Table Of ContentA WORLD OF RELATIONSHIPS:
ITINERARIES, DREAMS, AND EVENTS IN
THE AUSTRALIAN WESTERN DESERT
A World of Relationships is an ethnographical account of the cultural use
and social potential of dreams among Aboriginal groups of the Austra-
lian Western Desert. The outcome of fieldwork conducted in the area in
the 1980s and 1990s, it was originally published in French as Les jardins
du nomade: Cosmologie, territoire et personne dans le désert occidental aus-
tralien.
In her study, Sylvie Poirier explores the contemporary Aboriginal sys-
tem of knowledge and law through an analysis of the relationships
between the ancestral order, the ‘sentient’ land, and human agencies. At
the ethnographical and analytical levels, particular attention is given to
a range of local narratives and stories, and to the cultural construction of
individual experiences. Poirier also investigates the cultural system of
dreams and dreaming, and the process of their socialization, analysing
their ideological, semantic, pragmatic, and experiential dimensions.
Through the synthesis of a complex and diverse range of theoretical and
empirical materials, A World of Relationships offers new insights into
Australian Aboriginal sociality, historicity, and dynamics of cultural
change and ritual innovation.
(Anthropological Horizons)
sylvie poirier is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at
Université Laval.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL HORIZONS
Editor: Michael Lambek, University of Toronto
This series, begun in 1991, focuses on theoretically informed ethno-
graphic works addressing issues of mind and body, knowledge and
power, equality and inequality, the individual and the collective.
Interdisciplinary in its perspective, the series makes a unique contri-
bution in several other academic disciplines: women’s studies, history,
philosophy, psychology, political science, and sociology. For a list of
the books published in this series see page 305
A World of
Relationships
Itineraries, Dreams, and
Events in the Australian
Western Desert
Sylvie Poirier
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-3544-2 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-8414-1 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Poirier, Sylvie, 1953–
A world of relationships : itineraries, dreams and events in the Australian
Western Desert / Sylvie Poirier.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-3544-2 (bound). ISBN 0-8020-8414-1 (pbk.)
1. Dreamtime (Australian aboriginal mythology) – Australia – Western
Desert (W.A.) 2. Dreams – Australia – Western Desert (W.A.)
3. Aboriginal Australians – Australia – Western Desert (W.A.) – Social
life and customs. 4. Ethnology – Australia – Western Desert (W.A.)
5. Western Desert (W.A.) – Social life and customs. I. Title.
GN667.W5P65 2005 305.89’91509415 C2004-905144-X
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences through the Aid to Schol-
arly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
In memory of
Muntja Nungurrayi and
Sunfly Tjampitjin
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
1 A Place like Balgo: A Story of Accommodation, Resistance,
and Misunderstandings 15
2 Ancestrality, Sentient Places, and Social Spaces 52
3 Sociality, Mobility, and Composite Identity 92
4 Ways of Being, Relating, and Knowing 121
5 The Social Setting of Dreams and Dreaming 154
6 Ritual Vitality and Mobility 198
Conclusion: Ancestrality, Imaginary, and Historicity 242
Notes 257
References 273
Index 291
Maps and photos following page 000
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Acknowledgments
I first wish to express my gratitude and deepest respect for the families
of the Aboriginal communities of Balgo Hills (Wirrimanu) and Yagga
Yagga, who welcomed me to their camp hearths and shared with me
their stories and knowledge, their joys, their pain, their concerns – in
short, their daily lives. I sincerely hope that this book will show how
much I honour their teachings and the values that they hold dear, and
in some measure acknowledge the friendship and confidence they
showed me. I especially want to thank Muntja Nungurrayi, Bye Bye
Napangarti, Mindi Napanangka, Balba Napangarti, Nancy Napa-
nangka, Freeda Napanangka, Njammi Napangarti, Patricia Lee
Napangarti, Ivi Napangarti, Doreen Nampitjin, Dora Nungurrayi,
Elsie Nungurrayi, Margaret Napurrula, Dora Napaltjarri, Butja Butja
Napangarti, Sunfly Tjampitjin, Moskito Tjapangarti, Donkeyman Tju-
purrula, Larry Loddi Tjupurrula, Jimmy Flatnose Tjampitjin, Thomas
Galova Tjapangarti, Mark Moora Tjapangarti, John Lee Tjakamarra,
Kenny Gibson, Bumblebee Tjapanangka, Mick Tjakamarra, and all
their children and grandchildren.
Among these people, many elders (men and women both) passed
away during the 1990s. It is to these elders and their kin that I dedicate
this book. Since Aboriginal Law forbids the use of the names of the
deceased for an indeterminate period after their deaths, many of the
names listed above will not appear elsewhere in this book. Where I
recount the experiences and the stories told to me, the tellers will be
designated only by their subsections.
I first arrived at Balgo in August 1980 and stayed until January 1982.
I owe a great debt to Warwick Nieass, an Australian free-lance artist
who was my partner at the time and who first introduced me to Balgo
