oC
c.
Cu
cli|"mv)u
u C
5:E|
tE=
3~~~~~~~~a
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Povinelli
wetlands swamp is to its east, fertile yam beds lie on either side, and fruit obovata,billygoat plums Terminalia green plumsBuchanania trees (including
ferdinandiana, and milky plums Persoonia fulcata) are in the southern open
appeals to different forest. At differenttimes of the year, this campground people. During the early buildupwhen crabsare most abundantand heavy, women who like to collect them prefer Bagadjetbecause its size allows a number of people to hunt profitablythere. Other women prefer Bagadjet duringthe dry season when days are less hot and geese and turtles can be found in its swamp.At this time, men hunt pigs, cattle, and kangaroosin jungle. Duringthe late buildupyoung childrencollect green the surrounding green plum sites. open forest,one of the most productive plumsin Bagadjet's Bagadjetis not used unlessthese foods are in season,and like most northwest coast sites, it is rarelyused in the wet season. Moreover,people preferplaces other than Bagadjetas a day camp.They often collect foods there then move on to another place, complainingthat Bagadjetis "closed up" and has "no breeze."The mangroveblocks the view of the sea and a dense vine tangle darkensthe countryimmediatelybehind the camp. Women note that they such as hostile "kidneyfat men" (munggul, cannot see dangersapproaching In addition,a pederra(a go"rebels."''8 E 'sorcerers')and Anglo-Australian rilla-likebeing) is thoughtto live in the swamp.Numerouspeople have seen its foot-tracksor heard its loud wailings.As a consequence no permanent camp is presentlymaintainedat Bagadjet.All the above influencewhy, although a rich crabbingsite, people's use of it is relativelylow. Binbinyais southwestof Bagadjet,a small beach lying between a long mangrove,an estuarinecreek, and a wetlands swamp.The swamp is home to feral pigs, cattle, and freshwaterturtles. However, access to the swamp is difficult. Most day trips stop at the site for crabbingor fishing. Fishing, when salmon run up the as Table IV shows,is quite productive,particularly a nearbyjungle. How in were and dug 1984-85 long yams 1987, creek. In claim they grew Some women of contention. local is a point they got there able to move of sense local in the "wild" being were "themselves"(they in the who a woman senior that camped claim Others about themselves). both in is truth there area broughtthe yams from Bagadjet.It seems likely claims. The senior woman probablyoversaw the use of the yam ground, making sure people replantedyam heads (helping regrowth)and did not over-exploitthe region.People are presentlyletting the area "rest"until the nearbyfoods (yams,long-neck numberof yams increases.Lackof alternative turtles, sea turtle eggs) is one reason women cite for Binbinya'slow use. But Binbinyaalso suffersbecause of its historicaland culturalhabitat. fish and crab site, Dreamingand burialgrounds Though a highlyproductive
18"'Rebels"is a term Belyuen people use to describe any Anglo male bushwhacker.
189
"humbug" people campingthere: sending out apparitionsduringthe night, taking away foods if distant relatives("peoplewith strangesweat")join the camp, and causingpeople to act in mysterious, inexplicable ways.Just up the coast, along a red cliff region, another group of families lives "out of the way" of these mythic forces. The "Bagamanadjing mob," as these families are commonlyreferred to, have several dinghies and four-by-four vehicles which allow them to hunt sea-turtleand dugon. Because they do not rely upon fish from its creek or crabsfrom its mangrove, they can avoidBinbinya. Bemandjeli and Belurriya are small estuarine creeks on the north coast. Unlike the northwesternand eastern coastal regionswith their short beaches and long mangroves,the north coast has long, white sand beaches and small estuarine creeks and mangroves.The long beaches are nesting groundsfor sea-turtlesand, therefore,huntinggroundsfor Aborigines.Behind the beaches and further inland lie a series of freshwater swamps. These northernwetland swamps are one of the most productivehunting groundsfor geese and pigs. Use of them increasesdramatically during the dry season (Fig. 5). Indigenous honeys, fruits, palms (Livistoniahumilis,
Carpentaria acuminata), and nuts (Brachychitonparodoxum) abound in the
region. Drawn to the swamp lilies, sugarbagbees (indigenous honey bees) are also prevalent.Outstationmembersor day-collectorsspread out across the open forest and collect the honey found in antbeds, tree trucks, and, N
U
26.0 23.4 20.8 18.2

1 5.6
. . . . . . . I . . \ .
m b e r
0
f Vi s
t
13.0 .
1 0.4
.|
. \
7.8 5.2
2.6
. . . . .
0.0
jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec months
Fig. 5. Monthly use of northern swamps.
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Povinelli
sometimes, old concrete building foundations. Drawn by the area's long white beaches, Anglo weekend campers are also attractedto the area. Events of the colonial and postcolonialperiod have left both tangible nearbyburialsites and ecological and deeply emotionalmarkson Belurriya; to provide shade for their that as trees planted grandparents marks such situated near Charles Lighthouse at site. Belurriya, dot the foraging trips with also resonates painful and pleasnorth coast of the the western end urable memories. As recently as 1930, Aboriginalwomen were often forcibly removed from their families to work in the peanut, coconut, and pawpawfields of a plantationin the area. Social and economic conditions were harsh. The work was monotonous and grueling, little food was provided, and sexual abuse was common. Older women who worked there as children and young adults describe "escaping"the plantation (and others like it) to hunt at Belurriya.The very location of Belurriya (like all six sites) is a reminder to people of their history. Many women avoid the Charles Lighthouseregion when they go to Belurriyabecause of the emotional stress it causes them. The name Belurriyaitself has passed down through three generationsof women as a personal name. Bemandjeli,located east of Belurriya,is also a small estuarine area. It is a good exampleof how local strategiesfor maintainingthe mythic and emotional health of people and places interactwith regional land development and use. Bemandjelihas long been an importantcampsite for Aborigines. Popular and ethnological writings from the 1880s onward report Aboriginesstayingthere (Harney, 1965). This was almost certainlythe case severalsacredsites and a young man'sinitiation long before Anglos arrived; ground are situated there. In the 1970s, an Emiyenggal (a linguistic and social subdivisionof the Wagaitj) sibling set established a permanent outand an astute station at this site. The senior brother was a "cleverman"19 politician, as well as the head of several importantceremonial and ritual complexes. Following local custom his family abandonedthe site when he died in the early 1980s. During the time that families were letting the site "rest"so as not to aggravatehis spirit, the outstation was stripped. Anglo squatters carted away several thousand dollars worth of materials (mostly corrugatediron sidings). Graduallymembersof his family began returning to the beach, buildingoutstations,and putting in applicationsfor leasehold rights. Several extended families, most from the Emiyenggal and Menthayenggallanguage groups, now maintain a year-roundoutstation there. The deceased Emiyenggalclevermanprotects and "playsfun" with them:
are well knownfiguresto studentsof AustralianAboriginal clevermanand cleverwoman 19The culture.A. P. Elkin noted that these men and women were personsof exceptionalintuition and intelligence who gained the highest degree of initiation and understandingof the aspect of Aboriginalsociety (1980). mythical-magical
191
a clear example of how people's identity adheres in places motivatingwhy we mustunderstandthat the ability and when they use them. As researchers to interact with a deceased relative-one's husband,mother, or childby visiting a place provides a very compelling reason to travel to a place no matter if one looses a fish or two. This is especiallytrue in communities like Belyuen where groceryfoods temper the vicissitudesof the hunt. But we must also be careful not to resort to psychological absolutism. The cleverman's spiritual presence provides a particularlypersuasive way his survivingfamily can articulate their rights to the region-foregrounding their associationwith the north coast even though they could select from other possible associationson the southwest,west, and east coasts. Bitbinbiyirrk and Madpil are located on the east coast of the Peninsula. Each site is home to a short beach, mangroves,and a small estuarine creek. But they are also sites where global, regional, and local economies was mainly used for the collection of sea interact. In 1989, Bitbinbiyirrk snails and the central stalk of the Agave species; the latter is collected for manufacturing dilly-bagsfor sale and personal use. Though they occasionally stayed, husked, and cooked the snails on the site, more often women collected several liters of unhusked seasnails then either returned to Belyuen or moved on to Madpil.During 1985 and 1987, women used Bitbinbiyirrkquite differently,fishingregularlyin the nearbycreek and collecting sugarbagand long yams in the nearbyvine-jungle.With increasedsquatting in the region this pattern changed dramatically. While women are afraid that rebels might be hiding in the Bagadjetjungle, they know they are a series of arrests were made of camping at Bitbinbiyirrk. Supposedly,20 Anglo "bushwhackers" camping there. To Belyuen women the burnt-out remains of their camp (husks of cars, cooking instruments,and bedding) were a sign of the campers'haste to escape, provingtheir criminalnature. and can be reached by walkingdown Madpil is south of Bitbinbiyirrk the coast when the tide is out or by vehicle along an inland road. Its manand connected to Midjili,another southgrove is larger than Bitbinbiyirrk ern site. Women often travel south throughthe mangrovefrom Madpil to Midjilicollecting crabs, then north throughthe open forest ("overline")as the tide comes in. Fruit trees are found in the high ground above the site and an adjoining a wetlands swamp is often used for pig hunting. Other motivationsfor using Madpil and Bitbinbiyirrk are the nearby Mandorah Pub (on the northeast tip of the Cox Peninsula) and the Wagait Grocery Market.21 Like more traditionalcampsites,these stores provide a place for social interaction and the acquisitionof foods. People usually stop there
201 have not been able to confirm this. 21The grocery gets its name from the Anglo Wagait Residential Development.
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Povinelli
for supplies and foods, includingthe well-knownbush stock of flour, sugar, and tea, and the more recent fast-food innovationsof hamburgers,meat pies, and cokes. During the dry season a corroboree is held at the Mandorah Pub drawing national and international tourists. Throughout the tourist season the "BelyuenKenbi CorroboreeCrew"maintainsan outstation at Madpil, using it as a base camp for sea-huntingtrips that provide foods for the tourist buffet and for crew members.The returnsfrom these trips are not reckoned in my data. When Belyuen families use these various sites underscoresthe multiple historical and political-economic influences on land-use. In some ways, Belyuen Aborigines'use of the Peninsulareflects a "seasonalround" of the type Altman described among the Gunwinggu of Arnhem Land (1987, pp. 22-26; see also Meehan, 1988). In 1989, from the wet to the dry season, groups shifted generally from using northeasternto using northwestern sites; although,for reasons I explain later, the north continued to be an importantcampingspot throughoutthe dry season (Table V). Notes from my fieldtripsin 1984-85 show a clearer correlationbetween regional use and seasonality.In 1989, unusuallylate rains kept most hunting and camping sites accessible by vehicle late into December. People themselves describe a northwest coast season: that time of the year when the west coast is usable. Because of the predominantlyrock base of its road, Binbinya usuallyis availablebefore more northernsites such as Bagadjet.The Belyuen "seasonalround"would, then, seem to supportW. E. H. Stanner's well-knowndictum that one "can almost plot a year of their life in terms of movement towardsthe places where honey, yams, grass-seeds,eggs, or some other food staple, is in bearing and ready for eating" (1979, p. 33) and Jon Altman's more recent analysisof the "effects of the annual (seasonal) cycle on land movement"(1987, p. 25). As their parents before, Belyuen Aborigineswatch the environment for signs that the west coast season has begun. Old people describe their parents following the winds, moving up the coast from the Daly River to the Cox Peninsulawith the arrivalof dry season winds (medawok,E) and and returning down the coast before the monsoonal winds (kunaberruk perrk,E). Similarly,they frame their use of the west coast of the Cox Peninsula. They wait for the medawokwinds before they use the region. But these discursiveframes mask, or at least do not reveal, significant differences between why they and their parentsfollowedwindsto certain regions. Today's seasonal rounds are influenced by such social matters as people's sentimental attachment to places, such political-economic matters as inter-ethnic conflicts over resource allocation and wage-labor'sdemands on people's time, and such logistical matters as the availabilityof water and vehicles. Today, people wait for medawokwinds because they dry the roads
Belyuen Australian Aborigines Table V. Trips Made from the Belyuen Community to Different Parts of the Cox Peninsula, Port Patterson, and Bynoe Harbour Regions N Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 9 22 17 12 12 4 23 24 22 7 9 20 East 11 7 15 10 3 5 5 7 6 12 7 3 NW 0 4 1 2 8 15 5 11 11 6 12 8 SW 1 5 4 5 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 Mid 11 11 11 5 3 9 3 3 1 4 10 14 NSa 0 0 0 0 3 4 4 13 33 22 11 1 Offshore 9 5 5 4 10 11 7 4 1 0 4 3
193
Total 41 54 53 38 39 49 48 62 74 51 54 50
aNS refers to the northern wetlands swamps.
to the west coast allowingvehicles relativeease of access. People with communityjobs have access to communityvehicles, land-movers,and dinghies, but have limited time to use them. And vehicles have become the main source of travel not only because of their efficiency, but also because of the historical relationship between Anglo-Australianadministratorsand Aborigines camping on the coast. The primaryreason people cite for not using the northwestcoast in the wet season is that roads are impassable.The rhetoricof the 'west coast season' is both persuasiveand widelyaccepted.Yet, feet do not bog in black soil plains. Indeed, this region was regularlyused during the rainy season as recentlyas 1950. However,the welfare recordsthat tell us this show why vehicles have become a virtualnecessityfor bush camps and why the northwest coast is closed duringthe wet season. Operatingan outstationor a day camp without a vehicle is now seen as too riskyfor a number of reasons. People need trucksto supplywater to outstationsand to provide transportation to jobs in the community.But the need to transportthe sick back to the communityclinic is the most importantreason for having a vehicle. In their oral histories Belyuen women describemany scenes of interethnic violence. Yet, perhaps none of these descriptionsare more disturbing than Aboriginal deaths and their investigationby Anglo-Australians. The grief caused by the death of a child or old person was, and still is, compoundedby fear that the death will incite an inquiryby local law enforcement officials. From the 1920s to the 1950s, tuberculosis,gonorrhea, alcoholism,and fighting resulted in a high death rate at Aboriginalcamps throughoutthe Cox Peninsulaand Port Pattersonislands.Leadersof camps
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Povinelli
where deaths occurred,or parents whose children died, were rounded up, questioned, tested for diseases, and punished by internmenton the Delissaville Settlement.An older woman describesthe horrorof sitting in a Darwin "jail"unable to speak English after her young son died. In such cases, people often fled down the coast rather than submit to what they saw as unwarrantedharassment,especially by people who seem to have created the conditions for their ill-health. While such traumaticevents no longer a person'sinjuryand death occur, the personaland social costs surrounding is an importantreason why no camp is run for long without a vehicle; no one wants to be blamed for having let a sick person remain at a camp are not the only persons Bewhen help was nearby.Anglo-administrators lyuen Aborigines fear. If an Aboriginal visitor from another community sickens, is injured,or dies while stayingat a camp, his or her relativescan "payback"any member of that camp. Visitors from communitiesthat Belyuen elders believe are "stronger"in ritual and ceremonial power are closely watched and rarelyencouragedto go far from a source of medical aid. Their accidental injuryor death could provoke a retributiveassault that the communitywould be unable to deter. Because of its proximityto several mythic sites and burial grounds,Binbinyais particularly dangerous in this light. The above informationis selective in several senses. It does not acsince new count for all of people's attachmentsto places (an impossibility, ones are "growing" all the time). Likewise,it reflects Belyuen people's own historical,social, and culturalselectivity.Although they are influencedby it, people are not ruledby their history.As with theiruse of Bemandjeli,people select certain relationships among persons and places for social, psychological, and political-economicends. Indeed, one hallmarkof foragingsociety is its social and physicalmobilityand flexibility(Williams,1982;Young and Doohan, 1989). In AboriginalAustralia,however,mobilityis constrainedby local notions of a sentient, agentialcountrysideand conflictsover land use. During the Kenbi Land Claim hearingsBelyuen women emphasized how foraging keeps the countryside productive, open, and alive. It is women say, that they come to understanddifferences through "hunting," among themselves and between themselves and other groups. The way groupscongregateand interactin the countrysidereveal to Belyuen women certain charactertraits about those groups. Women then use these traits to construct group identities that become the grounds of their political stances. One aspect of this has alreadybeen discussedabove: Belyuen persons associate groups with certain ecological regions and use this association to situate them in the countryside. A similar process takes place In this case, the process between Aboriginalwomen and Anglo-Australians. results in transforming,from a Western perspective, a nonproductiveac-
195
tivity such as "justsitting"in the countrysideinto a highly productiveway of competing with other ethnic groups for land control. The Productivityof "Just Sitting" If people do not choose to use the west coast in the rainy season because roads are too wet, they are not pushed to go west until tourists begin camping at northernand eastern sites. The influx of tourists has affected how Aboriginesuse the countrysidein two main ways: (1) it causes them to spend more time in the northwestduringthe dry season, and (2) it provides them with a view of Anglo life that motivates the community to "defend"sections of the Cox Peninsulaby campingon them year-round. Most Anglos (bedagut)are described as dangerous devils whose peculiar manner of acting is harmfulto the physicaland mythic life of the countryside. While Belyuen Aborigines acknowledgethat they prefer camping on the open beach to camping in the hot inland or along mangrove-enclosed beaches, they say non-Aborigines do not preferbut ratherare unable to use anythingbut beaches and them in a certainway. Women drawthese conclusionsfrom watchingAnglos come and go from the Cox Peninsula. During the dry season, the days are breezy and warm and the nights clear and brisk.The humiditythat visits the landscapethroughoutthe wet and buildupevaporatestakingwith it manymosquitoesand sandflies.During these months, tourists flock into northerntowns enroute to see spectacular landscapessuch as KatherineGorge and the Kakaduescarpment. Some tourists staying in Darwin drive around or take a ferry across the Darwin Harbour.Though the scenery is less stunningthan Kakadu,from Mandorahthey can explore sites on the northernand eastern coasts; and they can sit, drink,and watch a corroboreeshow at night with the Darwin skyline in the background. Although Belyuen women and men take advantage of the tourist presence to sell craft items and foods, women avoid camping or socializing alongside non-Aborigines(other than at the Mandorah Wharf,but Belyuen use of it drops dramatically duringthe dry season). Because of Aborigines'unease and non-Aborigines' concentrationon the north and east coasts, Belyuen families move to the western region of the Cox Peninsula during the dry season (see Table V). But no one successfully avoids all interactionwith non-Aboriginal tourists.Nor does anyone choose to. Even when no Anglos are initiallyat a campground,they may appear later in the day. Anglo boaters regularlytake advantageof the supposedly remote area by strippingoff their suits, bathing, or swimming nude even if an Aboriginalgroup is nearby.Other Anglos drive small highpowered boats across the Darwin Harbourand travel up the six crocodile
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infested creeks, described earlier. These sights are sources of humor, disbelief, and disgust for nearby Aborigines engaged in fishing, crabbing, or quietly resting on a beach. While non-Aborigines perform such socially and personally dangerous acts, women note that they "panic" when traveling in the inland forests or mangroves. Bathers and skiers' over-enthusiasm ("they like themselves," "they are prideful") in one environment changes in another to panic and hysteria. From Belyuen people's experience, non-Aborigines in mangroves, jungles, or wetlands swamps act hysterical, frightened by the surroundings ("they got no meru," "they have no control," literally "they have no ass"). These kinds of activities are seen as loud, disturbing, and essentially inappropriate ways of acting. But while such activity can interfere with the timing of a foraging trip, causing people to alter where they go, it also provides the social fodder which women use to construct ethnic identities. When Belyuen women note that Anglo-Australians want all the best places (beaches and red cliff regions), they also note that although Anglos take the good places they do not enliven them or maintain their "sweetness" (economic productivity and mythic life). Instead, by their "silliness" country is ruined; it returns into itself and refuses to produce. Smelling the sweat of foolhardy people, the country refuses to give its fatness and all people suffer. One thing older Aboriginal women do as they sit on the north and east coasts is look across the harbor at Darwin. They discuss with their children what the Darwin countryside once looked like, the pollution that now exists, and the danger the future holds for the Cox Peninsula if Anglos move there. In doing so, women discursively foreground differences between how Anglos and Aborigines behave and then use such differences to urge their families to maintain control of the countryside. Belyuen Aborigines have several methods for resisting Anglo encroachment. Often, they maintain outstations throughout the year in regions favored by Anglos. Those without jobs stay and mind a camp, supplied by others with cars and money. More important than what camp members collect from the surrounding countryside (though they do regularly hunt, fish, and collect) is their physical presence. Families expend great effort to maintain year-round camps on the north coast and at red cliff and beach regions on the west coast, but do not maintain year-round outstations at Bagadjet and Binbinya since Anglos do not visit these areas. The Kenbi Corroboree Crew stays at Madpil on the east coast to "block" squatters such as those discovered recently at Bitbinbiyirrk. This is an effective way of using prejudice to one's advantage. For, just as Belyuen Aborigines are reluctant to camp near non-Aborigines, so non-Aborigines fear and rarely approach black camps. It should be noted, however, that most Aboriginal outstations are located near estuarine creeks not only to block
197
but also because they providea good source of fish and Anglo-Australians, other desirable products. Another method Belyuenpeople use to slow the advanceof the white weekend camper is to keep areas "closed-up." They do not maintain the infrastructures that allow easy access to campinggrounds. Infrastructures include roads, cleared camping areas, shelter, and storage sites for equipment. The term infrastructure itself sounds very modern for the practice of hunter-gatherers.But Belyuen Aborigineshave kept areas clear, maintained paths, and left dug-outs and chippingequipment at sites for quite a long time. Furthermore,the paths noted in myth, enacted in ceremonial and everydaynarratives,and traveled on daily by foraginggroups provide an integrated and functioningnetwork which Aborigines use to increase their output by decreasingthe need to re-inventthe landscapeevery time they returnto a campingground.But whereas in the past, keeping a place "open"by regularvisits meant decreasingone's overall labor, now it often means invitingthe visits of unwantedstrangerswho then block the use of an area or steal equipment stored there. Because of these risks, Belyuen Aborigines leave roads in disrepairand areas only partiallycleared. Some non-Aboriginessee this behavior as indicative of Aboriginal laziness, of their inabilityto develop the countryside,or of their secrecy and trickery. DISCUSSION In this essay I have describedseveraldimensionsof the hunting,fishing, and collecting activitiesof Belyuen AustralianAborigines- the constraintson their practicesand the meaningsand uses they drawfrom them. Constraintsinclude what social, historical,and culturalenvironmentsand what political-economicand ecologicalcosts and benefits motivatethe timing and place of foragingtrips. MeaningsBelyuen persons drawfrom their foraging practices range from group rights and responsibilitiesfor places to the creation of individualself-identityand worth. The political advantagespeople gain from manipulating the local ideology of land-use differ accordingto what audience they address. From a local vantage,the discursiveand nondiscursive acts associatedwith foraging trips create the necessary conditions for people's economic well-being: a healthy productive landscape and a functioningsocial group. In a local arena, then, Belyuen Aborigines can effectively manipulate the meaningfulness of foraging for political purposes. How a site "reacts to" a group (how much foods it provides) is an importantmeasure of what rights a group has over the site. The group which attends to the day-to-dayhealth of the countrysideby visitingand foragingon it accruessignificantcultural
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and political authority in community affairs. This has been well-documented in the Australianliterature.But far less discussed has been how the rights and meaningsattendingforagingactivityinfluence the place and timing of the hunt. Thus, I describedhow, rooting their position in a local ideology of land-use,women claim that their hunting,fishing,and collection practices are more "productive" than men's, even though their activities are less efficient from a cost-benefitanalysis.By spendingsignificantly more time in the surrounding countrysidethen men, women not only avoid those social tensions on the communityassociated with poverty and alcoholism, but also gain importantsocial standing. Belyuen families also resist Anglo encroachmentby organizingopposition to it based on perceiveddifferencesin ethnic socio-economicactivity. Yet the maintenanceof year-round outstationsas a strategyfor land control has problems. In an effort to stem the tide of white campers, residents, and squatters,Belyuen families violate their own prescriptionsto abandon a site after the death of a person stronglyassociatedwith it. In the last 50 years almost every major campgroundon the Cox Peninsula has been periodicallyabandoned due to human death. In an effort to reconcile these competing land-use tensions, Belyuen Aborigines "test" the limits to their own prescriptionsto "shift camp" (move camp). Some families are now moving to one side or another of a campground,rather than abandoning it altogether. While Belyuen Aborigines are fairly successful in manipulatinglocal people's actions throughrecourse to the mythicand ecological significance of foraging activity,they are less successful in manipulatingregional governments. Although only cursorilyaddressed in this essay, this is in part because the Northern TerritoryGovernmentdoes not grant foraging the transformative power that AustralianAborigines do. Because the productive potential of hunting and gathering societies is low from a Western perspective,Belyuen people's claim that they create the countrysidewhen they pass through it is regardedwith skepticismby the government. Regional and nationalgovernmentscontrasttheir developmentplans to Aborigines' supposed slight commitmentto and effect on the Cox Peninsula. Here such Belyuen strategiesas letting the winds and rains"clean"a campground, leaving roads in disrepair,and not clearing sites are interpreted by Australian governmentofficials as no strategy at all for land-use and development. More pointedly, government functionaries ask how much land do Aboriginesneed to continue a way of life that is no longer based on a traditionalsubsistenceeconomy?No one uses the Cox Peninsulamore than Belyuen Aborigines. But they are hard-pressedto demonstrate the importanceof their use from an energetic standpoint.It is easy to portray the community'sforagingpracticesas simply supplementary since the gro-
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cery contributionto the local diet is large and constant. Such a portrayal overlooksor ignores the multiplemeaningspeople find in and the multiple uses people make of their foragingpractices:foraging,broadlydefined, is a means of maintainingthe physicalhealth of people and countrysideand of constitutingtheir social group and personal selves. Narrowingour research perspectiveto one of these dimensionsnot only restrictsour understanding of modern hunting, fishing, and collecting societies, but contributesto a much broaderpoliticsof land-restriction in northAustralia.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Hal Conklin, Hal Scheffler, Bill Kelly, Susan Edmunds, and the anonymousreviewersat Human Ecology for their insightfulcommentson draftsof this essay. SigmaXi, The ScientificResearch Council,the National Science Foundation(GrantNo. BNS-88414363),and and Areas StudiesProgramprovidedgrantsfor varithe Yale International ous stages of my fieldwork.
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"Where We Gana Go Now": Foraging Practices and Their Meanings among the Belyuen Australian Aborigines Author(s): Elizabeth

Human Ecology, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1992

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

avg caloric output

5287280 4758552 4229824 3701096 3172368

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Snails 607.2 89.8 48.6 70.3 159.3

Trips 11* 6 19* 3.5 7* 9.5 66 53* 1.3 21* 3.1

Kcalories 102009.6 369640.9

175.7 147 37.1 334.2

Madpil (E) Bemandjeli (N) Bagadjet (W)

61.7 384.8 14.5

150759.3 452527.9 213597.7

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

26.0 23.4 20.8 18.2

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

aNS refers to the northern wetlands swamps.

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

Belyuen Australian Aborigines

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