Dreams, Agency, and Traditional Authority in Northeast Arnhem Land

Abstract

In this chapter I attempt to relate Yolngu doctrines of dreaming as revelatory to three rather distinct domains.¹ The first has to do with agency: by contrast with the emphasis on individual authorship in “the West,” Yolngu downplay the creative role of the individual. While in Yolngu doctrine an individual is given some credit for realizing a group s ancestral traditions in his or her own way, the main source of religious traditions were the remote wangarr ancestors in whose “thought” religious symbols arose. The second domain is Yolngu concepts of mind: it is possible that the downplaying of the creative role of the individual is reflected in Yolngu concepts of the person and mind as discussed by Michael Christie (1983). In Yolngu thinking, there is a greater emphasis on things happening to a person than the person as the initiator of events. Third is the structure of the Yolngu polity in which the control of religious knowledge is a central feature (Morphy 1991; Keen 1994). In this context the chapter examines discussions of authority and “traditional authority” by Nancy Munn, Max Weber, and Maurice Bloch. The structure of Yolngu governance and religious “law,” I will suggest, is the central node of this nexus. I put this forward as a rather speculative, exploratory essay—it requires further development, especially concerning the construction of person, agency, and responsibility.