The name is absent

255

These are public names, known to all, indeed impressed on all
whenever the occasion offers, in order to ensure ordered interaction
within the group.

For Aboriginal people, however, personal names have a special
power, intimately associated with identity.

The marrngu are reluctant to reveal their own or anyone else’s
*

personal name.

Tonkinson gives the following explanation:

One's name is as much a part of one’s self as are
parts of the body. A sorcerer could thus use a
person’s name to work sorcery against him CTonkinson, 1974:53).

The fact that these personal names are not known to white staff

is an indication of the reality of traditional elements in the
'world' of the Mob; it provides objective evidence of subjective
location into an Aboriginal identity.                          _x

However, it is in the naming of the people, as a people, that we

find this objective evidence in a striking form. The term Aboriginal/
Aborigine* used by white people and urban Aborigines is not used by
the Mob. The aborigine is again marrngu - man, humankind. The people
name themselves and this naming carries with it an identity, the
location of the self in a particular world of meaning¹. For the

Strelley Mob, identity is bestowed by the Mob, not by white society.

15.65 Possessions

The people have possessions that are of western origin. Some
are held in common - the station property, the school, community

*An exception to this is found when marta marta are present at a
gathering with government representatives. The marrngu distance
themselves from the marta marta by using the white terminology for
them - "You Aborigines .....say this".

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