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from Part One - Landscope and Emotion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
The saltwater … here it rests in the saltwater country, but it all has names. …Also the rocks. Rocks that the country holds. Where the water moves … where it rests. Thereare places there, names there, names that are special that Yolngu receive in their heads. And singand give names to children.
—Djambawa MarawiliPerforming the Law
After a rough drive along the dirt road leading away from the township of Galiwin'ku, innortheast Arnhem Land, we came into an outstation on the coast (see map 3.1). Some family memberswere sitting on their raised verandas in the shade. One of the three Yolngu women traveling in thecar gestured that they should go to a thick mangrove cluster close to the sea to gather shellfishand mud crabs. As they departed, I, along with another non-Aboriginal friend who also knew thefamily and had a long history in the region, took the opportunity to meet with one of the clanleaders. We walked toward the shoreline, where an inlet led around to a rocky headland along thewhite beach. After some general conversation, and in response to some questions about the genealogyof the area, he offered fragments of information about the ancestor who had traversed the promontoryin the distant past, establishing his clan rights and those of his kin there. I had already analyzeda range of song series in the region and knew something of the history of the ancestors in thearea.
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