The name is absent

What has been written above does not posit a complete ^yτ∏τn∏try
of the individual with an offered identity. There are delinquencies.
People steal cars, run off from husbands, go to town and get
drunkɪ.

John Bucknall notes that

...with physical growth into teenage years the community’s
expectations in terms of social interaction and basic
socialization institutions (and in particular the Law)
come into conflict with the pressures of the big town
outside and the hopes, plans and expectations of the
white teachers (Bucknall, 1980:4).

It is to be expected that the pressures and excitement of town
life will act on the marrngu as they do on Europeans.

Some people do leave, some come back disillusioned by town
2

life , some make forays into town life, some are lost to the
group because they choose a different identity.

*

The point at issue is that there is a clear presentation and
a choice of a firmly delineated, strongly supported Aboriginal
identity to which the individual can respond. If he takes on an
identity outside this framework, it is through choice and not the
result of confusion experienced by the ’broken people*, accompanying
the disintegration of structures.

What is posited is a degree of inner cohesion in the group
that allows for such delinquencies, almost expects them at some
stage, but provides mechanisms for bringing back the (temporary)
delinquent into the group. It is almost as if some of the delinquent
acts are accepted as part of a growth pattern, waited for, observed

Tonkinson describes similar possibilities at Jigalong: ’’Most
Jigalong adults have travelled in the surrounding areas at some
stage and are thus aware of what is happening among town-dwelling
Aborigines, whose lives seem to be dominated by drunkenness, fighting
and gambling, with a consequent breakdown in the Law ... While not
denying that they often drink and gamble in town they condemn such
activities in retrospect for making people’s heads *no good’ and causing
them to neglect their families and the Law" (Tonkinson, 1974:143).

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