The name is absent

CHAPTER XII

MODELS OF ABORIGINAL SOCIETY ≡-

Contiguityzconservation - the world of

12.1 Introduction

The case study of identity located in the Strelley Mob will
be used to illustrate the possibility of concerted group resistance
to the right of white men to impose a world of meaning on Aboriginal
people. It will also serve to illustrate resistance to the
internalization of the subjective correlates of the identification
by the white world - namely to the confusion, apathy, dependence
and low self-esteem that in most places accompanied nihilation by
the dominant group in its pre-1970 conceptualisation of the
Aboriginal world.

The Strelley Mob is an Aboriginal group which experienced
prolonged contact with white people on cattle and sheep stations.

The covert resistance of the Strelley Mob to their oppressive
conditions took on a dramatic, overt form in the 1940s.

Rowley, tracing the account of the strikes of the Mob, makes
the following assessment:

The members showed the enterprise and ingenuity
of people who had not lost all social cohesion
and found in this operation a means of adapting
to new ways in accordance with their own
traditions (Rowley, 1971a:1967).

They were able to do this within the white law, advised by
a miner, Don McLeod.

Rowley comments on McLeod:

They had the guidance of one very remarkable non-
Aboriginal in Donald McLeod, who possessed the rare

¹See p. 72, above.

<<   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   >>

More intriguing information