Yawulyu.
Students will design and produce a small research essay .Choose a public ritual,
performance, sacred site, public ceremony and analyse its depths through a critical account
of one of the theories that have been presented in the subject. You can also choose a myth
so long as it is cosmological in nature and derives from, and linked to, detailed
anthropological research.
Word Count, 2,190
Kimberley Taylor-McInnes | AN2008 Myth & Ritual | April 29, 2014
Culture is not something that purely belongs to the past. It is a shared understanding of the world
around us, an essential part of what we are today, and what we will be tomorrow. (MacDonald,
1991) Additionally culture itself is dynamic, something that is continually adapting and no societies
culture is static. (Commision for the children and young people and the Aboriginal and Torres
Straight Islander Advisory Board, n.d) In Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island life, culture brings
together all aspects of their lives. Through song, dance, body decorations, sculpting, storytelling
and painting their culture comes alive. Ceremony is the underlying basis of this and contains many
significant elements, which depict The Dreamtime, connect notions of truth, time and places.
(Australian Government, 2008) There are many reasons for ceremonies in Aboriginal society, but
each ceremony holds a strong place in the spiritual beliefs and cultural practices of Aboriginal
communities. Through these ceremonies a testament to the continuation of The Dreaming and
interrelationships of Aboriginal existence is kept alive. (Queensland Government, 2008) Yawulyu is
Women’s law and is a powerful ceremony, it is what defines the way Aboriginal women lead their
lives in accordance to the sacred law. In the Northern Territory were Yawulyu is held, it grants
power and status that is derived from the ancestral Spirits who created the law. Essential to
understanding the preservation of the land, health and emotional wellbeing it is a tradition
containing many songs and dances that is passed on from generation to generation. (Ishtar, 2005)
The intention of this essay is to analyze the traditional aboriginal women’s ceremony Yawulyu
through Claude Levi Strauss’s structuralism theory, and highlight the ways in which structuralism
is the appropriate anthropological model and theory for Yawulyu . This essay will then continue to
argue that due too colonization and Australia’s history of the past 200 years, methods of containing
Yawulyu and preserving the law is changing, which ultimately is changing the basis in Yawulyu fits
into the structuralism theory. Can a ritual, tradition or myth transform/ transcend from one theory
to another? If so can this be proven through the process’s of colonization and its impact on
Yawulyu?
The distinct building blocks that form structuralism consist of culture, society and linguistics. First
introduced by psychologist Edward B. Tichener, structuralism didn’t particularly take off as an
anthropological theory until the 50s & 60s when Claude Levi Strauss began to emphasize the theory
of structuralism is to gain a concrete understanding how culture is developed. In this view, human
sociocultural life rests in the positional configuration of elements that are in relation to one
another within the structure or system. These elements are not considered in their own right, or in
the elements’ ties to forces external to the specific system. (Stasch, 2006) Structuralism as
elaborated by Levi-Strauss, however, has a conception of culture, as a system that functions, like
language, to mediate fundamental contradictions that lie at the heart of the society or culture.
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Every cultural practice is a transformation of these fundamental contradictions with which all
societies have to deal. He sees these transformations in terms of the mediation of binary
oppositions, the analogy with language whose function, one way or another is to articulate this
contradiction as fundamental to, but also impossible for, the maintenance of society/ culture. The
basic opposition is between nature and culture (apparent for instance in the universal taboo on
incest). This, for Levi-Straus is a reflection of the fundamental structures of the human mind,
which are the same across cultures.
Yawulyu through an anthropological lens from a western perspective would be explained by Claude
Levi-Strauss’s structuralism theory. Levi-Strauss argued that the relationships of symbolized
demonstrated in these systems are not a reflection of social structure however instead a reflection
of how humans impose symbolic systems on social relations in order to structure and organize
them. In analysing ritual, Levi-Strauss tended to oppose it to myth, casting the two as contrasting
processes, one verbal, the other non-verbal: myth as a matter of content, ritual as a matter of form.
Levi-Strauss’s theory states that the interrelation of myths passed down through generations,
culture such as traditional ceremonies, kinship and societal relations is what creates the
system/religion. (Deflem, 1991) Aboriginal society highly values all these things, and Yawulyu is the
women’s law that ties all foundations together to create a way of life that respects The Dreaming
and leads women into a life of fulfillment. Any structural analysis would argue that it is mediating
the contradiction between nature and culture and therefore affirming the underlying structure of
the human mind within a particular synchronic moment. Thus, if the society is conceived, for the
convenience of analysis, as a discrete unit, albeit one that is related through transformation (song
lines ritual cycles, kin ties etc) to surrounding cultures, structuralism in this way can be understood
as a useful analytical tool however there is no guarantee that the people concerned would or should
agree with the approach. (Levi-Strauss, 1968) The political and ethic issues that come from these
anthropological issues have been a subject of great dispute in Australian society, specifically for
Aboriginal people. Aboriginal ceremony such as Yawulyu connects aboriginal women to their
country, as country for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people is of the upmost importance.
Through out the past 200 years since colonization, Aboriginal land and culture has been severally
disrupted and tampered with. (Lewis, 2011) Contributions such as the White Australia Policy, the
stolen generation and more recently the Northern Territory intervention have all contributed to
the disturbance and suffering aboriginal people have had to deal with in connection to loss of land,
culture and tradition. The forceful removal of children who were put into institutions or with
British families and were denied access to their kin, their culture and their language in an attempt
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to assimilate aboriginal children in to western society. (Read, 2002) After the 1937 national
conference at which the first assimilation policy was adopted, all states individually designed
policies to systematically remove ‘mixed breed’ or ‘half cast’ aboriginal children. Today aboriginal
women still feel the effects of the stolen generation, and other policies placed in aboriginal people,
which in turn have greatly effected traditional and ceremonies like Yawulyu. In the Northern
Territory, places prior to colonization that practiced Yawulyu have completely lost their law and
culture. Fear of losing Yawulyu due to loss of kin or kinship connection daunts many aboriginal
women throughout theNorthern Territory. (Linda Barwick, 2013)
“I really want to learn that [awelye/yawulyu], keep it, because its my mothers songs. I’ve
always been interested in yawulyu… These days everything is changing, some have lost their
culture already, and by doing this [teaching and documenting awelye/yawulyu] we can keep
it strong, our culture… Because this old lady [Mona Hayward], she is the last of our family.
As the elder in our family she’s the only one who knows the cultural ways you know, our
cultural knowledge. If she goes all will be lost.” (Linda Barwick, 2013)
The issues that come with anthropologically researching Yawulyu as well as what has historically
effected Yawulyu politically and ethically, is primarily exampled by the recording of Yawulyu
ceremonies around Central Australia. In 2010 Linda Barwick, Mary Laughren and Myfany Turpin
visited several remote aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and discussed the future of
Yawulyu and how the women learnt it. Previous to these interviews two of the three authors,
Laughren and Turpin had visted the communities the previous year in 2009 to video and record the
performances of the tradition ceremonies in the Wirllyajarrayl area. The Aboriginal people have
viewed this anthropological research in two different perspectives. One side considered the
videoing of Yawulyu as somewhat disrespectful, and felt like the authenticity was taken out of the
ceremony by collaborating it when modern day technology that could be played at any time, by
anyone, most likely by non-aboriginal people who would not have understood the significance of
the songs due to the language barrier. (Linda Barwick, 2013) The other side however has seen the
videos as gift of hope, and a learning tool for younger generations. The traditional means of passing
down songs and dances through story telling has become harder since colonization and policies
such as the Northern Territory intervention and past policies like the Stolen Generation. In an
attempt to provide education remote aboriginal communities schools in major towns such as
Tennant Creek or Alice Springs have tried to combine traditional aboriginal methods and western
techniques to allow room for both systems of knowledge to be apart of aboriginal school children
lives. However this often requires aboriginal youths to be apart from their traditional homelands, in
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the townships in order to work to gain an education. This poses a great threat to the tradition of
story telling, which the structuralism theory depends upon, and the future of Yawulyu depends
upon. The absence of the children creates gap in the learning process and is a leading factor as to
why many young women today do not know, or cannot learn Yawulyu. (Linda Barwick, 2013)
Aboriginal traditions, language and culture, particularly those of Central Australia who practice
Yawulyu in their own isolated terms can be elucidated from a western perspective as a
structuralism explanation of that specific culture. However this would only apply if you take the
specific clan group (In this example we will use the Walpiri Tribe of Central Australia) out of a
complete society that has any interrelations with out homogenous groups. If you isolate the Walpiri
people from any of the interactions that had with other cultures, such as the surrounding clans (eg:
Arrente, Pitintjarra ect…) then an explanation for how their culture is preserved and constructed
can successfully be explained through Levi-Strauss’ Structuralism theory. However, because
Aboriginal tribes/clans have always had interrelationships with other tribes/clans structuralism
cannot be a sufficient explanation when you place Walpiri people into the lifestyle and society as a
whole that they lived in. On structural theory transformations of this basic opposition in eg myths
and rituals can be traced as part of a logical system and some aspects of these systems can also be
understood, at the periphery or "edge" of the culture as transformations of the contradiction
between that society and its encounter with others. Thus the transformations within one myth of
one small tribe could be related to all other myths within that society and, most importantly from
the literature of Levi-Struass, these were transformed within the larger culture complex of the
nation, in his work the Americas. A structural analysis, such as Levi-Strauses would typically trace
both the internal transformations in the societies myths in a way, which emphasized the coherence,
logic and rationality of all cultural practices no matter how bizarre. This is because everything
cultural, including the distinction between culture and nature, is a fundamental reflection of the
functioning of the underlying structures of the human mind. (Levi-Strauss, 1968) Even more so
since colonization, where a western capitalist society has intervened with the traditional Walpiri
culture, affecting the ways those myths, traditions and language were preserved and passed on
through the generations. This does not so mean that the building blocks that dominate
structuralism as a theory have changed, it just cant comprehend the realist truth that no culture,
particularly aboriginal cultures in modern Australian Society, could be left to function without any
interference/interaction with A) another aboriginal culture through trade, exchange and/or
marriage alliances ect ect and B) A western Capitalist culture in which aboriginal people has
citizens of Australia are forced to abide by the laws and morals of. As stated, to be able to
understand the Perspectives from an Aboriginal stand point, colonization and its effects need to be
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understood and recognized. While the reasons for colonization were based upon economic and
political factors, its attempt to destroy the social and cultural structures of Aboriginal people. (Adv,
2006) The means that the British had upon social control in relation to Aboriginal people placed
racism deep within it roots. Colonization disregarded the need for Aboriginal people to practice
their culture, and Aboriginal people were placed in institutions and missions that forbid culture,
and many were not allowed to speak language. This is particularly evident in the time known as the
stolen generation, where half-caste children were forcibly taken from their families and forbidden
to practice ceremonies, speak language or have any connection to kin. (Commision for the children
and young people and the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Advisory Board, n.d)To
conclude, the problem is that the traditional societies studied by any such theory are always
interconnected with much wider systems of connections that link them with world capitalism. This
has arguably been the case since the emergence of capitalism in renaissance Europe. In the present
world, the synchronic, ahistorical analysis that typifies Structural analysis, cannot deal with the
disruptive cultural change, which occurs, at the intersection of traditional society and the modern
world. (Stasch, 2006)Thus when the women ritually reanimate the dreaming and create women out
of girls they are instantiating (making real) with both the people and the culture the fundamental
conditions of its continuance. If the rituals don't occur, and are not passed down then the cosmos
as traditionally conceived ceases. (Levi-Strauss, 1968) The spread of transformation and the cross
mingling of western and traditional ideas are perhaps such that structuralism here reaches its limits
of usefulness as it needs to down play the diachronic level of analysis for example history and
change in order to be of its complete limit. (Levi-Strauss, 1968)
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