The name is absent

238

However, ^lStreIley¹ schooling differs in essential ways from
the schooling of the white world. Firstly, it is an area where
autonomy is exercised by the group. "The πιarmgu are the boss".
The school structures are subsumed within the total structures of
the Mob, Secondly, the content of white schooling is restructured.
A new version of schooling is propagated that seeks to appropriate
what is seen as non-value «-laden (numeracy) and to 'de-value^, literacy
a skill rather than a mode of transmitting values.

established to accommodate the new ’world' of
teachers are employed to teach the literacy and
new to tribal people, and to publish a literature
Marmgu are being trained as teachers for both
'white' schooling and the vernacular. At the same time 'traditional*
roles of educators are maintained by the marmgu who are totally
responsible for primary socialization.

The basis upon which the marmgu appoint teachers from their
V

own ranks in the schooling situation are imperfectly understood by
white teachers; indeed, it is possible that this is an area still
iιjperfectly resolved by the marmgu.

In Aboriginal society, as in white society, knowledge is socially
distributed.

Elkin (1954:267-94) writes of Aboriginal men of high degree -

that is,possessing knowledge not given to others. Knowledge is
also differentially distributed between men and women. Certain
knowledge is the province of men; women place themselves in danger
by observing certain secret∕sacred rituals. On the other hand_jwomen
any regions had their own ritual (Berndt and Berndt, 1981:296).

Song cycles belong to an individual, There are some who possess
magical knowledge.

For as long as this social distribution of knowledge remains,

problem must arise when white knowledge

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