CONNECTIONS IN NATIVE TITLE: Genealogies, Kinship and Groups Edited by J.D. Finlayson, B. Rigsby and H.J. Bek Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research The Australian National University, Canberra Research Monograph No. 13 1999 First published in Australia 1999. © Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. National Library of Australia. Cataloguing-in-publication entry. Connections in Native Title: genealogies, kinship and groups. Bibliography. ISSN 1036-6962 ISBN 07315 5100 1 1. Aborigines, Australian - Land tenure. 2. Native title. 3. Aborigines, Australian - Genealogy. 4. Aborigines, Australian - Kinship. I. Finlayson, Julie. II. Rigsby, B. (Bruce). III. Bek, H.J. (Hilary Jane). IV. Australian National University. Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. (Series : Research monograph (Australian National University. Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research) ; no. 13). 306.320899915 Printed by Instant Colour Press, Belconnen, ACT. Contents Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 1. The system as it was straining to become: fluidity, stability, and Aboriginal country groups 13 Peter Sutton 2. Generation and gender differences in genealogical knowledge: the central role of women in mapping connection to country 59 Fiona Powell 3. Lumpers, splitters and the middle range: groups, local and otherwise, in the mid-Murray region 73 Rod Hagen 4. Sustaining memories: the status of oral and written evidence in native title claims 85 Julie Finlayson 5. Norman Tindale and me: anthropology, genealogy, authenticity 99 Ian Keen 6. Genealogies kinship and local group organisation: old Yintjingga (Port Stewart) in the late 1920s 107 Bruce Rigsby 7. The relationship of genealogical reckoning and group formation: Yolngu examples 125 Nancy M. Williams 8. Mediation of native title applications: a new structure and role for anthropologists and lawyers 141 Geoff Clark Contributing authors 165 Acknowledgments The workshop Genealogies, Kinship, Descent and Groups: Issues and Problems in the Native Tide Era was organised by Bruce Rigsby and Julie Finlayson as the first of two areas covered by the native title workshop Anthropological Research Issues and Perspectives held at The Australian National University in February 1998. Mary Edmunds, Julie Finlayson, Francesca Merlan, Penny Moore, Kado Muir, Nicolas Peterson, Bruce Rigsby, Diane Smith and Lisa Strelein formed the organising committee, while ancillary help was provided by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University and the Native Titles Research Unit at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Executive assistants Sally Anderson and Sam Bricknell ensured the conference organisation appeared effortless. Hilary Bek assumed an editorial role in bringing the monograph to the publication stage. We would like to thank Linda Roach and Jennifer Braid for valuable assistance in proofreading and layout. The editors also wish to acknowledge the contribution of CAEPR in subsidising the financial costs of the publication. Julie Finlayson, Bruce Rigsby and Hilary Bek March 1999 Introduction Connections in Native Title: Genealogies, Kinship and Groups comprises papers presented to the first day of the Anthropological Research Issues and Perspectives workshop, which focused on issues of 'Genealogies, kinship, descent and groups: issues and problems in the native title era'. The second day of the workshop was concerned with 'Compensation for native title: anthropological issues and challenges'; these papers will be published by the Native Titles Research Unit, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The workshop was held in Canberra at The Australian National University on 19-20 February 1998. The workshop represented an effort to focus closely on matters likely to impact on the scope and presentation of research for native title claim preparation and mediation, and for compensation and resource development negotiations under the Native Title Act 1993 (NTA). While issues raised in these papers unashamedly focus on issues for anthropological research for native title claims and mediation, they will also be important to a wider readership, who may not attend specialist conferences or have access to conference papers. Each author in this volume has significant practical experience in both land rights and native title issues. This monograph is the third in the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Monograph Series with this genesis (see Finlayson and Smith 1995: Smith and Finlayson 1997). This is indicative of the Centres research focus on native title issues, as recognition of the potential of native title rights to be a source of positive change in the economic power of indigenous Australians. While there is no certainty about the extent of future recognition of native title, or benefits deriving from Mabo No. 2, the NTA and the Native Title Amendment Act 1998, these changes have reshaped the relationship between indigenous Australians and the wider economy and State. Professional knowledge as applied to issues and questions in the native title research process, is evolving, just as the meaning and application of the native title legislation has, and is, undergoing similar transformations. One of the major issues arising from such a process is the challenge to maintain and enhance communication between different expertises, in particular between bureaucratic, anthropological and legal systems and practices. All contributions to this volume reflect on inter-active practices in native title research process, matters increasingly worthy of the attention of indigenous and non-indigenous policy makers. However, the issue addressed in this volume is expressed by Sutton: For indigenous claimants to prove their native titles in Australia, among other things they need to show not only that they have rights in country according to their own system of laws and customs, but also that such a system is a rightful descendant of an organised society which occupied the relevant area at the time when British sovereignty was established. CONNECTIONS IN NATIVE TITLE The question of how indigenous groups were constituted historically, socially reproduced and sustained over time, together with the question of how they remain effective now, has re-emerged as a crucial issue in the native title era. In this context it is appropriate to highlight the nature of the study of kinship of the past two decades, and explore some implications of the requirement of biological descent in the common law. The study of kinship The study of kinship and social organisation has somewhat different histories in America, Britain and our country over the past two decades. Weston (1995: 89} noted that kinship had disappeared as a desired specialisation in advertisements for anthropology teaching positions at a time when debate over new family forms intensified in America (Weston 1992). Brettell (1998: 15; forthcoming: 1) recently commented that 'During the first half of the 20th century almost every cultural or social anthropologist worked on the topic of kinship and contributed to theoretical developments in the area'. While she observed that a course on kinship and social organisation remains part of postgraduate training in anthropology in America 'despite the cooling of anthropology's love affair with kinship' (in Peletz 1995: 345), Brettell (1998: 15) concludes that: Although kinship may have lost its central place in ethnography and anthropological theory, it remains an important part of human social life throughout the world. It is not hard to convince students, since they see it all around them in our national discourse. Indeed, by using examples ... of the meaning and practices of kinship in our own backyard, I am able to impress on students the continued value of the conceptual and analytical tools developed during more than a century of anthropological preoccupation with kinship. Knowledge of these concepts and the surrounding intellectual debates makes all of us better anthropologists. In Britain, Barnard (1994: 783) wrote: There was a time not long ago when kinship firmly commanded the highest position among the theoretical realms of anthropology. This is probably no longer true, but it is not true that kinship is an idea with a past and no future. Kinship remains as important as ever an element of human society, and new perspectives within the social and biological sciences offer opportunities to reconsider some old arguments in a new light and to look forward to new debates and new ideas. Barnard (1994: 785-86) suggested that 'kinship is good to think with' and that kinship studies help highlight our own (English-speaking) cultural preconceptions. Holy (1996: 172) wrote that 'Recent reviews of anthropological theory and the current state of anthropology (Ortner, Clifford and Marcus. Marcus and Fisher, Borofsky) hardly make reference to the theoretical problems in the study of kinship which exercised the imagination of our predecessors'. Parkin (1997) noted that 'anthropology has