“If we talk about ‘totemism’ any more, it will be in ignorance of Levi-Strauss or in spite of him.” - Roger Poole, introduction to Penguin edition of Totemism (1962)
The idea that Levi-Strauss somehow discredited or dissolved the concept of totemism is exaggerated.
Levi-Strauss shows that there is no workable formal definition of totemism, since the things referred to with that moniker are too diverse. He argues that the things called totemism are various manifestations of metaphorical thinking, and not especially distinct from manifestations of metaphorical thought in urban-industrial or agricultural societies.
But what he does not allow is that totemism may be workable as a label for a cluster of social phenomena that share a “family resemblance“, to use a term from Wittgenstein. Levi-Strauss presumes that for a general noun to be valid, it must be susceptible to a formal definition. In fact many or most of the general nouns in everyday use (chair, shrub, love) are not susceptible to any such definition.
My friend Daniel had been talking for some weeks about going out with me to show me his country, and I had been looking forward to this. So I was happy when I heard the clatter of rocks on my metal roof one afternoon (this is how you announce a visit in Wadeye), and found Daniel waiting outside, saying it was time for us to go to Yederr.
I packed some camping gear in my car, and tried to argue that we should not carry more than three or four people (the car’s low to the ground, and the more people you have, the more chance of getting bogged or scraped), but as usual my attempts to be sensible and practical were immediately obliterated when about six people jumped in the back and started arguing over seats.
Daniel wanted to show me a certain tree that is a personal totem of his, and can be used for working love magic. He can’t use it himself, because being his totem, for him its use is forbidden, and it would instead make him sick. But he said it might work for me.
In a sense, the love-magic tree is where the trouble started. Continue Reading »
Yesterday I was playing football with the lads down at the oval, and damn it was hot. The heat and humidity are creeping up again now, especially in the afternoons.
After a bit some of them went over and casually broke the water mains, so the water started spurting out all over the oval. We all went over and drenched our heads and bodies.
Then one of them said to me, –You’re fresh now, neh?
–Yeah, I’m fresh.
–And I’m fresh now. Fresh.
–Yes, you’re fresh too.
Lately I’ve been having those waking nights, the jaw-clenching, and that conversational incapacity which means that something is making me anxious. What is it, I ask myself. Something frightening, a risk, a vulnerability? Yes, all of those: I am growing closer to the people who I came here to “study” (or something), and I am afraid of where this will lead. So many things could go wrong.
Over the past couple of months we have been almost enemies at times. “Frenemies” at least. They have lied to me, stolen from me, been nice one day then mocked me the next, and generally confused the hell out of me. I have kept trying to tell myself, “Don’t worry, it’s all just a test.” Continue Reading »
[all names changed but one]
I came back from a visit to Adelaide bearing gifts. David had requested a Carlton football guernsey, to which I said okay. After a pause he asked if I could bring him a coat too, I said maybe; then he asked if I could also get him some football boots, I said maybe again, and after another pause he asked if I could also get him a dick pump. I said really? He said yes, for fucking, and made a demonstrative gesture.
To show my goodwill, I met one of his requests, but no it wasn’t the pump. Continue Reading »
My research has mostly ground to a halt over the last week. Problem is: no-one is around. The town is quiet, everyone I know hiding in their houses. They do come out, mostly at night though, and not in the mood for a nice chat about language.
It all started about a week ago, when there was some kind of incident at the takeaway. This is a pretty fraught site: there are always groups of young men standing outside the building, literally gathered in the shadowy corners, staring out. I am beginning to realise that they are not just standing there idly; I’ve noticed that none of the guys I know from other side of town ever go near the takeaway. Continue Reading »
[from my fieldnotes at Wadeye. names are all changed, even mine]
There are hundreds of children everywhere. Naked or semi-naked, excitable, babbling, unconstrained children.
The first phrase I learn of Murrinh Patha is _Tjuku warda!_ Some older children in the main street keep yelling this at me. They say it enough times that I am able to clearly distinguish the phonetics. I find out later it means “Go home!”
On the second day I see a small child, naked, wrestling with a dog that is twice his size.
Overall, I would say that Wadeye is a happy place. People have fun, don’t bother much with school, work or footwear, and make as much noise as they want. Continue Reading »
So, I’m here. I’m here. I have arrived.
At 7am, this feels like the first act of a new life. Unlike what came before, this is an act that I have planned, considered, researched. And the planning has brought me here, Wadeye, where sitting alone in a shipping container, my new home, which I am renting from the council for $100 a week. I think it was designed for shipping refrigerated goods, for it has thickly insulated walls; but now the refrigeration unit has been replaced by an air-conditioner, to transform the box into a fridge for humans. A fridge for white humans who want to stay in Wadeye, where the air is always thick and warm. Continue Reading »
We were driving out of Armidale when I saw him, maybe a hobo, walking up the road with a drag-along shopping cart. I thought he was hauling home his shopping, and having a tough time of it, so I pulled over and offered him a lift.
“Yes please,” he said, “I’m going to Glen Innes.” Which was where we were headed, about 100km to the north.
Continue Reading »
Our hallway is carpeted in rich and garish patterns - purple, orange and yellow. I guess this design must have looked hideously ugly when it was originally produced some time back in the 1980s, but now it looks so bad that it has started to look good, in a kitschy way. At the time, no doubt, it was the cheapest thing with which the rotten old floors of this building could be hidden from view.
I’d like to ask Chuck, the landlord, about the history of the place; but our pidgin jive in English and Arabic doesn’t permit much history. I don’t know how a Lebanese guy in his 60s gets to be called “Chuck”. Anyway, he gives me a good discount on his otherwise unsellable fruit.
Continue Reading »