Common property regimes in Aboriginal Australia: totemism revisited

Abstract

I will examine totemism as a common property institution for long-term ecological management. the Mabo decision enabled that in theory, Indigenous people continue to exercise rights of ownership - now labelled "Native Title" - excpet in areas where conquest and appropriatation have formally extinguished those rights. The more recent native Title Act (Commonwealth 1993) provides a legislative framework within which the continuity of native Title can be asserted, and the High Court's recent "Wik" decision (1996) provides further articulation of how Native Title can be understood legally to survive. where Native Title continues toe xist, land cannot be alienated from Indigenous use and management without negotation with the Indigenous title holders. It is likely that cooperative management agrements will increase as the native Title Act begins to have a greater impact. The analysis of common property regimes bring to issues of Indigenous land ternuer a vital perspective: that usufructuary rights are embedded within regimes of responsibiliity, and that regimes of rights and regimes of management are inseparable. without management, resources will be degraded and depleted, and rights will become meaningless. Aboriginal cultures across Australia construct identity, social relations,a nd spirituality in relation to local place. In Aboriginal English the term is "country". Economic, social and cultural development is articulated most profoundly and productively int he context of country. Countires related to each other regionally through marriage, trade, ritual relationships.Across the continuent articulations of coutnries were accomplished through major trade systems and the extensive "Dreaming tracks" which are the travels of creative beings, impressed upon the landscape and told, sung, and performed in contexts of ritual. Indigenous philosophies assert that social life is most properly directed toward ensuring that the past and present of a people and their country be brought into the future. Continuity is a ky value.Totemism is a non-random relationship between particular humans and particular non-humans. A system of complementarity is part of a system for organising of difference in the service of producing interdependence. difference is organised to be complementary rather than oppositional, and thus is constitutive of cultural, social and ecological life rather than, an obstacle to be overcome. the result is that individuals and groups hold sets of a complementarity of resonsibilities at numerous local and regional elvels. the broad complex of responsibilities well matches the rights people have of harvesting and consuming resources both locally and regionally. Responsibilities, like rights, are differentiated in structure but not necessarily in substance. both are held and exercised across spiritual, social and ecological domains. Indeed, it is a western convention to searate the spiritual, the social, and the ecological. Indigenous people hold these domains as integral parts of the long-term management of life on earth. Responsibilities are differentiated and complementary. They are held and exercised both locally and regionally. It follows that no country is self-sufficient. the people of each country depend on others for the proper management of the relationships whichs ustain them all, and each group depends on others for the very pragmatic practices of land management. the burning, the preservation of species, the preservation of permanent waters: these constitute a sample of the resonsibilities which are carried out at the local level, but which have regional implications. Restraint is equally part of this system. there are sanctuaries where people do not hunt or fish or gather, and places where burning is done with extra caution or not al all. There are responsibilities based on totemic relationships: the kangaroo people can forbid others to kill and eat kangaroo, for example. As a general rule, totems are linked to taboos that enforce restraint and that are managed by the appropriate people. Differentiated and complementary resonsibilities sustain regional interdependencies. there are few hard and fast boundaries, but rather strong ecological, social and spiritual links that are reproduced through the generations. Further, as strehlow said, to promote the well-being of that which is you resonsibiliyt is good not just for you but for others in your region. An analysis of Aboriginal systems suggests that resonsible land management is best accomplished through systems of interpenetrating rights and resonsibilities. In this type of Aboriginal system, self-interest is constructed to stand in linked and complementary fashion to the self-interest of other people, groups, species, and ecological systems. In this system, living beings tryly stand or fall togehter. Self-interest is thus accomplished through promoting the interests of others as well as one's own.