M . Meggitt Indigenous Forms of Government Among the Australian Aborigines
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M . Meggitt Indigenous forms of government among the Australian aborigines In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 120 (1964), no: 1, Leiden, 163-180 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:56:38PM via free access INDIGENOUS FORMS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES* k y government I mean the ways in which a group or association of people runs its affairs. The unit concerned may be as small as a band of Bushmen or as extensive as a cartel of manufacturers, but, whatever its scale, it faces two main tasks: the effective ordering of its internal activities and the maintenance of its interests vis a vis other units. That is to say, the government of almost any group involves administrative problems, those connected with the attribution of author- ity and the' efficient implementation of policy decisions, and political problems, those concerned with the exercise of power and with com- petition for the control of peoples' actions.2 , Such a distinction between the administrative or "internal" aspects of the government of a group and its political or "external" aspects is of course largely one of analytical convenience. Few groups or asso- ciations are purely monolithic in structure and, once a social group includes constituent sub-groups, political pressures inevitably develop among subordinate units of more or less equal status, while at the same time the sub-groups may function as elements in an over-all administrative hierarchy that emerges concomitantly. Thus, a unilineal descent group such as a clan which engages as an entity in political contests (for instance, in warfare or in competitive exchanges of valuables) with other clans of the same order may be internally or- ganized in a simple set of age-grades, or it may contain an elaborate hierarchy of sub-clans, lineages, extended families and nuclear families. In both kinds of clans there exists a frame-work for administrative decision-making and action. A further point to consider is that there may be differences in degree from one native society to another in the relative commitments of 1 This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 15th Congress of the Societe Jean Bodin in 1961. The theme of the Congress was "Gouvernes et gouvernants". 2 See Smith (1956) for an elaboration of this kind of view. Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:56:38PM via free access 164 M. J. MEGGIT. structurally independent groups in administrative and political action. Thus, in some societies the extended family, the village, or the clan is primarily concerned in the organization of activities to exploit its own economic resources or its spiritual heritage, whereas in other societies, such as those where population pressures are great, the anal- ogous units may have to devote considerably more time and energy to political activity aimed at protecting or adding to scarce resources. Similarly, there are differences in the total scale and elaboration of government among different native societies. This point need not be laboured; it is sufficient simply to compare, say, the pre-European government of the West African kingdom of Dahomey with that of the Konkomba tribe nearby, or the politiy of the Hawaiian chiefdoms with those of other Polynesian societies such as Tikopia or Tokelau. Ob- viously, other comparisons of this kind could be made among the non-industrial peoples of the world, but this paper is not the place for them. Instead, I refer readers to such anthropological compilations as those edited by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (1940) and by Middleton and Tait (1958). My task here is to characterize briefly the forms of government traditionally found among the Aborigines of Australia, to discover on what bases these people managed their affairs. But first it will be necessary to sketch broadly the main features of aboriginal society and culture because, without this background, any discussion of particular aspects of Aboriginal political or administrative action would, I think, remain largely unintelligible.3 Continental Australia, which extends from about 10 degrees to 40 degrees south of the Equator, is almost 3,000,000 square miles in area. Naturally enough, an island of this size displays a great range of climatic, edaphic and topographical conditions. Thus, in the south- east the highest mountains are virtually treeless and are snow-covered for several months of the year, whereas those in the north-east are clad in dense jungles and rain-forests which harbour a variety of wild life. Again, to the east of the Great Dividing Range lie coastal plains that are exceedingly fertile and are watered by many substantial rivers ; west of the range there is only one river system, the Murray-Darling, of any real consequence. Desiccated deserts, which cover hundreds of thousands of square miles of western and central Australia, meet on 3 The best introduction to the Australian Aborigines remains Elkin (1954), especially concerning social organization and religion. Also valuable, particu- larly for the treatment of economy and technology, is McCarthy (1957). Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:56:38PM via free access FORMS OF GOVERNMENT AMONG AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 165 their east lightly timbered, rolling plains of brown and black soil; in the north they merge with unproductive savannahs that are baked dry for more than half the year, then flooded by monsoonal rains for the rest. More evidence of the environmental heterogeneity that exists in Australia could be adduced, but enough has been said here to set the scene.4 It has been estimated that, when Europeans first settled in Australia late in the eighteenth century, between 250,000 and 500,000 Aborigines were already in occupation — the most likely figure being about 300,000. These people were spread thinly and irregularly over the whole of the continent. Indeed, the only areas that they did not exploit to any extent were the bleak Alpine crests of the south-east and some completely waterless tracts of desert in the interior. Tribes thus sought a living in a variety of environments and, in consequence, there developed among them a limited range of technological and economic adaptations. The major categories of environment, with associated technologies, that can be distinguished are the coastal, riverine, tropical forest, plains/savannah and desert. I shall indicate briefly the salient features of each, then go on to> summarize the general pattern of Aboriginal economy and technology.5 Whether we consider the coastal tribes of the tropical north or those of the temperate south-east, we find they had certain important charac- teristics in common; 6 in particular their local territories were relatively shallow and the occupants spent little time in seeking the game and vegetable foods of the hinterland. Instead, with the aid of canoes and a wide repertoire of fishing techniques, they successfully exploited the estuaries and ocean reefs, not only for fish but also, in the north, for large crocodiles, dugong and turtles. In the south, stranded dolphins and small whales were occasionally taken for food. There were several significant consequences of the presence of such a reliable and abundant supply of food, some of which the people exchanged with inland tribes for other commodities, including bush foods. In general the coastal tribes were more sedentary than most and their population densities 4 See, for instance, Keast et alia (1959). 5 I shall not treat here the indigenous inhabitants of either Tasmania or of the Torres Straits islands, because almost nothing is known of the former and the culture of the latter has been greatly affected by Papuan influences. 6 Throughout this paper I use the past tense when referring to features of indigenous Aboriginal culture; this is because no tribes still exist with their cultures completely unaffected by European contact. Most in fact are radically altered (and are still changing) ; others are simply extinct. Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:56:38PM via free access 166 M. J. MEGGIT. were high by Australian standards. Thus, Rose (1960) records a density of about one person per three square miles for Groote Eylandt natives, whereas Thomson's figures (1934a) for some other fishing tribes living along the Gulf of Carpentaria indicate a density of almost two people per square mile. Similarly, observations by early settlers in the region of Sydney suggest that anything from 1,500 to 3,000 Aborigines inhabited the narrow coastal strip of 400 to' 500 square miles between Botany Bay and Broken Bay.7 The main feature that distinguished the specifically riverine tribes from those of the coast was the greater emphasis that the former placed on hunting. Wild fowl and marsupials of many kinds frequented the river valleys and, taken together with the fish, eels and shellfish that abounded in the larger streams, provided a substantial and relatively stable supply of food all year round. Such tribes, or their constituent groups, seem to have been fairly sharply localized and to some extent sedentary. Population densities were probably somewhat lower than those of the coastal groups. Thus, the Murinbata of the Daly River in the Northern Territory, who numbered about 150, occupied some- thing like 500 to 700 square miles, according to Stanner (1936). Elkin (1932) estimated that at least 10,000 natives lived on about 65,000 square miles in the fairly well watered Kimberley District of north- western Australia. In the mountainous river system of northern Victoria, a region of some 9,000 square miles supported more than 1,000 Aborigines who, says Baylie (1843), were divided into about a dozen local groups.8 Also in parts of tropical Australia there were Aborigines whose way of life fell somewhere between that of the truly coastal and that of the truly riverine tribes, in that for part of the year they lived on the seashores and fished, while for the rest they kept near the rivers and there hunted and fished.