Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

In traditional Aboriginal Australia this type of offence was rare. The land occupied by the tribe or clan is not transferrable, hence the lack of war for conquest. The land is seen as being held in trust by the living for the members of the unit from the past, present and future. They think of themselves more as being owned by the land, rather than them owning the land. This must have been one of the most difficult things for the tribes all over Australia to understand after European colonisation, that any person could claim that they owned land. And they believed that the connection between them and the land was supernaturally sanctioned, having been decreed by the ancestral beings from the Dreamtime. The same attitude applied to ochre mines and stone quarries.

It was almost unknown for small items of common use to be stolen, such as digging sticks, baskets, mats, wooden dishes, fishing spears, though kinship obligations meant that they could be borrowed. Dogs were regarded as almost members of the family. As a result an offence against a dog was a serious matter, with possible violent repercussions. In a Dreamtime myth from western Arnhem Land a man's special pet dog was unknowingly killed and eaten. His reprisal was severe, wiping out several large camps.

In northeastern Arnhem Land there are 2 known examples of ritual stealing. In one, connected with the making of the dua moety feathered string. The making of string or twine was women's work, whereas the men were responsible for adding the coloured parakeet feathers. In this case sorcery is used to steal the string they were to add feathers to. The method of procurement of the string by the men is based on the dreamtime story where men stole the sacred rangga from women in the Djanggawul myth.

The other example is connected with the wuramu ceremony of the jiridja moety. A carved wuramu figure, a 'collection  man', was carried through the main camp, the men in charge of it taking everything portable within reach. Both are socially approved forms of stealing.

Sources & Further reading

R.M. & C.H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1964