The name is absent

266

shapes a self that ’knows* this self-apprehension to be the only
’real’ one and rejects as ’unreal’ any contrary models of
apprehension or emotionality.
*
№

In a situation where Aboriginal society is mainstream society,
then the white mode is ’unreal’, and does not offer a possible
self. The opposite would be true in a white world.
*

Stark (1958:34) points out that there are, according to
Scheier, "three distinct forms of knowing which, though they all
have a permanent ground in life and co-exist in all societies, none
the less exist or predominate at different times and places in
different proportions: religious knowledge, metaphysical knowledge,
and scientific knowledge".

The psychological reality of Strelley is a predominantly religious
*

one.

Tonkinsonunderlinesthispoint.                         .

The Aborigines are sceptical of the ability of
whites to communicate with and benefit from the
spiritual realm.

Their ethnocentrism prevents them from examining
western non-material culture as a possible
alternative to their own (Tonkinson, 1974:195).

Nevertheless, in a situation where the Aborigines believe they
have the Law as the ’truth’, their ethnocentrism does not require
that they demean the life-style of others - of the teachers they
employ, for example . There is no evidence of the global ’hatred’
of whites, admitted to by individuals in the writings of Gilbert
(1977: 13, 91) and Tatz (1975:passim).
■»

Further evidence that the tradition-oriented model based in a
religious world finds issue in a psychological reality may be
demonstrated by the fact that young men are initiated, and this
1 2
is a source of self-esteem and prestige .

*     *     1            r            ....... *     *            *

*
¹Taped interview.

^01der men were also being separated from the Mob for initiation into
higher stages of the Law.                                               ,

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