Land Tenure and Naming Systems in Aboriginal Australia.

Naming systems play a prominent role in discussions of land tenure by Aboriginal people. Reference to one area of land and its owners is most commonly in terms of name 'X', whereas reference to another area of land and its owners is most commonly made in terms of name 'Y'. Much of the analytical literature examines how these names refer to groups of people. There is considerable dispute as to whether the reference of these names suffices to determine disjoint groupings of owners that can be described by the term 'clan'. This paper proposes that the analysis of linkages between names and areas of land should have priority over the analysis of linkages between names and groups of people. The evidence shows that the attachment of names to areas of land is more stable and consistent than their attachment to groups of people. There are differences in the ways that names attach to the landscape, and these differences are significant--they determine whether or not more than one name from the same system may be attached to an area of land. This paper focuses on two areas of Australia: the northern Kakadu-Oenpelli area and the Timber Creek area (both in the Northern Territory). It shows that naming systems identify disjunctive areas of land as the targets for claims of primary ownership in both areas. These disjunctive areas may reasonably be described with the translation term 'estate'. In the northern Kakadu-Oenpelli area, corresponding to these estates, there are disjunctive groupings of owners, which may be termed 'clans'. However, groupings of owners are not clearly disjunctive in the Timber Creek area, and there is little motivation for using the term 'clan'. This paper proposes that this difference reflects a general pattern in Aboriginal Australia, with naming systems stably and consistently identifying 'estates' across much of the continent. They do not identify 'clans' with equivalent stability and consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]