194
Aboriginal linguists prepare stories in the vernacular;
♦
Aboriginal artists illustrate these stories as part of a
literacy prograj≡e.
Perhaps, to the observer, the most important indicator of
the importance of language is the fact that language groups have
tended to ‘hive off naturally into sub-groups. It is on the
basis of language, not working skills or any other criteria,that
a group has migrated to the nearby station of Lala Rookli taking
with them their own Dream-time cycles of song and dance which
educate the people into the realities of the Law. As part of the
hiving-off process, the people have set up schools to meet their
needs.
It is with some surprise then, that one notes the meaning
given by Tonkinson to a split in the Jigalong Mob. He comes to
the conclusion that the Strelley Mob has divided the Jigalong
Mob against itself
...along its line of weakest resistance: the basic
tribal division between Mandjildjara and Gadudjara
speakers (Tonkinson, in Berndt, ed., 1977:71-2).
In view of Kolig,s statement quoted above, emphasising the
pre-eminence of language in the Aboriginal world, and indeed the
definitions of the ’human' by a common language, one cannot help
but take the view that the unity of the Jigalong Mob would have
to fracture along the lines of language if they too were to preserve
their Aboriginal autonomy, and situate themselves within an
2
Aboriginal psychological model of the 'world' .
ɪA further division occurred within this group in 1981 when
Manyjiljarra language speakers from Jigalong and others moved to
Camp 61.
2
This is perhaps a good example of an outside person viewing an
Aboriginal group through western eyes and judging that a community
constructed through (and against) missionary influence is better than the
'natural' one based on the language through which the Law is transmitted.
It seems conceivable at Strelley that, as groups hive off, they will
become 'Mobs' by language grouping, e‰g. the Lala Rookh Mob, the
Warralong Mob, and a social construction that is of an administrative
nature will come to encompass the totality.