The name is absent

230

of Strelley will be seen to be a variant of the white world. If

the latter is the case then it is expected to find action taking
place upon the Strelley world from within mainstream society which
in that case would impose from without the typifications of the white
world.

Berger and Luckmann (1966:47-48) point out-that typifications
of others are formed along a continuum ranging from predecessors
t
to those immediately experienced (consociates) to those of whom one
has ’knowledge’ but not acquaintanceship (contemporaries).

Tribal society is a society that looks back to predecessors
for an explanation of the beginning of man and his place in the
physical and symbolical world. The typification of consociates
was based on the Law given to men in the Dreamtimes, the time of

predecessors. Typification of contemporaries, according to Kolig

P

(1977), took the form of nihilation - all ’others’ not speaking the
*

language, were not fully human.

Berndt and Bemdt make the same point. Aboriginal tribes are
relatively self-contained with their own social organization and
structure. Theoretically they nihilate others by negative
b
typifications.

Contact with others may be spasmodic, or confined
to trading or ceremonies. Also, its members are
often intolerant of the views and behaviour of
outsiders. They may say, for instance, that the
people of another tribe not far away are cannibals,
or indulge in queer practices: that the women
have unnatural relations with dogs, or that all
their men are powerful sorcerers. Quite often
there seems to be a strong underlying concern with
being independent of others (Berndt and Berndt,
1981:36).

Strelley, while reflecting the traditional concern of being
independent, nevertheless must interact with other worlds of meaning
in order to construct its typifications. Figure 4 shows these
'worlds’ in diagrammatic form.

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