The name is absent

265

Individuals, at times, or for a time, may attempt to find
their psychological reality within these models. But it is necessary
for them to leave the physical world of Strelley to do this.

In a sense then, statements about the reality of the model
would seem to be tautological. People who remain in the physical
world of Strelley reflect their acceptance of this model.

However, it can be shown that while there are a few who leave
this world permanently, the opposite is also happening. The ’world’
of meaning is attracting others.

Reference has been made to those of the Jigalong Mob who have
migrated to Camp 61. The Noonkanbah group and Alice Springs group
accept the Strelley model of the ’world’ that holds a community school
as being of the utmost importance. For these groups, the model of
Strelley is a ’real’ one, not merely for Strelley but also for others
who believe they can locate themselves and establish their identity
in this model.                                                     ∙

Manifestly, not only at Strelley but for other groups, the
Strelley model is plausible.
*

Within Strelley itself there is another model offered.

Undoubtedly, the white families and white children present an
alternative model to the marrngu. Nevertheless, while children
play together freely and adults interact freely, it is the Aboriginal
people who decide how the white people will be incorporated. It is
they who have decided where the European housing should be, and have
distanced it from their own dwellings (as indeed they distance
themselves from each other, in different ’camps’).

There is no evidence of children, outside school hours, gravitating
to a preferred teacher. The marrngu psychological model would appear
to be self-sufficient, providing its own exemplars and its own
fulfilment from within itself.

All the evidence suggests that, as Berger posits, ’’self and society
are inextricably interwoven entities” (Berger 1971:96). Socialization

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