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value-system it rejects.
The typifications constructed by the Mob and the recurrent patterns
of interaction will now be examined.
14.3 Conservation of traditional structures
In a certain sense it may be said that the strengthening of
the Lawj and the giving of roles within the structure of the Law,
is itself the result of interaction between typifications and a world
of meaning. In this case the ’world’ is the ’world’ of predecessors.
The Mob interacts with the sedimentation of beliefs that have been
handed down. However, resulting typifications cannot be said to
be ’tribal*; rather they must be designated as tradition-oriented,
since the sedimentation of meaning inherent in them includes elements
of white contact. Nevertheless, the typifications structured clearly
act to conserve traditional typifications.
In the case of Strelley there is still evidence of the typifications
of the traditional world. The people live in various camps in kinship
groups. Typifications exist through the Classificatory system which
decides with whom one may associate, whom one may marry, to whom
one has obligations. Avoidance relations which strengthen such
typifications are observed, and indeed since the permanent white
staff are also given a position in the Classificatory system, they
too are typified within the kinship system. They are required to
internalize these typifications, and to observe the correct protocol
for interaction. Typifications are thus institutionalized as a
basis for behaviour.
Berndt and Berndt (1981:210) describe how authority is vested
in the hands of the elders. This pattern is quite clearly reproduced
in the giving of authority in the world being structured at Strelley.
Elders, important men, spend wearisome hours visiting Roeboume where
there is great degradation of Aborigines as a result of alcohol.
Others again spend long hours coping with the activities of juvenile
delinquents, some from the community, others interlopers. Current