Family and kinship
This information was provided by Dr. Marika, a Yolngu woman from Yirrkala, Northern Territory
In addition to language groups and local groups, another important way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people relate to each other and the land is through family, the people to whom we are related by blood. Family members classify each other through our different relationships such as father, mother, brother, sister, uncle and auntie, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law. These relationships come from descent and marriage and we refer to them as kinship.
The kinship system for Indigenous people has some fundamental differences to the idea of family for non-Indigenous people. The main difference is the structure that creates our extended family ties. Anthropologists have called this the 'Classificatory System of Kinship' – we refer to it as ‘skin names’. The system means that each person in a language group can identify their relationship with every other person in the group. This can extend to neighbouring groups with the same system and it creates a powerful sense of connection and belonging. Everyone knows where they fit. Under this system, we can have many brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties who are not related to us by blood but through their skin name.
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Basketweaving at Garma.
Another difference in the way we relate to each other as Indigenous Australians is through generational level and gender. In some areas, people on the same sibling line of the same sex are considered essentially equal. Brothers share an identity with each other, sisters as well. So a child will be taught to identify his or her father’s brothers as father rather than uncle, whereas the father’s sister will be known as aunt. The mother’s sisters will be known to the children as mother and her brothers as uncle. The children of all this child’s fathers and mothers are considered his or her brothers and sisters.
These different structures mean that the concept of family is more complex and all-encompassing than modern western concepts of the nuclear family. It has implications for how people do business, how they care for children, how they share wealth, and so on.
Clicke here to see an example of kinship and mälk in east Arnhemland.
If you would like to learn more feel free to visit the Yolngu Studies website: www.cdu.edu.au/yolngustudies
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