289
While it is true that the Aboriginal people are located
within the white world, they* cannot be seen as forming a community
in the sense that Strelley is a community of linguistic groups,
united within one overarching group.
The Aboriginal ’world’ of Adelaide should rather be depicted
by a series of small kin-related groups
and individual families
integrated into the white world.
At Pt. Augusta, different factors operate. As in the case
...... ∙'
of Adelaide, the Aboriginal people can be stratified along class
lines, as well as being categorised according to their place of
origin.
There are Aboriginal families long established in a life style
similar to that of white people. Individuals do not, however, see
themselves as part of white society (Gaskell, 1980). They live in
dwellings dispersed among white groups. Many of the men have a
history of employment in the Commonwealth Railways, with the `
Electricity Trust or with the local eouneilɪ. There are some people
who have married into white society, and are integrated into white
society.
There are teacher-aides, home school liaison officers at the
primary school and high schools, people of standing respected both
by the Aboriginal and white communities and with links to the third
world of the ’bush’ people, the semi-tribal people, who are still in
the process of migrating to Pt. Augusta.
. People come to Pt. Augusta from a tradition-oriented group, the
, , 2
Andjamathana. at the Nepabunna mission. These people are held by
the people of Pt. Augusta to be ’strong in the head’ - that is, having
a..strong sense- of identity rooted in tradition.
ɪsee Table I, p. 57. and Figure 2, facing p. 55, for origins of
Aboriginal people surveyed in Pt. Augusta for a research project on
employment.
2See Figure 2.