iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

Hi

I've been searching on the web for a diagram of Malks and their reciproqual relationships ... without any matches !
I know French Anthropologist Barbara Glowczewski has drawn and published such a diagram in one of her books... but I've only got the Pocket versions without the drawings, pictures & diagrams

I've put together bits and pieces of informations found here and there... but it's incomplete and doesn't give any info concerning the reciproqual relationship (ex: X's wife is Y ; W is Z's poison sister, etc...)

Dhuwa (M/F) :

Balang / Beline
Burralang / ???
Wamut / Wamudjan
Gamarrang / Gamanydjan
(Gala / Galidjan) ??? < this seems to be Ngkalbon terminology, maybe equivalent to Gamarrang ?

Yirritja (M/F) :

Bulany / Bulanydjan
Bangadi / Bangadidjan
Gotjuk / Gotjan > Hawk
Ngarritj / Ngarritjan

I've also read somewhere that Gotjuk means "hawk"... do every skin-name has such a "totemic" significance ?
If yes... what is it for the other skin-names ?

Thanks for the help

"Beline" should read bilinydjan

F equivalent of Burralang is galigali or galidjan

Don't know if gotjuak means hawk - but all such names in Yolngu matha have meaning - just like in our languages - except in our case most of us don't know what the names mean any more.

I know my name means rock - Peter has its roots in petra......some say I have rocks in my head but I like to see this is why I like to carve stone : )

Such knowledge in my culture (whatever that is) has little meaning, but for people like yolngu this is all about their identity - so we need to be careful how we use such information - this is a vital part of their lives. Respect.

Thanks Bita

So here's the full version of Yolngu Malks :

Dhuwa (M/F) :

Balang / Bilinydjan
Burralang / Galidjan
Wamut / Wamudjan
Gamarrang / Gamanydjan

Yirritja (M/F) :

Bulany / Bulanydjan
Bangadi / Bangadidjan
Gotjuk / Gotjan
Ngarritj / Ngarritjan

... still missing the relationships though ...

I'll scan some diagrams from books tomorrow, pretty buggered at the moment.

With the totemic symbolism, there is that element in some parts of Arnhem Land, and it seems to me to be more of a ritual thing than anything else; that is, saying one is hawk or king brown snake etc. occurs only in the context of certain sacred ceremonies. But I've also heard Yolngu from eastern Arnhem Land mention this in every day talk which confused me, though it isn't common when people talk like that, not in my experience anyway.

Well, more tomorrow, gotta get some shut eye.

Keep well everyone,

Guan

wow!

(while i was writing my reply, Guan sent his... I'll submit it anyhow!)

i've been away of the forum for ages...! dunno if i should just answer what i know or say "hello all" first! nor if i'm missing a bit of the thread or should let others who know much more than me to answer first... or if i should not answer, according to what Peter suggests... well, i assume this is just for the mere sake of informing and no one is going to misuse this info nor gonna take it as objective truth... this is an interpretation of what i have learned here and there, this is, from either paper or on site...

what i'd say, from what i know, is that basicly we have to know that there are 16 skin names, 8 male and 8 female, 4 of which are dhuwa and the others yirritja, for either male and female... we should know who's the mother of each one of the couples brother/sister and therefore who are the daughters and sons... there are two cycles of female skin names, having four names each, in which one is the mother of the other and so on... this is, in each circle there are two names of one moiety and two of the other: dhuwa-yirritja-dhuwa-yirritja, one being the mother of the next one and the daughter of the previous one... knowing who "your mother" is and being able to locate that skin name in one of the circles will allow you to obviously locate yourself in the same circle, inmediately after your mother's skin name... once having located yourself, and relating it with gurrutu, the skin names in the circle after yours will be your waku, your children if you're a woman or your sister's children if you're a man (talking in a very first level of kinship), therefore opposite moiety. And the children of these will be your gutharra, your grandchildren in a female line (if you're a man, these will be the children of your sister's daughters)... But I have observed that, always in my experience, these usually also call me wawa (brother), so i assume that the relationship with these is as brothers... and therefore with their sisters, as sisters, with the consequent imperatives and rules of evitation... That would have been the last skin name in this female circle, and therefore the mother of your mother, which was the skin name from which we started... so we had your mother (opp. moiety), your sisters/you (same moiety), your sister's daughters (opp. moiety) and your sister's daughter's daughter's, who somehow are grandchildren and grandparents at the same time, but who (always talking from my experience) also call u wawa or yapa.

but what about the other circle? the other circle, with four female skin names, has two belonging to one moiety and two to the other. Here you should find your wife. Why here and not in the previous circle? because in the previous circle, the only two names of your opposite moiety where those to which your mother and your sister's daughters belong. Very simply, your mother and your daughters. The other two names in the circle belong to the same moiety. So going back to this second circle, we find two skin names belonging to the same moiety as yours, and therefore you can't marry these. You should aim for the other two names in the circle, which are opposite moiety, and there is a preference. both are right, but one has preference upon the other. At this point i don't know why, but I know that your first option will be the second option for the other skin name in your circle that belongs to your moiety. To make it simple and clear, these cross first and second option, your first option would be their second option and viceversa. I'm talking about the skin name belonging to your sister's daughter's children, the one that also calls you wawa.

the skin names in the second circle belonging to your moiety would somehow be your father's sisters, your wife's mothers and your own daughters (the daughters of your brothers, etc). The relationship with these would obviously have its conditions as well. at this point i can't exactly remember who the poison cosin or other evitation kins were... i know brothers in law can't talk much with each other, this is, your wife's brothers or the husband of your sister. This would be in the same position in the second female circle, either in the first or second option, since, as i told you, your first option is second for your "brother" two generations below.

Wow, i don't know if i have messed it all up even more. It's very clear when you see it drawn. And what I have explained is the basics of the basics, a very simple approach. There are deeper meanings and even more crossed relationships between all than what i have mentioned. I got a lot of info about this from the study notes for the Gupapuyingu course by Michael Christie at CDU, course that I planned to follow but which I finally couldn't attend. However, I bought the study notes, expensive, but very good as an introduction to such subjects. The interpretation of the notes comes from my own experience on site...

hope it helped!!

Marcos, I've got to applaud you mate, I couldn't ever explain how the system works in words like you have. Well done!

Anyway, managed to scan 2 diagrams from Ian Keen's "Knowledge and Secrecy" book - see below - hopefully they are self-explanatory. Keen is still one of my favourite authors when it comes to NE Arnhem Land culture and ceremony in particular: he writes well, is very helpful and a great guy, and obviously knows his stuff.

A couple of comments. First, the 'skin' system is also sometimes known as the 'subsection' system, as Keen has used. Yolngu call it malk like Francis pointed out in the first post.

Second comment. The malk system is different to the kinship system. Let's call kinship gurrutu which is what Yolngu use for kinship. In simple understandable language Yolngu use, "Nha nhe malktja?" translates as "What is your skin?". Contrast that to the other common question Yolngu ask each other when meeting for the first time: "X nhungu nha'mirringu?" where X is a person's name. This translates as "X is your what kin relation?" Knowing the answer to the 2nd question establishes the relationship between the two.

Third thing. Sometimes the skin system and the gurrutu system collapse one into the other as a convenient means of establishing how 2 people are related, especially when the 2 people are socially and geographically distant from each other.

There's lot of other little things too, but won't bore you with the details. Main thing is to memorise the 2 charts below, commit it to memory, tattoo it on your forearm, do whatever it takes to remember the terms and relationships and you can't go wrong. Kinship is a core principle on which Yolngu identity and being is based, a world without kinship to Yolngu is like a world without numbers to us: the world around us can't be described or related to.

Guan

Manimak !
Thanks Marcus & Guan !
Small diagrams talk a lot more to me than long text... I'm a visual kind of guy.
Though I greatly appreciate your post Marcus (despite the headache it gave me and respect to the time and effort you've spent writting it !!!

I found it strange not to be able to find these diagrams easily on the web, especially knowing how those kinship and malk rules mean a lot to Yolngu.
Because despite this, the web is full of other infos on Yolngu tribe !

Well... gotta get learning then, now

Hi Francis,

The web is good for lots and lots of things, but nothing beats reading hard copies of books when it comes to Yolngu stuff. If you get a chance, try to get your hands on Warner's "A Black Civilization", later editions are not hard to find and are cheap - it even comes in softcover versions. Though the research on which this book is based was conducted in the 1920s (and the rare 1st edition of the book was published in 1937), the contents of the book are still relevant today and probably the best overall description of Yolngu people, their land, ceremonies, kinship, totemism, material culture, just about anything you would want to know about the "Murngin".

Note that "Yolngu" really came into usage later on, previously they were known variously as the "Murngin", "Balamumu", "Miwuyt" and "Wulamba" depending on the author.

Read Warner, read Warner!

Guan

Oh yeah, one more thing that is very important to remember, and might seem like a brain-twister...

In at least Eastern Arnhem Land, a person's malk is determined through one's mother, so it is a matrilineal system.

Contrast that with "clanship" (ok, I made up that word), what clan you belong to, which is patrilineal - inherited through the father.

And the really strange thing with the totemic association through the malk system is that it does not necessarily parallel the totemic associations through "clanship". For example, the totemic symbols for the Gupapuyngu people include emu, Murayana spirit, yukuwa yam, possum, catfish, white cockatoo etc. So every Yolngu person who is Gupapuyngu has these totems as an inherited birthright. However, through the malk system, you could have 4 brothers (who share the 1 father, but have different mothers etc.) who are of different totemic groupings. Like I said before, I think the totemic groupings are more ceremonial than anything else, and relate to cult ceremonies rather than clan ceremonies. The great cult ceremonies of Arnhem Land are Gunabibi, Yabudurruwa, Mandiyala, etc. before there was Ngulmarrk but it is not longer performed.

Well, better leave it at that before we get too deep...

Guan

OK, just ordered it.
Thanks for the tip Guan !

hey!

yeah, i just re-read my comment and i myself got quite twisted with my own explanations... but i somehow expected that people would draw what i wrote on the way of reading it... that's the best way to assimilate it... i'm away from home now, i don't have my computer and i obviously don't have my files, so i had to imagine the diagrams and picture them in my forehead in order to write about them... i preferred not to use any particular skin name, since i believe it is better to understand the concept before knowing the actual skin names (and because i don't remember them all!!), or even replace them with numbers, using odds for females and evens for males, like 1-2 = sister-brother... or just counting to 8 and using the letters f-m for female-male plus odds for yirritja and evens for dhuwa, like 1f-1m (yirritja siblings from the same mother), 2f-2m (dhuwa siblings from the same mother) and so on... thus you could make up the two circles 1-2-3-4 and 5-6-7-8... dunno, these are just tricks that i use for my own memory...

at this point and profiting that Guan is here, i have loads of questions too!!! to throw one that connects with my comments in my past reply, if i was adopted as wamut, how come all gamarrang call me wawa? is it because their mother was second option for my father (or my father second option for their mother)??? do all the roles of gurrutu apply in malk? i mean, for instance, when talking about the mukul rumaru (mother in law) rule of evitation, does it apply as well for the mother of a potential wife, either first or second choice, no matter marriage has never taken place, there is no relationship at all and you have just met?? same for, for instance, the brothers of the women that have the same skin as my mother, no matter these have no biological bonds...: do i have to look after them as i have to with ma ngapipi?? or with my mother??? or that only applies for gurrutu and, in this case, the ngandipulu?

as you say, what i have always heard is that malk is particularly used for children and for us foreign visitors, besides for marriage, and what really counts in new relationships between unknown people is gurrutu... i have experienced children really like malk, the first question always being asked to me by children after arriving somewhere is "what's you skin?!!", and whenever i saw the face of a little girl among the group turning red i straight away knew that her skin name was either gutjan or bangalitjan (can't remember if that is my second choice for marriage as wamut), which i asked her, with a consequent laughter of the mob around sounding loud... but i don't really know what's the reason for us to have a skin name, whether it responds to a way for us to feel more accepted (but never seen as one of them, that would never ever happen!! here i always remember the axioma "a country boy could always become a city boy, but the other way round is an impossible!!"), whether it is a way for us to be placed in their mental diagrams... whatever it is, i have observed that not much responsability concerning the rules of kinship behaviour are demanded to us, unless time passes... it's been after time that i have experienced that some responsability was expected from me, and i think it had nothing to do with what my skin name was...

i'll definitely have a look to the book you mention, Guan! what do you think about the study notes i commented?? have you ever checked them?? i believe they are very good, since they are introductory but a solid base, quite synthetic, and one can get them thru the net, since they belong to a distance course. However, i think they're quite expensive, i bought them at CDU's bookshop of the Darwin campus and they cost me almost 200 bucks...

wow, once again, long message... i'm on holidays... and it's snowing outside!!!

Hi Marcos,

Interesting questions there. With the wamut and gamarrang thing, I don't know to be honest as it depends on the actual context you find yourself in. However, wamut and gamarrang are a natural pair in that their "ideal" marriage partners are the same, gotjan and bangaditjan, so in this way, the 2 skins could be considered brothers but it is more usual for wamut and gamarrang to be in the mari-gutharra (mother's mother's brother-daughter's daughter's son) relationship. Take for example a man who is wamut. Wamut's mother, following the rules of the malk system, must be bulanydjan. And her mother in turn, again following the same rules, must be gamanydjan. And gamanydjan's brother must be gamarrang. So wamut and gamarrang stand in the grandfather-grandson relationship when tracing kinship through actual blood relations.

When you say all gamarrang men call you brother, do you really mean all gamarrang men in all areas, or only in certain areas? In either case, I don't really know the answer why, maybe it is just a convenience thing that makes kinship easier? The proper way to trace kinship is through blood ties, so, for example, if, say, "Joseph" adopted you as a brother, then all men who call Joseph "brother" would also call you brother regardless of what skin they are. These men would mostly likely be the same skin as Joseph, but could also be gamarrang, balang or burralang.

With the modes of behaviour required by kinship, they apply whether the relationship is by blood or if it is classificatory. You must show respect to your real mother-in-law, the actual mother of your wife. But also to all her sisters, and everyone else that you call mukul rumaru. Same with ngapipi, and every other kin relation. That is the ideal anyway, in real life and considering the relaxation of these rules in contemporary times, people are not so observant today compared to the past. Also, especially among younger people, the avoidance rules between mukul rumaru and her gurrungs can be turned into a joking relationship like in mari-gutharra, seems strange but I've seen it plenty of times. Maybe it is because gurrung's mukul rumaru's brothers (gurrung-maralkur pairings) can also joke sometimes.

When we are adopted, how seriously we are expected to observe the rules of kinship depends on lots of factors, but mainly it is how seriously we take it I reckon. Some people take it seriously, others don't, or don't understand enough to know what the expectations are. And as outsiders, yes, we're always outsiders so we're given lots of flexibility to make our own choices. But the closer one gets, whether it be through friendship, or marriage, or work, or business, or whatever, there is usually also higher expectations of you. As to why Balanda are adopted or given skins, again I don't know really. But it could be because kinship is everything to Yolngu, without it, it is like a world without numbers to us. Imagine you find a new gadget in your favourite electronics store and you want to buy it. It must have a price. If it doesn't, you would ask the salesperson to find out, or assign it a price. Without a price, you can't buy it. So maybe a similar thing happens in Yolngu society, every new thing or person is assigned meaning through kinship. Anyway, I'm just blabbering here and putting voice to thoughts, it'd be interesting to get Yolngu to give us real insights into kinship.

I haven't seen the CDU study notes but I'm sure they're good, M.C. and John G. and their Yolngu advisers are right on top of their game!

Guan