Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Petra Tövišová

Projecting Identity in Non-verbal Aboriginal Communication Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph. D.

2012

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Petra Tövišová

I am heartily thankful to my supervisor PhDr. Jitka Vlčková, Ph. D. for initiating me into this interesting subject, and mainly, for providing critical and insightful commentary, and for her encouragement, guidance and support.

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………..…………5

1. Aboriginal Identity ……………………………………………………….…………8

1.1. Alinta: the Flame……………………………..………………..….………11

2. Nonverbal Communication …………..………………………………….…………13

3. Body Communication (Kinesics)……..…………………………………….………15

4. Facial Communication…………………………………………………..….………18

5. Eye Communication……………………………………………………..….………23

6. Artifactual Communication…………………………………………………………27

7. Tactile Communication (Haptics)…………………………………………..………36

8. Smell (Olfactics)………………………………………………………….…………39

9. Silence………………………………………………………………………………41

10. Spatial Communication (Proxemics)………………………………………………47

11. Territoriality………………………………………………………….…….………50

12. Temporal Communication (Chronemics)…………………………………….……55

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..…………58

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………63

Résumé..……………..………………………………………………..…………..……65

Introduction

“Communication refers to the process of human beings responding to the symbolic behavior of other persons” (Adler and Rodman 2). Communication plays an essential role in shaping identity, because it is the only way people learn who they are.

“Each of us enters the world with little or no sense of identity. We gain an idea of who we are from the way others define us. …Deprived of communication with others, we would have no sense of identity” (Adler and Rodman 8). “Identity is at the heart of the person, and the group, and the connective tissue that links them. People need psychological anchor” (Edwards 2). According to Edwards, personal identity is the summary of individual traits and characteristics that make each human being a unique one. It signifies the „sameness‟ of an individual at all times or in all circumstances”

(Edwards 19). At a group level, an important identity marker is language. “Accent, dialect and language variations reveal speakers‟ membership in particular speech communities, social classes, ethnic and national groups” (Edwards 21).

However, personal and group identities are not shaped solely by the use of verbal communication. People use two major signal systems to interact with each other- the verbal and the nonverbal. Both of these systems serve series of social functions and according to Adler and Rodman, one important social function of nonverbal communication involves identity management. People sometimes behave in ways that will present their identity, instead of projecting themselves verbally (146). From this it follows that identity can be projected by the use of verbal, as well as nonverbal communication. This communication is governed by culture, for “although we seldom recognize the fact, our whole notion of the self is shaped by the culture in which we have been reared” (Adler and Rodman 45). Every culture provides its own set of rules

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that determine how members will behave and “these rules, therefore, form the group identity” (Adler and Rodman 258).

Because of the fact, that particular cultures and societies sometimes acknowledge completely different rules, the clash of cultures is often inevitable.

“One problem that hinders intercultural communication is the tendency to

see others and their behaviors through your own cultural filters.

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to evaluate the values, beliefs, and

behaviors of your own culture as being more positive, logical, and natural

than those of other cultures” (DeVito, “Human Communication” 372).

One of the best known cases of clashes of cultures was the one between

Australian Aborigines and the first European colonizers, whose “cultural and physical differences created basic misunderstandings and a lack of sympathy between the two groups” (Broome 92). The first Europeans to arrive in the continent considered the natives to be savages. “Nakedness was equated with primitiveness, as was the lack of houses, villages, cultivation or any apparent system of chiefs, government or land tenure” (Flood 28). This was largely due to a lack of understanding about the culture of the Aborigines. The Aboriginal culture was too complex for the colonizers to understand. “Aboriginal society was not „primitive‟ as Europeans claimed, but simply different” (Broome 93). Even though, the Europeans gradually learnt and started using some of the native languages, they still could not fully understand the natives because, as Edwards claims, understanding someone is not only the matter of the verbal but also the nonverbal communication (55).

Unfortunately, the traditional Australian Aborigines still remain one of the least understood people in the world. Most people perceive them as a primitive culture, because there are not many ways for people to find out the truth about the traditional

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Aborigines. The majority of authors prefer to deal with contemporary events rather than with earlier historical occurrences, therefore many books have been written about the post-colonization life of the Aborigines but general studies focusing on Aboriginal traditional life and culture remain few in numbers. And the few publications dealing with the traditional Aborigines that have been published examine the Aboriginal life mainly from the verbal perspective.

Therefore the intent of this thesis is to illustrate the connections between various areas of nonverbal communication and Aboriginal identity to help understand and therefore being able to appreciate the traditional pre-colonial Aboriginal society. The first chapter defines Aboriginal identity and examines its play in different aspects of everyday life, and presents the concise summary of the film Alinta: the Flame which is used in the thesis to help illustrate various aspects of Aboriginal nonverbal communication. The second chapter explains and defines the concepts and principles of nonverbal communication. The third to twelfth chapters represent ten major nonverbal variables which impinge on, and influence, the process of communication regarding the

Australian Aborigines.

The thesis mainly draws on the books The Original Australians by Josephine

Flood (2006) and The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present written by Catherine Helen Berndt and Ronald M. Berndt (1988) that focus on the life of traditional Australian Aborigines; and on the books Nonverbal

Communication Workbook by Joseph A. DeVito (1989) and The Complete Idiot„s Guide to Body Language by Peter A. Andersen which concentrate on the theoretical approach to language of nonverbal behavior.

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1. Aboriginal Identity

Australian Aboriginal People are the original inhabitants of the continent who

“have been here for more than 50,000 years and it may in the future be found to be anything up to 120,000 years” (Broome 14). “The Australian Aborigines have sometimes been called Australoids, but they are not a separate human species. Isolation over a long period led to the development of certain local characteristics which marked them off to some extent from other peoples” (Berndt and Berndt 1). These common threads made up their identity called Aboriginality. Traditional Australian Aborigines had a “different way of living, a different outlook [and] different values” than other societies (Berndt and Berndt 6). However, they not only differed from other peoples, there were significant differences in social, cultural and linguistic customs between various Aboriginal groups as well. For example, “it is impossible to generalize about the physical characteristics, life, customs, material possessions, languages, and religious beliefs of the Australian Aborigines” (Reed 5). Berndt and Berndt state that despite the differences between particular Aboriginal groups, there is enough common ground, that when compared to the rest of the world, they can be seen as one (22).

One of the aspects of Aboriginal life which was common to all the Aborigines and was a significant part of their identity was kinship and the social organization.

Berndt and Berndt suggest that kinship was the major integrating element of social organization which held the society together (90). “The basis of the kinship system was that the Aborigines regarded their whole group as a family” (Broome 20). Their relationships were far more extensive than the Western method of identifying the relatives as mother, father, brother and others. These terms for family members “were extended to everyone in the tribe” (Broome 20). Reed says that there were specific rules that had to be observed in speech and mutual attitudes in every kinship relationship.

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“When two people met, their first obligation was to discover their degree of kinship so that they would know how to act towards each other” (Reed 132). Australian societies were characterized by living in small groups called bands and clans. Flood reports that bands comprised of one or more extended families and “were „land-using residence groups‟, whereas clans were „country groups‟ with a common identity, often based on claimed descent from a single Ancestral Being” (17). “The next major stage of social organization [was] the tribe [which] … [was] what anthropologists call a set of people sharing a common linguistic identification and hence a common identification with the area with which that language is traditionally identified” (Flood 17). Flood claims that belonging to a particular tribe was central to the identity of Aboriginal people, because it indicated their origin and ancestral territory (17).

Another part of their identity was a deep emotional attachment to their land. “In

Aboriginal Australia there was no sign of horticulture, agriculture or animal or plant domestication” (Flood 20). The Aborigines were mainly hunters and gatherers who are sometimes described as „cultivators‟ because of “their regular burning of the landscape for hunting, to keep paths open and to provide new, sweeter grass to attract the game”

(Flood 20). Povinelli argues that for them hunting and gathering was not only an economic and cultural action aimed at obtaining food; it provided “the men and women with the intricate knowledge of the physical and mythical landscape” which helped them strengthen the spiritual bond to their land and therefore define their Aboriginality

(Povinelli 239). The land was “made familiar and intimate to them through mythic beings who were believed to be manifested at specific sites, always present and approachable through the medium of ritual” (Berndt and Berndt 516).

The Aborigines were a deeply religious people. “Religious feeling was manifested through ritual observance and through mythic expression” (Berndt and

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Berndt 515). They were spiritual, though they had no formal religion. Their lifestyle was based on Dreamtime beliefs. Flood notes that the Dreaming as a belief system meant their identity and that it was the understanding of what they had around them

(138). According to Flood, the human, natural and supernatural worlds in this belief system were linked by totems which were considered to be part of the Aboriginal identity. The Aborigines saw themselves as associated with particular animate or inanimate things and shared their names with their totems (136). Reed notes that it was forbidden to marry somebody of the same totem, as this would have been equivalent to incest (Reed 144). “It was also forbidden to kill, harm or eat the totem” (Flood 136).

Flood points out that throughout Australian prehistory, the basic forms of their belief system, religion and rituals remained the same. “For instance, the rite of cremation has endured for over 40 000 years” (Flood 24). Because of their conservatism, the

Aboriginal people have “the world‟s longest continuing art tradition, oldest enduring religion and most ancient living culture” (Flood 26).

To summarize, the traditional Australian Aborigines as a people had a different lifestyle, beliefs and values than other societies. “Aboriginal life was concentrated on the social rather than on the metaphysical or the material side” (Stanner, qtd. in

Povinelli 10) and the most important markers regarding their identity were complicated kinship relationships and social organization, their economic versus sacred relationship with their land and their copious religious lifestyle based on the principle of Dreaming with totems as its symbols.

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1.1. Alinta: the Flame

Alinta: The Flame, directed by James Ricketson, is the first of four 60-minute episodes which together formed an Australian historical drama television miniseries called Women of the Sun made in 1981. All four separate films focus on the lives and struggles of Australian Aborigines and portray the history of race relations in Australia from an Aboriginal view point. The first story shot in Virginia begins in 1824 and documents the first contacts between Aborigines and Europeans inhabiting Australia.

The fact that this film stars non-professional Aboriginal actors wearing tribal garments and using a native language of the people of Lake Vela from the Northern Territory makes it more authentic. This story provides a valuable insight into the traditions, customs, culture and both the secular and spiritual lifestyles, therefore serves as an excellent material for the demonstration of the use of nonverbal communication among the traditional Aborigines. This film is a big contribution for this thesis, because

“for better understanding of nonverbal communication, there is a value in

watching any film in which the characters speak an unfamiliar language.

The surprising amount of information that can be gained from visual and

vocal behavior will give an appreciation for the communicative value of

nonverbal behavior, and the details that cannot be understood will show

its limitations” (Adler and Rodman 168).

The lead character in each of the episodes is a strong woman. The first story revolves around a young girl called Alinta belonging to a tribe known as the Nyari people. The film presents the traditional Aboriginal life with all its aspects. It shows the secular life including the hunting and gathering, and offers insight into the ritualistic lifestyle of the Aborigines as well, including initiation ceremonies, and marriage and mourning rituals. The film follows the life of Alinta from her early childhood through

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her puberty, her getting married to Murra, all the way to her adulthood when she gives birth to her own daughter. The story begins when the tribal children, who have not seen a white man before, find two English convicts McNab and Finlay washed up on the beach. The members of the tribe provide food and shelter to the convicts despite the possible threat to the tribe and the warnings of some of the tribe‟s Elders. The prediction of the Elders comes true when Finlay is caught breaking the tribal law by assaulting a young girl. He is immediately punished by death by spearing. McNab stays with the tribe and gradually becomes one of them, wearing the same garments and speaking their language. Eventually, more settlers come in search for land and begin to settle on the lands of the Nyari people. They encounter McNab who then joins them and leaves the Aboriginal tribe for good. The settlers start killing off the members of the tribe including one of Alinta‟s tribe‟s important members called Towradgi, who was a very influential figure in the decision-making processes in the tribe, even though she was a woman. The killings continue and gradually lead to the annihilation of the tribe, leaving Alinta and her newborn child being the only survivors.

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2. Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is “the process of (an) individual(s) transmitting nonverbal cues that have the potential to stimulate meaning in the mind(s) of (an)other individual(s)” (Malandro and Barker, qtd. in DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 2).

DeVito points out that an easier way to define nonverbal communication is to state that it is a communication without words by which people create meanings in the minds of others (Communication Workbook 3). According to Andersen, nonverbal communication is a term, which experts use for body language which consists of images, expressions, and behaviors that have no dictionary definition (3). “Nonverbal communication is important because of the role it plays in the total communication system, the tremendous quantity of informational cues it gives in any particular situation, and because of its use in fundamental areas of our daily life” (Knapp 21).

Burgoon states that nonverbal behaviors comprise approximately 60 to 65 percent of all interpersonal communication (qtd. in Navarro 4).

“Unlike the written and spoken word, nonverbal communication is continuous and never ending”, hence it is impossible not to communicate nonverbally. Body language provides a constant flow of messages (Adler and Rodman 152). DeVito suggests that body language is very revealing, because people, regardless of what they talk about (or do not talk about), communicate something about themselves via their nonverbal cues. People are constantly telling others who they are, what they like and do not like, and other important personal information (Communication Workbook 15).

“Body language evolved long before language. That‟s why body language is considered more natural and authentic than words” (Andersen 4). “Because people are not always aware they are communicating nonverbally, body language is often more honest than and individual‟s verbal pronouncements, which are consciously crafted to

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accomplish the speaker‟s objectives” (Navarro 4). According to Andersen, there are a number of characteristics of body language, apart from its primacy and partial spontaneity, which make it more authentic and believable. These characteristics include redundancy and the fact that body language is multi-channeled (14). From the above it follows that “body language communicate[s] as effectively as words- maybe even more effectively” (Axtell 4).

“The world is a giddy montage of vivid gestures. … People all over the world use their hands, heads, and bodies to communicate expressively” (Axtell 2). However,

“much nonverbal communication is culture-bound. In other words, behaviors that have special meaning in one culture may express different messages in another” (Adler and

Rodman 167), and as DeVito points out, each culture has different rules that dictate which forms of body language are appropriate and inappropriate, or acceptable and unacceptable (Communication Workbook 9). Even though cultures have different nonverbal languages, “certain expressions have the same meanings around the world.

For example, “smiles and laughter are a universal signal of positive emotions” (Adler and Rodman 150).

Nonverbal behavior is an extremely broad and powerful means of communication. There are different types of nonverbal communication; however, there are ten fundamental areas which are one by one in depth analyzed in the following chapters in relation to the life of the traditional Australian Aborigines. These areas of nonverbal behavior are: Body Communication, Facial Communication, Eye

Communication, Artifactual Communication, Tactile Communication, Smell, Silence,

Spatial Communication, Territoriality and Temporal Communication.

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3. Body Communication (Kinesics)

According to Knapp, body motion, or kinesic behavior, typically includes gestures, movements of the limbs, hands, feet and legs, and posture (5). Gestures are powerful communicators “woven inextricably into our social lives” (Axtell 3). “Without gestures [the] world would be static, colorless” (Axtell 2). Gestures are “a universal form of human communication” (Andersen 80); however, the majority of gestures differ among cultures. There exist some universal hand gestures, which are as common in today‟s Western world as they were among the traditional Aborigines hundreds of years ago. These gestures include the “I am hungry” and “I am thirsty” signals. Axtell describes that the former can be performed by making a circular motion over the stomach with the hand and the latter by using the hand to mimic the act of drinking

(102). The evidence of cross-cultural universality of one of these gestures is presented in the film Alinta in one of the opening scenes where the British men ask the Aboriginal women for water. They naturally cannot communicate verbally because they are not familiar with the Aboriginal language. Therefore it leaves them with only one choice, and that is to use the nonverbal cues. They use the above mentioned hand gesture for thirst, and they succeed. The Aboriginal women bring them water, which proves that this nonverbal cue is understandable in both of these cultures, even though they are so remote. The traditional Aborigines were a heavily hand-gesticulating culture and gestures accompanied everything the Natives were doing or saying. Among other things, they used hands to motion hello, good-bye, come here or go away, and they used hands for pointing as well. As portrayed in many passages of the film, the Aborigines pointed either with their heads and lips or with their hands and fingers.

As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, kinesics includes not only movements of the hands and arms, but movements of the feet and legs, and posture as

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well. Navarro states that the part of the body which “is most likely to reveal a person‟s true intentions” is the feet, along with the legs (54). “Because they have been so directly critical to our survival throughout human evolution, our feet and legs are the most honest parts of the body” (Navarro 84). One of the basic functions of feet is standing.

“Standing is often considered to be a position of domination, but there are lots of ways to stand and not all of them are dominant postures” (Andersen 96). “Standing with feet apart can be interpreted as being both aggressive and very masculine” (Axtell 114).

However, the Aboriginal men had their own special masculine posture. When standing, they “placed one foot against the opposite knee, adopting the shape of the figure 4, balancing themselves by leaning on a spear or woomera1” (Reed 150). Whereas in the

Western world each and every man‟s preferences for standing postures differ, the traditional Aboriginal men were synchronized. Even Aboriginal children “naturally imitated the same position from an early age” (Reed 150). This group synchrony sends

“powerful cues of closeness” (Andersen 89).

Even though standing is regarded as the dominant posture, “seated people are more powerful because it‟s uncomfortable to stand” (Andersen 130). “Nowhere are positions of power more evident or important than at meetings” (Andersen 247).

Andersen further suggests that seating position is very important and that oval and circular meeting tables facilitate interaction (247). The Aborigines did not use tables but even they knew that sitting in a circle helps to achieve a satisfactory and successful conversation. Therefore, when at meeting, they sat on the floor in a circle, so that everyone could sufficiently observe the others. In the Western world the head of the

1 The woomera is “an instrument of wood, from 24 to 30 inches long, and a little thicker than a spear.

Unlike the spear it is not thrown at the enemy in battle, but remains always in the black man‟s hand”

(Reed 148).

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table is traditionally the position for the leader or for the person in charge. The

Aborigines did not reserve a special place for their leader, even though “the leader‟s opinion carried a great deal of weight at meetings” (Reed 100). There were no special seating arrangements during councils which took place away from the camp; however, in a camp “families adopted definite arrangements when seated on the ground at mealtimes” (Reed 153). The film offers a vivid picture of the life in a camp. Women and children are separated from men, and members of individual gender groups occupy their part of the camp. Andersen suggests that sitting away puts people in a distinctly subordinate position (247). It is only in the moment when they have to decide whether or not they will let the men of clay stay in their camp, that the older men and older women sit together and converse, trying to reach a verdict. In other situations, it seems as if the men and the women lived completely separate lives filled with their separate responsibilities during the day, meeting only at night for the rites and rituals they shared.

To conclude, body communication, which includes movements of limbs, hands, legs or feet, is a cross-culturally universal type of nonverbal communication. However, meanings of most of the gestures vary throughout cultures with the exception of a few gestures including signals for hunger and thirst. Body communication comprises of body postures as well. Standing and sitting arrangements can communicate various messages, especially dominance versus subordination. Traditional Aboriginal society ranked among the cultures which depended heavily on body communication which played an integral role in all aspects of their life. Gesticulation was part and parcel of

Aboriginal interaction and without gesticulation the Aborigines would not be

Aborigines.

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4. Facial Communication

“The face is a tremendously complicated channel of expression for several reasons. One reason is the number of expressions people can produce. Another is the speed with which they can change” (Adler and Rodman 157). Expanding this view,

Navarro says that according to Ekman peoples‟ capability to demonstrate such an immense range of facial expressions2 is enabled by “all the various muscles that precisely control the mouth, lips, eyes, nose, forehead and jaw” (qtd. in Navarro 166).

Axtell remarks that people send immense numbers of messages by using their heads and faces (64). He further claims that the faces are capable of showing various emotions like anger, pain, joy, shock, boredom, and more (64). De Vito mentions that there are two different points of view of universality of expressing emotions among particular cultures (Communication Workbook 66). He suggests that “one research supports the universalist position … and the other indicates that different cultures express the emotions in different ways and therefore facial expressions … differ from one culture to another” (De Vito, “Communication Workbook” 66). Andersen is inclined toward the former universalist belief and is convinced that facial expressions like anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, interest, shame, contempt, confusion, and excitement belong among the innate, cross-cultural, universal ones (54). It is difficult to assess truthfulness of this claim, however, at any rate, when comparing the Western countries with traditional Aboriginal culture, expressing emotions from this Andersen‟s list seems to be truly universal. The most expressive facial expressions are happiness, anger and surprise, therefore the following paragraphs will be devoted primarily to them.

2 “It is estimated that humans are capable of more than ten thousand different facial expressions” (qtd. in

Navarro 166).

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Andersen suggests that “one characteristic of a happy face is a smiley mouth that is upturned at the corners and upturned lines at the corner of the eye (57). This is as true for the Western world as for the Aborigines. When one of the Elders in Alinta performed the pantomime mimicking Finlay‟s unsuccessful attempt to catch a kangaroo, the smiles on the faces of the members of the tribe looked precisely as Andersen suggests, with both the mouths and eyes smiling simultaneously. “It is well known by researchers that humans have both a fake and a real smile” (Ekman, qtd. in Navarro

186). Andersen says that the fake smile looks forced and fails to show the wrinkles around the eyes (17). “The fake smile is used almost as a social obligation toward those who are not close to us, while the real smile is reserved for those people and events we truly care about” (Ekman, qtd. in Navarro 186). This Ekman‟s claim explains why there is no single moment in the whole movie Alinta in which the fake smile appears. The members of Aboriginal clans were so closely bound to each other and meant the whole world to each other, that they had no reason whatsoever to fake any emotion, not even the smile. Besides not faking smiles, Australian Aborigines even enjoy smiling and laughing very much. Being cheerful is part of their identity. Most of the time in Alinta the Aborigines are chirpy, happy and in a good mood, up until the time when the arrival of the whites wipes the smiles off their faces. The Aboriginals love expressing all different types of emotions and not hide them like for example Asians, who “tend to use display rules3 and internalize most of their emotions” (Andersen 61). This suggests that the cultural differences do not lie in the interpretation of emotions, but in the rules set by particular cultures about the suitability of displaying certain emotions in certain

3 Display rules are “instructions people learn in a given culture about when and where it is appropriate to display emotional expressions” (Andersen 54).

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situations. According to Reed the only smile regulation in the traditional life of

Aboriginals was applied to married women who were urged not to smile or gaze at other men but to show fidelity to their husband (74).

Another cross-culturally identical expression is anger. It is one of the most recognizable emotions which is being expressed by “knit, lowered, cantankerous- looking eyebrows, narrowed eyes, and a tense jaw, sometimes with the mouth open and the teeth exposed” (Andersen 58). This definition can be yet again applied to the

Aboriginal society as well. One of the most dramatic scenes of the film Alinta is the part where the members of the tribe catch Finlay harassing one of the tribal women.

Breaking Aboriginal rules is one of the worst misdemeanors anyone could perform, especially when this offence included act of violence on women. This Finlay‟s act displeased the Elders who decided to punish his act by spearing. While doing so, their faces showed only one emotion-anger, expressed by narrowed eyes, tense jaws and the other features of anger mentioned above.

To touch upon at least one other emotion human faces are capable of and which concurrently falls under the category of universal, surprise is worth mentioning.

“Surprise is the most fleeting of facial expressions; it flickers across the face in less than a second” (Andersen 59). When Alinta‟s husband-to-be Murra returned unexpectedly to her tribe, her face showed this second-long universal expression described by Anderson as “composed of rapid opening of the eyes, a rapid raising of the eyebrows” and accompanied by mouth opening, jaw dropping and the teeth getting slightly parted

(Andersen 59).

Apart from expressing various emotions, people can use their heads and faces for gesticulation and sending abundance of diverse messages to others. As mentioned above, lots of emotions are cross-culturally universal; however, most of the head

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gestures differ from culture to culture. Axtell remarks that nodding the head up and down means “yes” in the USA (65). According to film Alinta, the Aborigines use exactly the same gesture to express agreement. On the other hand, there are some cultures in which this simple head movement means the opposite. These countries include “Bulgaria, parts of Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, and Bengal”

(Axtell 65). Axtell states that wrinkling the nose is a sign of disgust in the United States as well as in many other countries (73). As shown in the film Alinta, the Australian

Aborigines were among those cultures which demonstrated distaste in the same manner, as particularly seen in the passage, where the Aboriginal women meet the white men for the first time. The native women bring them water and when coming closer, they subconsciously wrinkle their noses as their noses catch a whiff of the men‟s foul body odor.

According to Axtell, besides making use of their noses, as mentioned above, or their ears, cheeks or chins, people all over the world extensively communicate with their lips and mouths (76). Axtell points out that lips and mouths do not send only verbal messages, but are capable of pouting, whistling, yawning, biting, pointing, sneezing and spitting and that all of these operations send their own unique nonverbal message to others (76). All human beings are capable of performing these gestures, but there are cultural differences in their meanings and in the rules which determine their usage in public. Axtell remarks that one of the most diverse lip and mouth gesture is sticking out the tongue, which can express derision, underscore concentration, serve as a sexual lure, or even indicate greeting as in some parts of Tibet (79). “Spitting is another sometimes mixed-up signal. For most cultures, spitting in public is considered a rude, crude act.

Spitting at someone is an insult, tantamount to a slap in the face” (Axtell 78). On the other hand, Berndt and Berndt state that in the traditional Aboriginal culture when

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trying to lure rain, the Aboriginals were spitting in the direction from which rain was required (313). Another gesture lips are capable of is the lip point which, as shown in

Alinta, was sometimes used as a substitute for the hand or finger point by the

Aborigines to indicate the direction of motion or location of a person.

To sum up, it is obvious that the face is a primary source for expressing various emotions and a very useful tool for communicating diverse messages via miscellaneous head and facial gestures. In the words of Shakespeare‟s Macbeth “Your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters” (qtd. in Knapp 119). Certain emotion expressions and gestures are cross-culturally universal, whereas some are exclusive for only certain cultures. Various cultures even establish rules for their use. Traditional

Aboriginal society was among those cultures which were very rich in expressing their emotions facially as well as abundant in head and facial gestures which played a significant role in all aspects of Aboriginal life.

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5. Eye Communication

“The face, and particularly the eyes, are probably the most noticed parts of the body, and their impact is powerful” (Adler and Rodman 157). According to Andersen eyes are windows to the world and they serve as the primary source for sending and receiving body language (39). As mentioned in the previous chapter, eyes can express emotions more apparently than mouth; for instance happiness with the eyes turned up at the corners or sadness with the eyes turned down. However, nonverbal eye communication is not restricted only to the eyes‟ corners; the whole eyes can produce movements that send clear messages to others. Navarro states that people can display their negative emotions and dislike by the eye squint (174). And “in addition to squinting, … some individuals will lower their eyebrows after observing something unsettling in their environment” (Navarro 175). Ideal visual example of squinting can be found in the film in the passage where Alinta comes to Towradgi and complains about the “men of clay” calling her and trying to become friends with her. This information noticeably unsettles the elderly woman who immediately squints her eyes and lowers her eyebrows, while instructing Alinta never to go close to those men ever again.

Navarro notes as well that “whereas lowered eyebrows are usually a sign of low confidence and negative feelings, arched eyebrows signify high confidence and positive feelings” (175). Expanding this view, Axtell states that there is a cross-culturally universal eyebrow gesture called the „eyebrow flash‟, which occurs when “humans greet, regardless of [their] nationality or race, [they] all open [their] eyes wider than normal … wrinkle [their] foreheads … and the eyebrows move upward” (18). Andersen concurs with Axtell, claiming that “all over the world people perform a rapid „eyebrow flash‟ as a greeting” (60). Evidence verifying their claim, that regardless of culture or race people perform this form of greeting, can be found in the film in the scene where

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Murra comes to visit Alinta‟s tribe and the Aboriginal children run to him to welcome him, and before they greet him verbally, they perform this very universal sign of recognition.

All these eye movements seem to be universal and even possess the same meaning in every single culture. Nevertheless, there is a significant cultural difference in eye communication which concerns eye contact. Axtell notes that “some cultures are much more eye-oriented than others4” (67). In the Western world “you would be considered rude, shy, distracted, incompetent, or catatonic if you fail to make eye contact during conversation” (Andersen 39), because “eye contact is an invitation to communicate … [and] when you fail to make eye contact, you fail to initiate communication” (Andersen 40). On the other hand there are cultures where people avoid long, direct eye contact, because it is considered intimidating. “Direct eye contact is frequently avoided in Aboriginal interactions where it is seen as threatening or rude”

(Diana Eades, qtd. in Walsh and Yallop 187). For Indigenous people it is impolite to look someone directly in the eyes, therefore the Aborigines rather look down or away when conversing. In the film when Murra approaches Alinta and hands her a necklace he has made for her, Alinta lowers her eyes and accepts the gift without making any eye contact with him. In Aboriginal society it is especially disrespectful to make a direct eye contact with a person who is in authority or between people of different status or age.

“This probably goes all the way back to our past when a direct gaze was a display of dominance” (Andersen 131). And it is as true today as it was then or in a traditional

Aboriginal society 200 years ago, that “dominant people rarely break eye contact first,

4 American, Canadian, British, Eastern European, and Jewish cultures favor “face to face” relationships.

… But many Asians, Puerto Ricans, West Indians, and African Americans tend to avoid such direct eye contact. (Axtell 67)

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whereas passive people are usually quick to break eye contact” (Andersen 132). When the Elders in Alinta decided to punish Finlay by death by spearing, they stared at him and maintained a very long direct eye contact with him to display their superiority over him.

Another important factor of eye contact is its application when listening versus talking. As Adler and Rodman report, among the black people there is the tendency to avoid eye contact when listening, which seems very impolite to the people of the white race (18) because their culture tells them that “eye contact is essential when … listening. … It tells your partner you are really tuned in and not distracted by other thoughts or activities” (Andersen 41). Australian Aborigines show the same tendencies as the black people and when listening, rather than gazing at the speaker, they look down and nod their head up and down affirmatively as portrayed in many different situations throughout the whole movie Alinta.

Even though direct eye contact was not welcome in traditional Aboriginal society, there were some occurrences of staring or gazing at the members of the opposite sex, especially during courtship. “Flirting between new acquaintances always includes eye contact as a powerful immediacy behavior5 that strengthens their bond and communicates that courtship is occurring” (Andersen 41-42). This immediacy behavior takes place between Alinta and Murra, yet only from a distance. When they get closer to each other, they follow the unwritten Aboriginal rules and they reduce the eye contact to minimum. By staring from a distance they do not break any rules, because to quote

Reed, the only regulation concerning gazing (as already mentioned in the previous

5 “Immediacy behaviors signal approach and availability, and send warm, stimulating messages to other people” (Andersen 41).

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chapter) concerns married women who cannot smile or stare at men other than their husbands (74).

To summarize, eye communication is a very powerful tool for sending various messages nonverbally. Most of the eye movements and their meaning are universal, independent of culture or race. However, applying of one of the aspects of eye communication, the eye contact, significantly varies from culture to culture. On the basis of the usage of eye contact, cultures have been divided into eye-oriented cultures and eye-avoiding cultures. Traditional Aboriginal society belonged among the eye- avoiding cultures, where mainly direct eye contact between people of different status or age was not welcome or sometimes even strictly forbidden.

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6. Artifactual Communication

Artifactual communication “covers that broad area of nonverbal communication which includes communication through the selection and arrangement of objects” (DeVito,

“Communication Workbook” 82). This type of communication is a significant part of nonverbal communication because as DeVito states people can use artifactual symbols not only to communicate with other people, but to influence them as well (Human Communication 125).

These artifactual symbols include clothing, shoes, hair, jewelry, colors and body ornaments.

“Clothing is a means of nonverbal communication, providing a relatively straightforward method of impression management” (Adler and Rodman 162). “For thousands of years human beings have communicated with one another first in the language of clothes”

(DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 83). People usually make inferences about who other people are by the way they dress. According to Adler and Rodman, clothing is especially important in the early stages when people make the first impression (163). Unfortunately, the

Aborigines experienced truthfulness of this claim. Their first impression on the white colonists was not very good because the basic rules about clothing varied greatly among these two cultures. Dresser points out that people from various cultures “have different rules- some stricter, some more lax- about keeping their bodies covered” (Dresser 60). The Western culture is not excessively strict about covering the bodies, but complete or almost complete nakedness is not common; especially not in public. Therefore the Aborigines were seen as savages because most of them were “naked except for the mixture of animal fat, charcoal and ochre covering their heads, faces and bodies” (Flood 60). “In many parts of the country the natural state of the

Aboriginal was complete nudity” (Reed 72). However, as Flood remarks, in the colder parts of mainland Australia Aborigines wore cloaks made from as many as 80 possum skins. These cloaks were worn during the day and used as blankets during the night (97). Even though most of the Aboriginal population spent majority of the time naked and wore mantels only to protect themselves during the winter, “there were a number of tribes where clothing provided a minimum degree of modesty. On Melville and Bathurst Islands … women wore more or less

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efficient aprons, or carried pieces of bark which they held in front of them when meeting men”

(Reed 73). Povinelli notes that women had the “front bottom covered”, but their backside and breasts were exposed and the only piece of clothing they wore was a “breast harness” to tie the breasts up (107-8). Reed explains that the purpose of this breast harness was to indicate that a young woman had reached a marriageable age and apart from the harness, she “was entitled to wear armbands, headband or waistband of hair” (Reed 73). Knapp notes that clothes fulfill various functions: decoration, protection (both physical and psychological), sexual attraction, group identification, and display of status or role (82). Garments in the Aboriginal society played mainly the decorative or protective role. However, there were some pieces of clothing widely used by the Aboriginal men and women of many tribes which had another function as well. These pieces of clothing were “girdles or belts made of plaited human hair, often that of deceased relatives” (Reed 21). These belts were used to carry tools and weapons and also as a cure for a headache, because the Aborigines believed that a man‟s headache could be cured by wearing his wife‟s headband or belt (Reed 22). In Alinta, all the women and the men are dressed solely in grass skirts and their heads are adorned by headbands of various colors; only some members of the tribe are clothed in cloaks made of animal skin. Because of the fact that nudity seems to have been preferred, it is not surprising that the Europeans viewed the Aborigines as primitives. On the other hand, the fact that the Europeans were fully clothed, puzzled the

Aborigines. Firstly, they did not understand “why the Europeans wore heavy clothing in a warm climate” (Broome 93). And secondly, “they were also bemused as to what sex the strangers were, for the Europeans were clean-shaven and clothed” (Broome 27). Hence, it is true that clothes make an immense impression on people of all cultures and people assign a significant importance to clothing with regard to communication because clothing truly does communicate.

Shoes are good communicators as well; nevertheless the Aborigines did not communicate through footwear as much as the Westerners do, because most of the Aborigines did not wear shoes. They seldom “needed shoes or sandals to protect [their] feet. They were hardened by going barefoot, the toes flexible and capable of acting almost like fingers” (Reed

141). Reed acknowledges that the only footwear used to protect the feet was made from cord or

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bark and was worn in some parts of the Northern Territory (141). However, there existed shoes that served as communicators. Shoes can communicate by displaying roles people play in their society, and one of the Aboriginal roles was the role of kurdaitcha. According to Reed, this person wore the oval kurdaitcha shoes which “were made of emu feathers tied with fur or human hair string … and were known and feared amongst many of the tribes in Central

Australia … [because] their principal purpose was to assist in acts of sorcery and revenge. The kurdaitcha man was … [an] executioner killing those who offended against the unwritten tribal laws” (Reed 141).

Another artifactual symbol that people use to communicate with is hair. DeVito points out that the way people wear their hair communicates about who they are (Human

Communication 132). It is particularly true about the traditional Aborigines, who can be easily recognized by their specific hair styles which are a significant part of their appearance and therefore part of their identity. “Uniquely in Australia, distinctive hairstyles distinguished different tribes. West-coast people shaved their heads into monk-like tonsures, northern men wore ringlets and northern women cropped their hair very short, leaving only a narrow ring round the skull” (Flood 62). “Although it was the usual practice for both, men and women, to wear their hair short, men‟s hair was long in many tribes” (Reed 79). Reed suggests that the reason for having the hair short was to keep it out of the eyes while working, hence the men who decided to keep the hair long had to wear headbands, sometimes decorated with feathers

(79). “Most Aborigines had wavy hair, some curly; and some women were proud of the reddish or golden lights that needed no red ochre to enhance them” (Berndt and Berndt 13). However, some Aboriginal women did not boast with the shade of hair they wanted, therefore the ones who wanted to be “in the height of fashion”, used a mixture of fat and red ochre to impregnate their hair with it (Reed 118). Sometimes they used clay as a beautifying agent. Reed explains that the Aborigines either impregnated their hair with clay or they attached small clay balls to the hair for decoration (42). For the Aborigines hair meant a lot more than simply a head cover which could be dyed and decorated. Reed mentions that in some tribes it was believed that the hair contained part of the person‟s spirit, hence the hair of a dead man or woman was cut off,

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made into a band and worn on the arm (79). Apart from hair, beard was another characteristic of

Aboriginal appearance. Knapp suggests that bearded men appear to be more masculine and mature than shaved men who are seen as youthful (78). The Aborigines considered the beard natural, automatic part of an adult male, only the young boys were un-bearded. Therefore, when the natives first met the European colonists, they were not sure about “the newcomers‟ gender and took them for women, as they lacked beards” (Flood 32). In Alinta, the older men laughed at the whites, because they seemed unmanly, almost childish to them having no beards and moustaches. Apart from beards being considered a sign of maturity and masculinity, they had a deeper, spiritual meaning for the Aborigines. According to Berndt and Berndt, beards were involved in rites during which ritual shaving of facial hair took place (280). Beards sometimes even communicated the role a particular person played in the tribe. Berndt and Berndt mention the Great Victoria Desert Aborigines whose doctor was easily identified by a little bag attached to his beard. In this bag he kept quartz crystal, pearlshell and australites which were supposed to help him bring the rain (312). The Aborigines regarded head hair and beards as part of their identity and carefully groomed and trimmed them, but they thought of other body hair as not attractive. Therefore, as Berndt and Berndt report, the men plucked out hair from their chests to express “distaste at the notion of a hairy body” (191). Unfortunately for some of them, there existed tribes for which extreme hairiness was typical. There were tribes “in and around the

Lower River Murray and Lakes district in South Australia, where some men had chest and body hair of 9 inches or so in length, and some women had beards and moustaches” (Stirling, qtd. in

Berndt and Berndt 12).

Jewelry and other head, neck and arm adornments are also artifactual communicators which can reveal information about their wearers. DeVito claims that some of the reasons for

Westerners to wear jewelry are to communicate specific messages such as their marital status

(by wearing wedding and engagement rings), to infer that they are rich, or to use jewelry simply as a decoration (Human Communication 132). There were many reasons for the use of body decoration in the traditional Aboriginal society. For example, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, they used adornments such as headbands out of practical reasons to keep the hair out of

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the eyes or as a means of recognition of manhood and womanhood. These headbands were

“made of fine twine covered by wax and painted or decorated with teeth set in gum” (Flood

130). In Alinta, headbands are worn by the older members of the tribe and by the initiation novices, such as Alinta herself, who receives a yellow-colored headband as the initiation gift from her family. Berndt and Berndt point out that sometimes the headbands were used by a man trying to attract a woman. He made a headband, decorated it and then wore it in the main camp hoping to catch the woman‟s eye and believing that later she will not be able to resist and hence will come secretly to his camp (316). However, there were many other reasons for decorating the bodies with adornments among the traditional Aborigines. They used them as decoration, as amulets which were supposed to improve hunting or as significant parts of Aboriginal rituals, rites, corroborees6 and ceremonies. Popularity of particular type of jewelry, adornment and materials used for their creating varied among the tribes. For example, north of Botany Bay some men “wore shell necklaces, string armlets … and impressive nose ornaments of long bird bones or pieces of wood „as thick as a man‟s finger‟ worn through the pierced septum” (Flood

12). Reed reports that there were tribes where the nose-bone or stick was worn by men as well as by women and, that there existed tribes where there was a custom of piercing only the septum of girls as a preparation for womanhood and as a means of beautification (115). Very popular adornments among the Australian Aborigines used during the major rituals were headdresses.

The most popular headdresses were “huge cones decorated with bird-down” (Flood 154).

During ritual performances and corroborees “larger boards and other objects [were] also worn on the head” (Berndt and Berndt 429). Very important kind of Aboriginal rituals were the mourning rituals which also required head covering, and in some tribes other mourning apparels as well. “Amongst certain tribes in the Darling River to Cape Eyre region widows were forced to wear a heavy head-dress of clay” (Reed 36) and in Arnhem Land mourners wore mourning armbands (Reed 110). Sometimes the mourners wore dried body parts of the deceased. “Among the Kurnai of Gippsland, one or both hands [were] cut from the corpse and wrapped in grass and

6 Corroborees is a term for “Aboriginal entertainment of several kinds, especially singing and dancing, which probably originated in the Botany Bay district where it was first recorded“ (Reed 46).

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dried”. Then it was made into a necklace and worn to warn the wearer of approaching danger

(Berndt and Berndt 458). However, necklaces were not connected only with the period of mourning; they were a part of everyday life. “Necklaces were one of the few ornaments favored by both men and women. Necklaces were made of fur, seeds, shells, bones, and teeth” (Reed

114). Both sexes wore shell and fibre necklaces (Flood 60). In Alinta, Murra comes to Alinta‟s tribe wearing a necklace and brings one necklace to Alinta as a present. She then wears it, and before her initiation she receives one more necklace from her relatives. Necklaces served a purpose of a magical device as well. “In eastern Arnhem Land some men [wore] necklets with a congealed blood pendant, tied in a rag or woven into a tiny basket, to improve their hunting”

(Berndt and Berndt 328). Berndt and Berndt mention another magical act concerning wearing a neck adornment. This act was performed by pregnant women in some tribes who believed that wearing a small bag around their neck containing either a spear or a tiny bag would have some bearing on their child‟s sex (155). As mentioned earlier, the Aborigines also used embellishments that fulfilled a purely decorative function. Reed suggests that one of these decorative adornments was the pubic decoration which meant inserting feathers or pieces of pearl shell in the pubic hairs (73).

“Perhaps the most obvious dimension of artifactual communication is color”. In the

Western world people communicate mainly through “the colors of [their] clothing, [their] homes … hospitals, restaurants and other public places” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook”

86). The use of colors in the traditional Aboriginal society was predominantly connected with art. “Art is an expression of Aboriginal philosophy in form and color and in design, which has an aspect of beauty according to the tradition of the tribes concerned” (Elkin, qtd. in Reed 11).

According to Reed, there was no word in Aboriginal languages for art or artist because there were no professional artists; instead, art was a part of their everyday life. They used art to communicate; for them, art was a suitable way to nonverbally tell their stories (15). The most popular sphere of art amongst the Aborigines was painting. “Painting with various kinds of pigment was applied to human bodies, wood, bark, rocks, and earth-in fact, to every kind of surface” (Reed 14). Even though painting on all the surfaces was equally important to the

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Aborigines, Flood reports that colors were used mainly to decorate the bodies for ceremonial purposes (154). Therefore this paper concentrates solely on the analysis of the use of colors in the art of body painting. Berndt and Berndt remark that the Australian Aborigines excelled in decorating themselves. “Almost every part of the body ha[d] been used for that purpose: most commonly the face, chest and thighs, with designs spreading across and over the shoulders to the back” (Berndt and Berndt 426). As part of the rituals, each person was “painted with his sacred designs, identifying him as a member of one unit in contrast to another” (Berndt and

Berndt 112). According to Andersen, groups use tie signs. Some groups display body language and adornments that communicate membership, other groups wear the same style of clothing

(Andersen 102), and particular groups of Australian Aborigines signified group membership by painting their clan patterns and designs on their bodies during rituals. From this it follows that the patterns painted on the bodies were not random and according to Berndt and Berndt, they conveyed various messages such as the individual‟s totem, age or status, and information about the tribe (177). Therefore, the body painting designs varied depending on the tribe. For example, men at Endeavour River had “bodies painted in red and white lines with white circles around the eyes” (Flood 12). Alinta‟s tribe uses different patterns to paint her body before her initiation than the tribe living at Endeavour River; however, they use the same colors. Reed explains that the Aboriginal paintings were achieved with the use of only a few colors, because of the lack of suitable materials. “The principal pigments were red and yellow ochre, white pipeclay, and black charcoal. The use of the third primary colour, blue, was rare” (Reed 13).

Therefore it is not surprising that the same color combinations can be seen on the bodies of the

Aborigines throughout the whole continent. However, different colors are symbolic of different meanings. “The symbolism for colors is, of course, a cultural phenomenon. Each culture seems to have somewhat different meanings for each of the colors” (DeVito, “Communication

Workbook” 86). For example, Dresser claims that in the Western world the yellow color has mostly “negative connotations, as in the association of yellow with cowardice” (69). Whereas the Aborigines did not consider yellow a color of cowardice, it was more likely the antithesis of that. As seen in the film, Alinta‟s tribe chose yellow to be the color of the headbands worn by

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the already initiated members of the tribe who, by undergoing the initiation, proved to be courageous. As previously stated, another frequently used color was white and Broome points out, that, ”since Aboriginal corpses gradually turn[ed] pale”, white color in the traditional

Aboriginal society was considered to be predominantly the color and the symbol of death. Thus when meeting the British people with their pale faces for the first time, the Aborigines thought the Europeans were the spirits of the dead (Broome 27). The same reaction can be observed in

Alinta, when the Aboriginal children find the two white men washed ashore. They are terrified of these two individuals and run back to their camp shouting: “ghosts, ghosts”. Owing to their pale faces, these two British convicts acquire a nickname “faces of clay”. Clay was a material used by the Aborigines when they wanted to color their faces and bodies white which was a

“widespread custom during mourning” (Reed 42). Berndt and Berndt state that among the

Chepara, a widow smeared herself with clay and feces (457) and among the Gagadju, the mourners used clay, as well as other colors for the mourning ritual, which they divided into three sequences, each of them marked with different color. In the first sequence everyone was painted with charcoal, in the second sequence the mourners painted themselves white and in the third sequence everyone was painted in red ochre (Berndt and Berndt 463). Berndt and Berndt explain that red ochre and human or animal blood were parts of the Aboriginal rituals because they symbolized life and the Aborigines believed that this symbolic blood-offering will set free the spirits (273).

The last but not least of the artifactual symbols is the category of body ornaments such as tattoos and scars. Tattoos are very popular among many groups or gangs around the world because “matching tattoos signify membership” (Andersen 102). However, the Aborogines did not display their belonging to a particular social group by tattooing their bodies, they were renowned for scarring. Scarring, or cicatrisation was supposed “to mark the progressive stages of initiatory rites, to demonstrate [the initiator‟s] conquest of fear and pain, as an act of mourning, or simply as an adornment” (Reed 97). Reed states that it was customary for both men and women to be ornamented with scars (138), however, in case of Alinta‟s tribe it was only the men who were adorned with cicatrices. “Scars were cut or burnt into the skin of the

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chest, abdomen, shoulders, arms, back, buttocks or thighs. … Filling cuts with ashes or clay mixed with grease produced raised scars” (Flood 150). Flood remarks that “cicatrices were arranged in regular patterns of lines, dots or circles” (150). These patterns “var[ied] in different parts of Australia, the commonest being up to four parallel scars across the chest and stomach”

(Reed 97). Flood states that “the patterns denoted identity and affiliations with a particular social group” (150). “They marked age-grades and initiation stages, the number being increased with status, and sometimes at marriage” (Reed 138). Berndt and Berndt note that the position and number of scars inflicted during the period of mourning marked the relationship with the dead person (457) because “the number and severity of the wounds [were] governed by the closeness of the relationship” (Reed 138). It follows that the Aboriginal bodies served a purpose of an identification card that contained all the important information about each person. “Men were often proud of the scars caused by fighting because they were indications of their manhood” (Reed 138). The raised welts were “universally admired” (Reed 119) and seen as

“beautiful in Aboriginal eyes” (Reed 138).

In conclusion, artifactual communication means communicating via various artifacts including clothing, shoes, hair, jewelry, colors and body ornaments. This type of communication was very popular among the traditional Aborigines. They portrayed their identity richly by means of artifactual communication. Most of the Aborigines did not wear clothes or shoes, but they were renowned for their specific hair styles, scarred bodies and for wearing jewelry and other adornments such as headbands, headdresses, necklaces, armlets and nose-bones. The use of color among the Aborigines was mainly related to art, specifically body painting. The dominant pigments were red and yellow ochre, white pipe-clay, and black charcoal.

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7. Tactile Communication (Haptics)

“Tactile communication is probably the most basic or primitive form of communication” (Knapp 107) and “probably the first form of communication we experience” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 136). “Touch develops before the other senses; even in the womb the child is stimulated by touch” (DeVito, “Human

Communication” 134). “As infants we learn about the world around us largely by touching” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 136). However, Navarro suggests that touch is very important for people of all ages, not just children, because “health, mood, mental development, and even longevity are said to be influenced by how much physical contact we have with others and how often positive touching takes place”

(Navarro 118). “Touch is a crucial aspect of most human relationships. It plays a part in giving encouragement, expressing tenderness, showing emotional support and many other things” (Knapp 110).

There are various variables which influence touching behavior of people. One of these variables is culture. According to DeVito, cultures differ greatly in their attitude toward touching. Some cultures encourage touching, whereas other cultures discourage it (Communication Workbook 139). “Touch communicates closeness and strengthens group solidarity” (Andersen 249). Traditional Aboriginal culture was an excellent example of group closeness because Aborigines were a strongly touch-oriented culture.

They touched each other very often. As portrayed in the film, Aboriginal people customarily touched each other either to initiate conversation or instead of conversation.

Knapp states that other variables influencing touching are age and gender because the amount and type of contact in adulthood varies considerably with the age and gender of the participants involved (108). In the Aboriginal society, age and sex were affecting the amount of contact. In Alinta, the older male members of the tribe

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touch each other often; especially on the other person‟s shoulder, but the touching is not as frequent as it is among the children who touch each other almost continuously, or among the women who “sitting together … may be packed tightly together from choice,

... leaning against one another, touching one another‟s bodies and hair” (Berndt and

Berndt 196). Even though Aboriginal men were touching less than the women and children, they were not touch-avoiders. Aboriginal men customarily displayed friendship and close relations by the hand-holding behavior. Berndt and Berndt point out, that men walked around the camp with arms entwined, or hands clasping each other‟s shoulders (196). In the Western culture this behavior is not typical for heterosexual men, for the “fear of homosexuality seems to be a strong reason many men are reluctant to touch one another” (Adler and Rodman 161).

Touch is the deepest and the most intimate form of body language (Andersen

68) but according to Andersen, there exist some social touches centered on greetings and departures that are not always overly intimate (198). “Warm tactile greetings are a universal expression of warmth regardless of age or culture” (Andersen 200). “Around the world, it is common to use the hands to greet others, although culture dictates variations on how hand greetings are performed, for how long, and how strong”

(Navarro 137). DeVito names this kind of touching a “ritual touching” and says that it includes shaking hands, hugging, kissing or putting an arm around another‟s shoulder when greeting or saying farewell (”Human Communication” 134). As projected in

Alinta, the common way of saying hello and goodbye among the Aborigines was stroking and petting each other‟s face, arms and shoulders. Saying farewell was very often accompanied by rubbing other person‟s cheeks with the armpit sweat. Berndt and

Berndt mention the Oodnadatta area where it was customary for a man with a subincised penis who entered a strange camp, to take “the hand of each local man in

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turn, pressing his penis flatly on the palm. This gesture of offering and acceptance in a close physical contact, signifie[d] the establishment of friendly relations” (Berndt and

Berndt 176).

To sum up, tactile communication is what we communicate when we touch others and what others communicate when they touch us. There are certain variables which influence the amount of touching among people. These variables are for example culture, age or gender. Touches are tie signs that connect people, indicate degrees of closeness among them and signify types of their relationships.

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8. Smell (Olfactics)

“Smell is one of those dimensions of nonverbal communication that is significant in a wide variety of situations” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 182).

Andersen notes that people are drawn to the smells they like and driven away from the smells they dislike … because “smell evolved as a defense mechanism” (104). The first

European colonists coming to Australia “were repelled by the foul-smelling fish oil that

Aborigines smeared on their bodies to ward off mosquitoes” (Flood 35). This body odor disgust was obviously mutual, because when the Aboriginal women met Finlay and

McNab for the first time in Alinta, they were greatly amused by “the smell like rotten fish” which emanated from the white men‟s bodies. The women disliked the smell, but apart from displaying the grimace of repulsion, they burst out laughing as well.

Andersen claims that we inherited the sense of smell from our ancestors, whose survival depended primarily on smell and that the sense of smell used to be “one of the primary forms of body language” of people and remains the primary form in the animal world

(Andersen 107). Australian Aborigines were aware of the fact that animals relied mainly on their smell, therefore, as Reed reports, before the hunt the Aboriginal hunters smeared their bodies with mud and ochre to camouflage the smell of sweat which could startle the prey (82). However, sweat was of a grave importance for Aboriginal hunting.

Even though, they were forced to mask it, according to Povinelli, the Aboriginals believed that the sweat provided some kind of identification which directly affected the country. She explains that when the country was around the “wrong sweat”, it did not provide copious foods … and that hunting only in the familiar grounds insured success of the hunt (153-59). Aboriginal culture is by far not the only one which accepts body odors. Andersen points out that in many cultures, some body odors are not only permissible, but even desired (104). Dresser mentions the Maori from New Zealand

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who when greeting each other, “press their noses and foreheads together and share the same breath- a kind of smelling” (Dresser 27). “In many tribal cultures, smell is used to detect emotions much as we use facial expressions. Before wedding engagements, families might smell the bride and groom to detect negative emotions” (Andersen 108).

However, the vast majority of present-day society disguises the smell of body odors, because “modern culture has made people feel ashamed of body odor” (Knapp 76).

“Changing one‟s smell is a deliberate, planned expression of body language” (Andersen

12). Reed writes that even though Indigenous Australians customarily did not employ scent, there are some reports advising that people of Central Australia at times wore wreaths of cassia flowers (138). Perhaps the reason for adding scent could have been as simple as attracting others, because even though their life partners had been chosen beforehand, they still felt the need to impress the opposite sex.

To conclude, smell is a powerful communicator nowadays as well as it was in the traditional Aboriginal culture. However, contrary to contemporary trend of masking body and breath odors in most of the cultures, Aboriginals predominantly regarded these scents as part of themselves and their identity and the only reason for hiding or camouflaging them was the need of a successful hunt which was supposed to ensure survival of these people and therefore survival of their culture.

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9. Silence

“Silence, of course, is the absence of speech, but it is not the absence of communication” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 163). According to Edwards,

“silence can be used in different ways. In one interpretation, silence can be an

„affiliative‟ device that allows another participant an entry into the conversation … or in another interpretation, silence can be a reflection of male power”, meaning that “man‟s lack of response to the woman is an exercise in dominance” (138-39). In his commentary on this, DeVito makes the important point that there are other functions of silence too, e.g. to provide thinking time, to hurt another person, to isolate oneself, and many more (Communication Workbook 174).

“As with most of nonverbal communication, there are large cultural differences in the use of silence from one culture to another” (De Vito, “Communication

Workbook” 164). Adler and Rodman are in agreement with DeVito and further add that

Westerners view talk as desirable and are uncomfortable with silence which they think of as awkward and embarrassing (Human Communication 37). On the other hand, there exist cultures which cherish silence and see the value of the well-known proverbial aphorism that “speech may be silver, but silence is golden”. Silence was a common and highly valued style of communication in the traditional Aboriginal society. Aborigines

“paid critical attention to talk, that is, in how people speak to one another and what they say or do not say in their day-to-day personal interactions” (Povinelli 34). Diana Eades explains that silence was the Aboriginal way to give people time to think about their answer, or to adjust to or become comfortable with a particular situation (qtd. in Walsh and Yallop 186). She further reports that whereas in Western societies silence is often a sign of some communication breakdown, in Aboriginal societies silence usually indicates that a person enjoys the presence of others in a nonverbal way (qtd. in Walsh

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and Yallop 187). There is a noticeable resemblance to Native American tribes, mainly the Apache, among whom “newly introduced persons would remain silent for long periods (several days is not uncommon) in order to give each person an opportunity to look over the other person” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 164).

Silence in the Aboriginal culture was not always chosen voluntarily, but was a part and parcel of various aspects of Aboriginal life when speaking was simply forbidden. “Tabus or prohibitions of any kind were a form of control, the breaking of which incurred severe penalties. One of the most frequent forms of tabu was that imposed on speech” (Reed 153). Aboriginal men were for example not allowed to speak to any women or children during a fishing contest. According to Reed, in spring or early summer two tribes in the vicinity of Lake Alexandria challenged each other to a fishing contest which in many cases extended over a period of days and during which, as in all

Aboriginal activities, certain tabus had to be observed (43-44). Reed further explains that these tabus included ban on eating the fish they had speared, eating hot food or talking to their wives or children. The contestants had to refrain from conversing with their relatives until the contest was over (44). Naturally, other occasions for silence in

Aboriginal life, as Reed states, were hunts during which hunters and warriors could not communicate with each other verbally in order not to warn their quarry (142). In a situation like this or during any other time “when there was a tabu on speech, sign language became the medium of communication” (Reed 142).

Initiation rites formed a significant part of lives of traditional Aborigines and were emblazoned with various tabus, among which there was a speech tabu present as well. Reed notes that during the initiation rites there were three main ordeals the initiates had to overcome: appetite, fear, and pain. Pain had to be endured silently even though many of the ordeals were severe, involving physical injury (91). Reed suggests

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that young girls had to undergo similar pain-containing puberty rites as boys to enter full womanhood and had to make no sound during them exactly as the boys (90-91).

Bernd and Berndt point out that in some tribes in western Arnhem Land the mother and close sisters of a boy going through the rituals “were subject to the same prohibitions as he” was (186). This prohibition sometimes took the form of a speech tabu, meaning that the mother and sisters of an initiate were not allowed to “raise their voice above a whisper until he had been through the main section of the rites” (Berndt and Berndt

186). Reed states that in the Roper River district the ban on silence was particularly harsh, because there was conversation between the initiate and certain relatives forbidden for two years (92). This example proves Berndt and Berndt‟s claim that

“being related to a given person in a particular way mean[t] more than simply using the appropriate labels or terms; it mean[t] conforming … to what [was] regarded as … proper … in respect of him, or her. This [could have] entail[ed] complete avoidance, or restraint and circumspection” (80). Berndt and Berndt remark that in the Western

Desert, a man had to avoid his mother-in-law, father-in-law, wife‟s brother or sister‟s husband, and wife‟s mother‟s brother; and a woman had to evade her father-in-law (81).

The most widespread of these avoidance relationships was the one between a man and his mother-in-law, who were “forbidden to converse or even look at each other” (Flood 152). “Amongst some tribes they were not permitted to speak to each other under any circumstances, but only through a third person. In other cases a special language or vocabulary was employed … or sign language was used” (Reed 109). Flood explains that the reason for this prohibition was that a woman was chosen not to be a man‟s wife but to be the mother of his wife. Therefore the man waited for his wife-to-be to be born and grow up. In the meantime he was ordered to avoid his future mother-in- law to prevent the possibility of the two of them engaging in a sexual relationship and

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the man later marrying his own daughter (152). On the other hand, “during the fertility ceremonies, ordinary kinship taboos [were] ignored and a man [could] have sex with his mother-in-law or his tribal sister” (Flood 154). This fact indicates that there existed a speech ban between a man and his sister, who “once the childhood past seldom spoke to each other and took care to turn away while doing so” (Reed 153). Reed further points out that after a girl was married, her brother sat with his back to her when he needed to speak to his brother-in-law and avoided mentioning her name as well (153).

In traditional Aboriginal Australia there even existed some speech rules for people not related to each other at all. For example, “two women of the same name from different mothers were not permitted to speak to each other until they had exchanged goods” (Berndt and Berndt 128). Other special rules applied to visitors, even though there was only little visiting done among the Aborigines, because “the man who left his own tribal territory was a stranger in a strange land, separated from the comforting guardianship of his own kin and of totemic ancestors” (Reed 161). As Reed explains, the visitor sent up smoke signals in advance to let the tribe know he was coming and when he reached the camp he remained silent until the tribe members spoke to him first and did not enter until asked to do so (161). The film Alinta offers a vivid example of this protective measure. When Murra reaches Alinta‟s camp, he does not come all the way to the camp, but remains standing on the top of the hill to let the tribe know he is coming; then the members of the tribe approach him, greet him and invite him over. Only after they perform this rite, does he start conversing and follows them into their camp.

However, in the traditional Aboriginal society ban on speech was mostly connected with death and the names of the recently deceased. “The historical, anthropological and linguistic literature reveals that personal names often have powerful

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religious significance” (Edwards 35). Personal names were so powerful in traditional

Aboriginal culture that the speakers were not allowed to “directly refer to others, especially the recently deceased, by their personal names” (Povinelli 110). Flood notes that the bereaved were ordered not to speak the name of the deceased but to call him the

“nameless one” (49). The dead man‟s name was never to be mentioned again, and even all the words resembling his or her name were “banned and often replaced by a different word from a neighboring tribe” (Flood 157). “On the Pennefather River, in north

Queensland, before the cremation of a young man the soles of the feet and” parts of his thighs were cut off, baked and eaten by one or more of his sister‟s sons (Berndt and

Berndt 468). Berndt and Berndt further explain that the Aborigines believed that young people did not die of natural causes and therefore it was essential to find the murderer.

That is why the dead man‟s body parts were eaten by his male relatives, who were forbidden to talk during this period, until they discovered the identity of the murderer

(468). Speech bans related to death played an important part during the period of mourning which existed in the Aboriginal society as well. During this period the relatives, mainly the widow, had to “commence … a period of silence, sometimes for as long as a year” (Broome 25). Reed says that during the time of mourning the widows were separated and eventually, after this period was over, they remarried and the life of the group went back to normal (52).

To summarize, silence is an essential part of nonverbal communication which has its place in every culture. There are various reasons for its use, from allowing the other participant to enter the conversation to isolating oneself. There are cultural differences in the use of silence. While some cultures try to avoid extensive silences, some cultures prefer silence to talking. The traditional Aboriginal society greatly valued

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silence which appeared in every part of the Aboriginal life either as a voluntary choice of communication or as a part of their taboo rules.

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10. Spatial Communication (Proxemics)

“Proxemics is generally considered to be the study of man‟s use and perception of his social and personal space” (Knapp 7). “Use of space speaks as surely and loudly as words and sentences” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 128). Axtell explains that people walk around inside what he calls “bubbles of personal space” and the size of these bubbles represents our personal territory (42). Expanding this view, Navarro reports that all people are very protective of their personal space, no matter what the size of this space is (68). There are various factors that influence the way people treat space and probably the most influential of these factors are culture, sex and age

(DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 130).

Culture is a very powerful factor which determines exactly how people ought to handle space. “Some cultural bubbles are larger and some are smaller” (Axtell 42).

Knapp agrees that different cultures treat space differently and therefore divides them into contact cultures which interact closer to each other like Arabs, Latin Americans, and Southern Europeans and non-contact cultures like Asians, Indians, Northern

Europeans, and Americans who keep greater distances while conversing (54). Diana

Eades places traditional Aboriginal society among the contact cultures. She further explains that the outdoor living in camps with a large extended family taught the

Aborigines that they could not expect any privacy. They got used to these conditions and hence the need for personal space in these camps was a low priority and people lived in a close physical contact (188). However Berndt and Berndt alert, that these close physical contacts may be deceptive, because they look like they pointed to sexual intimacy, which was not necessarily always true (195). The Aborigines simply enjoyed the closeness with other members of their tribe. This is what DeVito calls the

“equilibrium theory”, which claims that “we maintain close distances with whom we

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have close interpersonal relationships and that we maintain greater distances with those with whom we do not have close relationships” (Communication workbook 128). And in case of Aboriginals as a genuine contact country, the personal bubbles were a lot smaller than in countries like North America where “anyone who stands or sits within

1½ feet of another person is a space invader seen as weird and pushy” (Andersen 117).

As mentioned earlier, culture is not the only factor which determines the rules for the treatment of space. Another factor is gender. Andersen points out that “males and females inhabit their personal spaces differently” (311). He further notes that men usually stand or sit further apart from each other than women, male-male relationships are low in intimacy and that male bonding and intimacy are communicated through shared activities (311). Even though Andersen speaks primarily about the North

American population, the same behavior can be observed in the traditional Aboriginal culture as well. In the film, Alinta‟s tribe evinced the same behavioral pattern as described by Andersen. Even though their whole culture was contact oriented, women had smaller personal bubbles than men and were more intimate with each other. Men, as suggested by Andersen, shared their intimacy during collective male activities which in case of Aboriginal men were activities like hunting or male rites.

Another factor worth closer examination is age. “As people age there is a tendency for the spaces to become larger. Children stand much closer than do adults”

(DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 130). As with the previous gender factor, this factor can be noted in every society and in every culture. As presented in Alinta,

Aboriginal children truly shared a whole lot smaller space than the Elders, who, in spite of sitting very close to each other, provided each other with much more personal space.

To sum up, spatial communication can reveal many things about a person, like his or her age or gender. Moreover the spatial treatment is conditioned by culture which

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either prefers close contact or contact from greater distances. The reason for Aboriginal people preferring close contact could have been them simply enjoying closeness with their relatives, or their knowledge of the fact that “intimacy is a buffer against stress … and people with intimate relationships live longer and enjoy better health (Andersen

203). However, whatever the cause, “this emphasis on proximity to others, or to certain others, [was] not out of place in a social environment of which people, not material things, [were] the most important and most obvious component” (Berndt and Berndt

196).

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11. Territoriality

“Whereas personal space [as mentioned in the previous chapter] is the invisible bubble we carry around as an extension of our physical being, territory is fixed space”

(Adler and Rodman 165). Adler and Rodman further note that “any geographical area

… to which we assume some kind of rights is our territory (165). Therefore the term territoriality refers to “the ownership-like reaction to a particular space” (DeVito,

“Human Communication” 14). Adler and Rodman claim that both the environment people create and the use of an already existing environment can reflect and shape interaction (166-67). The Western cultures communicate mostly by adjusting their surrounding territory to their likes, needs and desires, whereas the traditional Aborigines did not wish to change the environment and, as Berndt and Berndt point out, they did not wish to dominate their surroundings (289). Berndt and Berndt explain why the

Aborigines did not have the need to reshape their territory. They remark that the reason was the Aboriginal belief that their ancestors had supernatural powers and formed the land for them; then disappeared but remained in rivers, waterholes, caves and others.

The Aborigines believed that the arrangement of their land was predetermined and they were not authorized to do any changes (289). For the Aboriginal people some places within their territory were of a very strong importance. These places were sacred and served as venues for Aboriginal rites, rituals and ceremonies. Berndt and Berndt report that each tribe‟s territory consisted of these sacred sites and the areas surrounding them.

Adult men had to care for the sites and prevent their damage or desecration (139-140).

Even though the Aborigines used the land for the economic reasons in order to obtain food, their relationship with the land was predominantly spiritual and emotional. Broom reports that the Aboriginal people deeply loved their territory and that the land not only gave them life but it was their life (18). To quote Alinta‟s father speaking about the land

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with the white colonists who proposed buying up the Aboriginal territory, “land is our mother, we care for it with our life, hearts, spirits … this land is our life”. It follows that the Aborigines had a special relationship with the land and viewed themselves as part of the land. “It is … that the land is him (her), in spiritual terms. It cannot be removed from him (her) - not even by death” (Berndt and Berndt 138).

Berndt and Berndt state that there was no private ownership, but that the land belonged to the clan or tribe (134). Each tribe had their own territory. “People are territorial creatures and most wars are fought over two issues, religion and territory”

(Andersen 114). However, there were no territorial wars in the traditional Aboriginal society. Broome explains that there was no reason to try to possess other tribe‟s land because the creation stories of one tribe related only to their piece of territory (18).

Their territory was part of their identity.

Each territory has its boundaries. According to Broome, Aboriginal tribes believed that the boundaries were fixed, formed by their ancestors (18). “The boundaries were frequently defined by rivers, mountains, and other natural features, but it was the recognition of mythological and totemic sites which really defined the territorial rights of a tribe” (Reed 27). The film supports the fact that the boundaries of the Aboriginal territories were defined by geographical features. When Murra answers the question where and how far is his tribe‟s territory, he says that to get to his territory he has to go over the hill and to the river. There were no other markers separating individual territories, yet the indigenous people knew very well where did their land begin and where did it end.

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“All Aboriginal communities were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers which meant that each tribe foraged for food across its own defined territory7 (Broome 15).

Berndt and Berndt concur that the Aborigines “moved within only a limited radius”

(411). Broome points out that they did not search for food aimlessly but were “directed by an intimate knowledge of the land and the seasons” (Broome 15). Most of the time they hunted and gathered within their own territory, but at times, when granted permission, they foraged “on the territory of other bands” too (Flood 65). However, the

Aboriginals were so closely tied to their surroundings that they felt “homeless and unprotected” when being away from their land (Reed 111). The Aborigines were not sure of themselves until they got back to the “familiar places where [they] knew [they] would be at home with [their] first ancestor” (Reed 111).

Knapp claims that the term territoriality is often used to “denote the human tendency to stake out personal territory-or untouchable space-much as wild animals and birds do” (8). Andersen explains that in the Western societies, people regard their living space as private and even though the visitors are welcome, they should arrive upon invitation only (117). The situation among the traditional Aboriginal society was similar. Berndt and Berndt describe that the Aborigines moved freely across their own territory but never entered other tribe‟s territory or trespassed on other tribe‟s sacred site without being invited or granted permission (141). Coming uninvited in the Western cultures is against the bon ton, but doing the same thing in the Aboriginal society was unforgivable violating their laws. Coming uninvited was punished and could sometimes result even in the death of the trespasser. Berndt and Berndt report that in the northern

Kimberleys the trespasser was killed by the local people and his body was “placed in a

7 “This might be as vast as 100,000 square kilometers in the desert regions or as small as 500 square kilometers in fertile coastal areas” (Broome 15).

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hole scooped in a termite mound, and covered up” (466). Knapp calls this behavior “the concept of territoriality” and he defines it as “a behavior characterized by identification with an area in such a way as to indicate ownership and defense of this territory against those who may invade it” (37). This concept of territoriality is noticeable in Alinta as well. Murra, being aware of the Aboriginal territorial law, does not enter the tribe‟s territory directly, but waits on the top of the hill until invited to come over. According to Reed, when somebody wanted to visit another tribe, they carried a message stick which was a piece of bark that had symbols carved on it and was supposed to serve as a guarantee of peaceful intentions (108). However, this rule was probably not common across the whole continent because Murra, for example, does not carry any message stick; he only carries presents for the Elders and for Alinta.

Australian Aborigines were almost constantly on the move. As mentioned earlier, they were semi-nomadic, which means that they usually stayed in one place for a certain period of time. The length of their stay usually depended on the amount of food they had at their disposal. Once the food supply was used up, they moved to another site. However, they did not change camp only because of the economic or survival reasons. Berndt and Berndt state that the main camp moved for example after the circumcision of the initiate (179). Povinelli presents death as another reason for abandoning the camp. “Places where people have died … must be avoided. The spirit of the dead man may still be in the vicinity, as may be the powers which caused the death”

(Povinelli 187).

In conclusion, territoriality cannot be neglected because it plays an important role in the nonverbal communication process. People are territorial creatures who are very protective of their territory and it makes no difference which culture are they members of. No culture pardons trespassers, but the traditional Aboriginal society was

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particularly sensitive to outside invasion. They punished all the trespassers, some of which paid with their life. The likely reason for such an obsessive guarding of their land was this strong unflagging feeling the Aborigines had for their territory. The land was not only the source of food for them; it was their mother, their whole life, therefore they felt they had to protect it at all cost.

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12. Temporal Communication (Chronemics)

Temporal or time communication, more formally called chronemics, is “the study of how human beings use and structure time. The way [people] handle time can express both intentional and unintentional messages” (Adler and Rodman 164). “It is a significant area of nonverbal communication because [people] generally perceive [their] actions and reactions on the basis of a time sequence” (DeVito, “Communication

Workbook” 202).

There are two basic areas of time communication. These areas are cultural time and psychological time. “Cultural time is concerned with how culture in which we were raised and in which we now live treats time” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook”

202). Cultural time can be further divided into formal and informal time. DeVito explains that formal time means division into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. “Some cultures, however, may use phases of the moon or the seasons to delineate time periods“ (Human Communication 137). The traditional

Aboriginal society was one of the cultures using natural sequences rather than being dependent on “a rigid pattern of chronological reckoning … because their rhythm of everyday living was based on different time-perspective” (Berndt and Berndt 502).

“The Aborigines recognize[d] various time-categories in connection with their everyday activities: days and nights, moons, the sequence or cycle of seasons“ (Berndt and Berndt

230). On the other hand, informal time “refers to the rather loose use of time terms such as forever, immediately, soon, …” (DeVito, “Communication Workbook” 203).

According to Berndt and Berndt, the Aborigines used informal time as well and recognized terms like immediate and near present, historical past or near and far future

(230).

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As mentioned earlier, the term time communication includes not only the cultural time, but psychological time as well. “Psychological time refers to the importance we place on the future, present, and past” (DeVito, “Human

Communication” 138). DeVito describes that in a future orientation, people (and entire cultures) “look forward and live for the future”; in a present orientation, they “live for now, not tomorrow”; and in a past orientation, people “relive old times and regard the old methods as the best”. They “see events as circular and recurring, so the wisdom of yesterday is applicable … to today and tomorrow” (Human Communication 138). The traditional Aborigines were a past-oriented culture. They had a unique concept of the world called “Dreaming” which was “the era of eternal beings, who existed in the past and still exist today” (Flood 138). “Through ritual, each generation experience[d] the present reality of the Dreaming” (Flood 138). “The existence of Dreamtime meant that the Aborigine followed tradition above all else”. They valued “continuity above change.

People did things in the way their parents did them, in the way the great ancestors had laid down” (Broome 19). Berndt and Berndt explain that the Aborigines followed the unwritten rule that “what happens in the present should duplicate … what happened in the past” because they put the strongest emphasis on stability and continuity (229).

Expanding this view, Reed points out that the fact that the spirits and heroes were alive in every generation, gave the Aborigines kind of reassurance that they were following the principles established at the beginning of time. “Without the knowledge that the guardian spirits were part of their inmost being, life would have had no purpose for the

Aborigines” (57). As Berndt and Berndt remark this reassurance from the past, gave the

Aboriginals hope for the future (288). “The past, present and future were regarded as a continuing and uninterrupted stream” (Berndt and Berndt 302). The Aboriginal life cycle “was not envisaged merely as a period bounded by birth … and death. … The

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total process was seen as almost cyclical, as repetitive and eternal, linking the spirit world with the physical world of human beings. Birth and death were transitional”

(Berndt and Berndt 215).

To summarize, temporal communication is a significant part of nonverbal communication which cannot be left out because through time communication people and whole cultures can communicate their preferences for time division and their time orientation. The traditional Aboriginal society divided time using natural sequences and fell under the category of past-oriented cultures which placed the greatest importance on the old days which had to be relived again and again by all the following generations.

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Conclusion

Australian Aboriginal People are the original inhabitants of the continent who are not a separate human species, but their long-term isolation from the rest of the world led to a development of certain characteristics that differentiated them from other peoples. This isolation made the Aborigines who they were, therefore it helped form their identity.

There are different types of nonverbal communication. “Some nonverbal cues are very specific, some more general; some intended to communicate, some expressive only; some provide information about emotions, others carry information about personality traits or attitudes” (Knapp 5). These nonverbal cues can be divided into ten fundamental areas and the Australian Aborigines richly portrayed their identity via all ten of them. The first of these areas is body communication which comprises predominantly of gestures, body movements and body postures. Australian Aborigines depended heavily on gestures which were present in all aspects of their lives. They used hands for signaling various messages including welcoming and goodbyes, or for pointing. Aboriginal men‟s body posture sent a signal of closeness because Aboriginal men, unlike Western men, all preferred the same type of posture. The next area of nonverbal language is facial communication which helps to express various emotions and send diverse messages via facial and head movements. Some facial expressions are universal and some differ from culture to culture. The most expressive universal facial expressions are happiness, anger and surprise. Australian Aborigines performed all of these three facial expressions; however, the most characteristic for them was happiness.

They enjoyed smiling and laughing; for being happy and in a good mood was part of their identity. The traditional Aborigines used their mouths also for spitting to lure rain, or for pointing to substitute for the finger and hand pointing. The third area of body

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language is eye communication. “Eyes can communicate a great deal depending on the duration, direction, and quality of the eye movements” (DeVito, “Communication

Workbook” 69). Eyes are the most noticed parts of the body; hence they serve as the principal source for exchanging nonverbal cues. These cues are exchanged by means of various eye movements as the eye squint and lowering or raising the eyebrows, which are universal for all cultures; or by the length and quality of the eye contact, which is culture-bound, for some cultures are much more eye-oriented than others. The

Aboriginal culture falls into the category of the eye-contact avoiders with only one exception of courtship, during which gazing at the members of the opposite sex was allowed. The subsequent type of communication is artifactual communication which includes communicating by symbols such as clothing, shoes, hair, jewelry, colors and body ornaments. Clothing helps make first impressions and fulfils various functions including decoration, protection, sexual attraction, group identification, and display of status or role.

Garments in the Aboriginal society played mainly the decorative or protective role; however the

Aborigines also wore belts which had a practical function; they were used to carry tools and weapons. Shoes as an artifactual communicator were seldom used among the Aborigines, because most of them did not wear shoes. The only type of shoes that truly sent messages in the

Aboriginal society was the kurdaitcha shoes. They were feared among many tribes because they were worn by the kurdaitcha man who was an executioner killing offenders. On the other hand, hair and beards were powerful communicators among the Aborigines, for they regarded their specific hair styles and beards as part of their identity. Distinctive hairstyles distinguished different tribes and beards were considered to be a sign of maturity and masculinity. The

Aborigines are renowned for wearing jewelry and other head, neck and arm adornments such as headbands, headdresses, necklaces, armlets or nose-bones. They used them out of practical reasons, as a means of recognition of manhood and womanhood, as decoration, as amulets which were supposed to improve hunting or as significant parts of Aboriginal rituals and ceremonies. The most obvious dimension of artifactual communication is color. The use of

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colors in the traditional Aboriginal society was predominantly connected with art which was a suitable way for the Aborigines to nonverbally tell their stories. The most popular area of art was painting. They painted on every kind of surface; however, colors were mainly used to decorate human bodies to prepare them for various rituals. The principal pigments were red and yellow ochre, white pipe-clay, and black charcoal. The last of the artifactual symbols is the category of body ornaments. The traditional Aborigines were renowned for their raised scars which were arranged in regular patterns of lines, dots or circles and denoted identity and affiliations with a particular social group. The fifth area of nonverbal communication is tactile communication which is the most primitive but also the deepest and most intimate form of communication. Touch is very important for the health, mood, mental development, and longevity of people. However, not all the people use touch sufficiently. There exist variables that influence amount of touching among people. These variables include culture, age and gender. Traditional Aborigines were a strongly touch-oriented culture whose members touched each other to initiate conversation or instead of conversation.

One area of touch is called ritual touching which is centered on greetings and departures. Saying hello among the Aborigines was accompanied by stroking and petting each other‟s face and shoulders, and saying farewell often meant rubbing other person‟s cheeks with the armpit sweat. The next area of nonverbal behavior is smell which evolved as a defense mechanism. Our ancestors‟ survival depended on smell as well as the survival of the Aborigines. The Aboriginal hunters smeared their bodies with mud and ochre to camouflage the smell of sweat which could startle the prey and, therefore deprive them of their food. The seventh variable of nonverbal behavior is silence which can be defined as the absence of speech, but not as the absence of communication. There are many reasons for the use of silence including allowing another participant an entry into the conversation, providing thinking time or isolating oneself. There are large cultural differences in the use of silence. Some cultures avoid

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silences, whereas other cultures cherish silences. The traditional Aboriginal culture highly valued silence as a style of communication. They either chose silence voluntarily to give people time to think about their answer, or to adjust to or become comfortable with a particular situation; or they were ordered to be silent on the basis of the imposed speech taboos. The speech taboos were predominantly part of the initiation rites, mourning rites or part of the avoidance relationships such as the one between a man and his mother-in-law. The next area of body communication is spatial communication which signifies man‟s use and perception of his social and personal space. As with all the areas of nonverbal communication, spatial communication is influenced by factors such as culture, gender and age. Aboriginal society belonged among the contact cultures whose personal bubbles were very small. The ninth nonverbal communication field is territoriality. Territory is a fixed space to which we assume some kind of rights. People can communicate by creating an environment or by using an already existing one. The traditional Aborigines did not wish to change the environment, therefore they communicated by the way they treated their already existing area. For the Aboriginal people some places within their territory were of a very strong importance, they were sacred and served as locations for Aboriginal rites and ceremonies. The Aborigines regarded their territory as part of their identity and they strongly guarded it against trespassers. Aborigines moved freely across their own territory but never entered other tribe‟s territory or trespassed on other tribe‟s sacred site because trespassing was an unforgivable violating the tribal laws punishable by death. The last area of nonverbal behavior is temporal communication which deals with the way people use, structure and handle time. There are two basic areas of time communication: cultural time and psychological time. Cultural time is concerned with how particular cultures treat time.

Some cultures divide time into minutes, hours, days, months and years, and some

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cultures such as the Aboriginal culture divide time according to the phases of the moon or the seasons. Psychological time refers to the importance people place on the future, present, and past. The traditional Aborigines were a past-oriented culture who had a unique concept of the world, called “Dreaming”, meaning that the life cycle did not have the beginning and the end, but that it was cyclical, repetitive and eternal, linking the spirit world with the physical world of human beings.

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Women of the Sun. Dir. Geoffrey Nottage. Perf. Munung, Naykakan.

Generations Films, 1981. Film.

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Résumé

The aim of this thesis is to examine the various variables of nonverbal communication by means of which the traditional Australian Aborigines projected their identity. Nonverbal communication is a communication which consists of various images, expressions and behaviors communicated without the use of words. Nonverbal communication, or body language, is very important part of human interaction because it comprises approximately 60 to 65 percent of all human communication. Nonverbal behavior, unlike the verbal behavior, is continuous, therefore it provides a constant flow of messages. These messages can reveal personal information about the nonverbal speaker as well as project his identity or his likes and dislikes. There are ten fundamental areas of nonverbal communication: Body Communication, Facial

Communication, Eye Communication, Artifactual Communication, Tactile

Communication, Smell, Silence, Spatial Communication, Territoriality and Temporal

Communication. Body language is culture-bound, for every culture applies different rules that determine which nonverbal behavior is acceptable and appropriate and which is not. The traditional Aboriginal culture employed various rules as well and the manifestation of their identity nonverbally was very copious. The Aboriginal identity or

Aboriginality was predominantly characterized by the complex kinship system, the strict specific kinship rules, the social organization into bands, clans and tribes, deep emotive bond with their land and strong religious feeling based on the Dreamtime principle and totemism.

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Resumé

Cílem této práce je prozkoumat jednotlivé faktory neverbální komunikace, pomocí nichž tradiční australští Aboriginové projevovali svou identitu. Neverbální komunikace je komunikace, která sestává z různých výrazů a projevů chování bez použití slov. Neverbální komunikace neboli řeč těla je velmi důležitou součástí dorozumívání mezi lidmi, protože tvoří přibližně 60 až 65 procent veškeré lidské komunikace. Neverbální komunikace, na rozdíl od verbální, je nepřerušovaná, a tudíž poskytuje nepřetržitý tok informací. Tyto informace mohou odhalit osobní sdělení mluvčího a také projevit jeho identitu nebo to, co má nebo nemá v oblibě. Existuje deset fundamentálních oblastí neverbální komunikace: komunikace tělem, komunikace obličejem, komunikace očima, komunikace pomocí artefaktů, komunikace dotykem, pachová komunikace, komunikace mlčením, prostorová komunikace, teritorialita a

časová komunikace. Řeč těla je podmíněna kulturou, protože každá kultura aplikuje jiná pravidla určující, které neverbální chování je akceptovatelné a vhodné, a které není.

Tradiční australská aboriginská kultura také uplatňovala různá pravidla a neverbální projev jejich identity byl velmi bohatý. Aboriginská identita neboli Aboriginalita se vyznačovala především spletitým systémem příbuzenských vazeb a s nimi souvisejícími přísnými specifickými pravidly, rozdělením společnosti na skupiny, klany a kmeny, hlubokým citovým vztahem k jejich zemi a silným náboženským cítěním, založeným na principu „Dreamtime“ a totemismu.

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