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Tempus 7:11-19 © 2002 Anthropology Museum
ISSN 1323-6040 | ISBN 909611 48 3 The University of Queensland11
2Ritual Engines and the Archaeology of
Territorial Ascendancy
Martin Gibbs and Peter Veth
In the early years of the twentieth century, anthropologists recorded evidence for the movement of the
circumcision rite into the non-circumcising southwest region of Western Australia. Archaeological and
linguistic evidence from central Australia suggests that this may have been a continuation of an
expansion of the boundaries of the Western Desert ‘cultural group’ which began almost 1,500 years
ago. This paper considers how the sorts of social mechanisms recorded during the historic period for
the push of circumcision into the southwest, what we will characterise here as ‘ritual engines’, may
well inform on much wider processes responsible for the remarkable geographic spread and speed of
the transmission of the Western Desert culture group.
Introduction
Australian archaeologists have frequently alluded to long-
term cultural change as an explanation for shifts in artefact
types, raw material distributions and graphic vocabularies.
It is presumed that these transitions in the archaeological
record are in many instances indicative of wider
transformations in social, economic and ritual relationships
across various kinds of cultural boundaries. However, the
reality is that once we stray away from environmental
determinism we have almost no genuine examples or
models of why or how such changes have occurred in
Australia.
One of the major and most widely recognised
‘boundaries’ in Aboriginal Australia is the so-called
‘circumcision/subincision line’, demarcating the division
between major ritual and cultural traditions, namely the
inland Western Desert culture bloc versus a number of
other culture areas ranged along the coastal fringe (Figure
1). The presence of this border on Tindale’s (1974) and
other maps has lent it an air of immutability. However, in
this paper we will argue that this line represents not a
boundary, but a rapidly moving frontier of cultural change.
Specifically, we attempt to connect archaeological
evidence for the emergence and spread of ‘Western Desert’
cultural practices over the last 1,500 years to the
historically-documented processes of the introduction of
the circumcision rite into central and southwest Western
Australia within the last 160 years. In particular, we will
argue that the remarkable geographic spread and speed of
transmission was driven by a set of social imperatives that
we will characterise here as ‘ritual engines’.
The Emergence and Spread of ‘Western Desert’
Culture
From an archaeological perspective, earlier
characterisations of the Western Desert culture bloc have
emphasised it as a conservative social and economic
system mantled by the need to minimise risk in the face of
environmental stochasticity (e.g. Gould 1977). This view
has now been replaced by models that instead focus on
social, economic and demographic dynamism and
biogeographic diversity (Gould 1996; Smith 1996; Veth
1993, 1996, 2000). The extreme levels of Western Desert
residential mobility, relatively unbounded nature of group
territoriality, presence of long-distance alliance networks
and ability to access neighbours’ country during drought all
signal a fluid social and settlement system (e.g. Tonkinson
1991). Given this condition is the norm, it is quite
predictable that desert groups will be in constant states of
fission and aggregation and that information exchange will
be an extremely important social-adaptive mechanism in
helping to mitigate risk and stress.
Veth (2000), McConvell (1996) and McDonald and
Veth (in press) have recently provided syntheses of
Western Desert archaeology, linguistics and art that allow
a phased occupation model to be outlined (Table 1). The
model assesses the diversity and density of cultural
materials (such as artefacts and ochres) recovered from
datable contexts and their trade and exchange over long
distances in comparison to the relative heterogeneity of
artistic graphic vocabularies. Here we stress that it is the
diversity of exchanged items that is paramount rather than
just the assumed distance and directionality of these
artefacts which, as the following examples illustrate, likely
changes significantly at different temporal and
geographical scales through time. Of relevance to the
present discussion are Phases 5 and 6. During Phase 5 the
Western Desert language is seen to have spread from
approximately 1,500 years ago with loan words discernable
from northern languages and evidence for some contact
with Arandic to the east by 500 years ago (Veth 2000).
There is a general increase in site occupation at optimally-
Ritual Engines and the Archaeology of Territorial Ascendancy
12
Figure 1. Boundaries of the Western Desert and the circumcision/subincision lines.
located sites within the Western Desert (e.g. Smith 1988,
1996; Veth 1993, 1996; cf. Thorley 1998) and an increase
in the diversity of trade/exchange items, such as exotic,
fine-grained lithic materials and ochres, and in the presence
of marine pearl and baler shell in the remote interior
(Thorley and Gunn 1996; Veth et al. 2001). There is
argued to be an increased use of art to negotiate broad-
scale and local group identity, with distinctive localised
style regions evolving. This is a direct reflection of
corporate signaling behaviour during a phase of increasing
territoriality; a process also highlighted through detailed
mapping of ochre supply zones around the site of Puritjarra
over the last 22,000 years.
During Phase 6, which covers the period from
approximately 500 years ago to the present, the Western
Desert language moved into central Australia and the
margins of the southwest. This presumably resulted in
increased interaction and engagement with social networks
in central Australia and the southwest. The emergence of
distinctive localised art style regions is seen to continue,
but there are suggestions that symbolic schema from
central Australia and possibly other ‘frontiers’ begin to be
incorporated in Western Desert iconography.
There are several lines of evidence currently available
to archaeologists working in the Western Desert which
may act as signifiers of increasing corporate identity and
territoriality, and indeed territorial expansion, albeit within
a relatively unbounded system. Recent work by Smith et al.
(1998) examines the changing provenance of ochre
supplies on the eastern margins of the Western Desert and
specifically noted changes in the direction and scale of
supply as a likely indic ation of increasing territoriality from
the mid- to late Holocene. Ochre sources shift from a
(western) desert interior focus during the Pleistocene and
early Holocene to a more proximal (eastern) supply zone
within the central ranges by the mid- to late Holocene
period.
Thorley and Gunn (1996) consider the issue of reliance
of groups on exotic and finer-grained lithic materials in
central Australia and noted a shift towards these during the
last millenium and presumably after the introduction of
microlithic technology and the advent of hafting. A number
of Western Desert sites including the upper unit of the
Pleistocene-aged site of Serpent’s Glen in the Little Sandy
Desert (O’Connor et al. 1998) reflects a preference for
finer-grained materials.
Gibbs and Veth
13
Table 1. Occupation model with proposed archaeological, linguistic and art correlates.
Occupation
Phases
Linguistic Correlates Occupation Model Likely Art Correlates
Phase 1
>22,000 BP
- Non-Pama-Nyungan
speakers
- Early colonisation
- All land systems in use
- Broad-based economy
- Sporadic art production
- Widespread group cohesion:
homogenous art spread over vast
distances
Phase 2
22,000-13,000 BP
- Changes in residential patterns
- Shifts in demography (LGM)
- Lowlands used more
opportunistically
- Broad-scale social cohesion
with perhaps increased localised
identifying behaviour – territorial
tethering
Phase 3
13,000-5,000 BP
- Climatic amelioration
- Marginal lands (re)used more
systematically
- Increase in localised identifying
behaviour
Phase 4
5,000-1,500 BP
- Pama Nyungan
occupation of Western
Desert
- Occupation of all desert
ecosystems
- Re-establishment of regional
exchange/information networks
- Art used to negotiate broad-
scale and local group identity
Phase 5
1,500-500 BP
- Spread of Western Desert
languages
- Loan words from northern
languages
- Some Arandic contact
- Increased intensity of site
occupation
- Accelerated ritual and ceremonial
cycles
- Increase in long-distance
exchange systems
- Increased use of art to negotiate
broad-scale and local group
identity with distinctive localised
style regions evolving
- Art influences at this time come
from the north
Phase 6
500 BP to contact
- Western Desert language
moves into central
Australia and southwest
- Increased interaction with social
networks in central Australia and
southwest
- As above
- Art influences also appear from
the east and further afield
Recent work by McDonald and Veth (in press) seeks to
examine the apparent ‘anomaly’ of heterogeneity and
diversity in the graphic vocabulary of Western Desert
engraving and painting traditions. They note that an
interesting trend is being revealed in recent recording
projects, and that is the amount of localised stylistic
variability apparent, particularly in the recent past. This
variability had not been documented previously – and like
early views of Aboriginal occupation of this continent,
people had assumed a broad continuity and unchanging
nature within the arid zone.
Art production took place in a number of contexts –
from secular and casual, to sacred and ceremonial. Gould
(1990) and Frederick (cited in McDonald and Veth in
press) identify that the graphic systems of the arid zone
were an important tool for promoting and controlling the
exchange of information – functioning at a multitude of
levels – to identify and integrate as well as to demarcate
social boundaries.
Galt-Smith’s (1997) work aims to investigate
aggregation locales in central Australian rock art. His
results illustrate distinct patterning in the rock art
assemblages – which concur well with the ethnography.
The patterning among the pictograph sites (in particular)
correlates well with the documented totemic clan-based
social system. Galt-Smith argues that the pigment art
demonstrated a control of information in the local context.
This was in contrast with the patterning shown by pecked
engraving (petroglyph) sites – which he found to be
homogenous over vast areas of arid Australia. This fits well
with the findings of Smith (1989), who argues that art
demonstrated broad-scale group cohesion over vast areas
of the arid zone.
Using portable ‘acrylic’ paintings from the Western
Desert compared with Arnhem Land bark paintings, Smith
(1989) tests the thesis that increased stylistic heterogeneity
is correlated with more fertile environmental conditions
and more closed social networks. Smith successfully
demonstrates that there was greater heterogeneity amongst
the secular art of the more fertile region, than was found in
the secular art of the arid zone. She also makes the
following conclusions about social structure and symbolic
behaviour:
the art of the Western Desert appears to function to
integrate groups of people on the basis of their rights to
specific sites … Social interaction is less frequent but
probably more intense, than in Arnhem Land. In both
cases, however, social and artistic interaction occurs
within a framework in which … it appears that art serves
as a bounding function in Arnhem Land and a bonding
function in the Western Desert (Smith 1989:147).
Ritual Engines and the Archaeology of Territorial Ascendancy
14
However, McDonald and Veth (in press) challenge this
simple dichotomy, especially in light of the heterogeneity
recorded from the Western Desert in key sites such as the
Cleland Hills, Durba Hills, Calvert Ranges and the
Carnarvon Ranges. The model they advance suggests that
it is necessary to take into consideration not only
residential mobility of particular groups at any one time,
but also the likely aggregation cycles that would have had
great importance in terms of cultural/genetic/ritual flows.
The ‘aggregation locale’ concept originally proposed by
Conkey (1990) for Palaeolithic Spain is good for
describing art sites/provinces where groups from many
disparate social groupings come together.
The high degree of stylistic variability displayed in the
abundant engraved and painted motifs within the well-
watered gorges of the Western Desert strongly suggests
that these places have acted as aggregation locales over a
considerable period of time. Such aggregation sites are
believed to have served as important centres of ritual
production, in addition to facilitating the rapid exchange of
linguistic elements, material goods and genes. The paradox
of arid zone hunter-gatherer settlement behaviour is that
groups must periodically coalesce in order to renegotiate
the social contracts and relations of reciprocity that set the
necessary conditions for subsequent dispersal.
High levels of stylistic diversity are not well
accommodated in the arid-fertile dichotomy and yet the
optimal condition for effective information exchange
during aggregation events predicts just such a
configuration. It is argued here that in resource-poor areas,
groupings of people at aggregation locales are essentially
the ‘engines’ for information exchange and in such
localities, art will exhibit high stylistic diversity as an
expression of contested group identities, rather than of
bounded territoriality. It is clear that the scope and scale of
such aggregation events, and the neighbouring groups that
might participate in such cycles, will dramatically
recalibrate the intensity and the territorial ascendancy of
such ritually-endorsed groupings: the ‘ritual engines’ of the
Western Desert. As Barton (2001:63) argues from an
evolutionary ecology perspective:
Moving into a new set of foraging patches without
incurring the wrath of neighbouring groups may be made
possible through kinship ties and relationships forged
through other social strategies involving the trade and
exchange of goods and information (Cashdan 1985).
Relationships between individuals and groups that
establish large spatial networks are effectively creating a
resource pool at the geographical scale of landscapes.
This is a scale that exists at an order of magnitude above
that of the short-term variance occurring at the end of a
day’s foraging activities.
Territorial ‘ascendancy’ might be seen as a natural
condition of arid zone foragers, essentially being a social
solution to resource stress, rather than a functional solution
bound up with technological innovation and the like. At
longer time-scales, risk-minimising strategies such as
exchange, storage, group foraging and use of new
technologies may not be appropriate or adequate during
times of extreme resource scarcity. Where landscapes
become depauperate, rights of access to neighbouring
groups’ lands are crucial and are only made possible
through kinship ties and other social links such as histories
of residence as novitiates.
An intensification of social and ritual networks, and
their expansion into neighbouring areas as a form of
arid/semi-arid zone risk-minimisation strategy, provides an
effective explanation for the efflorescence of the Western
Desert cultural bloc and its associated markers. Given this
ecological imperative, it might also be assumed that such
mechanisms terminate once the element of risk has been
reduced or eliminated. However, in the following section
we will provide evidence to suggest that once commenced,
these ‘ritual engines’ continued to operate and to generate
an irresistible force for cultural change.
The Advent of Circumcision into the Southwest
By as early as the 1870s, European observers had identified
the major division in the Aboriginal cultures of Western
Australia as being the separation and apparent antagonism
between the circumcising peoples of the inland and the
non-circumcising communities of the coastal fringe (e.g.
Curr 1886; Forrest 1877:16). Around the turn of the
century, pioneer anthropologist Daisy Bates began to
record information on traditional Aboriginal life, which
included evidence suggesting that this ‘boundary’ was in a
state of flux. In particular, she identified the source of the
tension between these groups as the infiltration of a new
ritual form from the interior, rapidly and aggressively
overtaking the traditional practices maintained by the
coastal peoples. The most visible part of this shift was the
introduction of the circumcision rite and its attendant
beliefs and ceremonies. Furthermore, it was Bates’
contention that the interior peoples were using this process
to force ritual dominance upon the coastal groups as a
means of accessing new territory and resources.
In terms of the current discussion, it is most significant
that the circumcision rite lies at the heart of the Western
Desert belief system, while the use of the ritual to obtain
ascendancy in other spheres has resonance with the
archaeological interpretation of the early expansion of the
Western Desert cultural group. Consequently, it might be
argued that this movement represented the continuing
expansion of the Western Desert cultural complex, over a
thousand kilometres and a thousand years from the arid-
zone heartland and the archaeological expressions
discussed above. It also presents us with the possibility of
investigating the mechanisms of that change.
A detailed analysis of the historical and ethnographic
material surrounding the introduction of circumcision into
the southwest and central regions of Western Australia has
been presented elsewhere, with the current discussion
focussing on the mechanisms themselves. Nevertheless, it
is worth reiterating that Bates collected the primary
evidence for this movement during the period prior to the
Gibbs and Veth
15
1920s, from older men and women who were frequently
the last traditionally-initiated persons of these areas. Prior
to this period, and despite being a woman, Bates had
already undertaken detailed studies of the circumcision and
subincision rites in the ‘Western Desert’ cultural areas of
the Pilbara and Murchison regions. Consequently, she was
very aware that the introduction of the former into the
coastal regions probably heralded the start of a significant
and much larger shift in ritual practice.
Corroborating material is available in other sources,
including Tindale’s initial forays into Western Australia in
the 1930s, when he recorded similar evidence for a shift in
ritual practice and consequently other changes. However,
one essential element apparent in Bates’ work and other
accounts is that the processes of change, while exacerbated
by the massive disruptions of European invasion, were
underway long before contact. In fact, they continued
largely unrecognised by Europeans although, as will be
shown, Aboriginal people sometimes attempted to use the
presence of White people as a means of stemming the
changes. Later anthropologists have not only recognised
this expansion of Western Desert ritual practice, but also
suggested that the only reason that the coastal regions had
not adopted the inland religious traditions was that the
process of transition was ‘arrested’ by contact (Berndt
1979a:17).
Mechanisms
Although Bates never released an explicit, extended
discussion of the advent of the circumcision rite into the
coastal regions, four major mechanisms for the change
appear in her published works and unpublished notes.
Ceremonial Visits
Bates’ informants described large groups from the interior
areas making periodic ceremonial visits to the southwest
areas, bringing new dances, magic, ritual objects and other
inducements (Bates in Bridges 1992:94). At the conclusion,
one or several of the southwest men might then return with
them and submit to circumcision. These kinds of large
inter-group gatherings, involving a combination of
ceremonial performance, social negotiation, trade and
exchange of initiates, were an acknowledged feature of
Aboriginal society (Flood 1980; Gibbs 1987; Lourandos
1980; McBryde 1986). However, these events usually
occurred within closely-allied kinship and ritual networks,
whereas meetings across network boundaries, such as
between circumcising and non-circumcising peoples, were
likely to happen irregularly, and then for reasons of mutual
benefit or to facilitate the longer-range ceremonial cycles
and exchange systems (Mulvaney 1976:73). Initiate
exchange would be far more unlikely although not
impossible. However, what stands out in this case is that
while the southwest boys submitted to circumcision, none
of the boys from the interior areas were ever given over to
the southwest men for initiation into the coastal rites (Bates
in Bridges 1992:94). In addition, there are also indications
that at least some of the initiates were grown men, since
there is reference to them having wives and children. An
initiated man from one tradition choosing to become an
initiate in another tradition can only be considered as
unusual.
Kidnap of Initiates
Bates interviewed several older men, originally from the
coastal areas, whom as boys had been captured and
circumcised by men from the interior areas (Bates n.d.
NLA 15/322, IV 1:76). This had usually occurred during
the novice stage when, in the southwest tradition, they
spent several years being passed between distant camps in
order to receive training from men of the opposite moiety
(Bates 1985:150). During this travelling phase they were in
unfamiliar territories and away from the protection of
family, making them extremely vulnerable to ‘capture’ by
circumcising groups. Although this idea of abduction may
seem unusual, taking a potentially unwilling youth and
putting him through the ceremonies culminating in
circumcision is consistent with Western Desert myth and
practice associated with initiation (e.g. Berndt 1979a:20).
Another possibility raised by Bates’ informants was that a
youth might unwittingly be passed too far eastward and
ultimately to groups that had already converted to the new
rites.
Sorcery and Retribution
Bates recorded a number of stories of boys being handed
over for circumcision, or indeed men succumbing to
circumcision, through threat of sorcery and to a lesser
extent of physical retribution. Of interest is narrative
recorded in several areas by Bates, in which a southwest
(Nyungar) father had refused a neighbouring circumcising
group permission to initiate his son. In an attempt to protect
the boy from capture, this man had moved his camp to a
location adjacent to the police station in Katanning.
However, the eastern men also sent magic which, while
resisted for a short while, eventually killed the boy and the
parents. Other sources reported that southwest peoples
frequently identified the eastern and northern areas as the
source of dangerous and hostile magic. These stories were
widespread and hint at an undercurrent of fear throughout
the southwest populations.
Proselytisation and Generational Continuity
Not surprisingly, newly-circumcised men and boys were
actively used as proselytising agents, extolling the virtues
and strength of this new Law and encouraging others to
convert (Bates in Bridges 1992:94; Bates n.d. NLA 15/322,
IV 1:76). If a man had been circumcised, then he would
ensure that his sons were circumcised as well, creating
generational continuity and progressive spread within the
system (Bates n.d. NLA 15/252, IV 1).
As strategies for compelling adoption of the new ritual
form, these mechanisms make sense. What is not obvious
is why the inland peoples were vigorously and even
aggressively forcing its adoption, although the hint may be
in the antipathy between the two traditions. Bates and later
Ritual Engines and the Archaeology of Territorial Ascendancy
16
Tindale repeatedly recorded men from the interior calling
the coastal men ‘boys’ or ‘women’ (Bates 1938a, 1985:86),
because ‘as men they [the southwest people] “do not follow
the law”’ (Tindale 1974:253). The implication is that the
men of the inland regions essentially saw the Nyungar as
a land of boys requiring initiation. They may well have
seen it as their responsibility to introduce ‘Proper Law’ to
the southwest.
Although this might sound improbable, examples of
new or ‘strong’ Law replacing older forms have been
recorded, complete with mythic stories of fights between
powerful beings to establish and justify the superiority of
one form of Law over another (e.g. Ackerman 1979:239).
There are clearly some instances where these changes in
ritual orientation have resulted from the replacement of
traditional knowledge lost through post-contact dislocation,
with the new structures sometimes brought with migrants,
often from inland areas (e.g. Gray 1979:173). However,
anthropologists have cautioned that even in the post-
contact context, movements and adoptions of rituals and
cults may often be a continuation of traditional processes,
rather than solely triggered by ‘a situation of cultural
deprivation’ (Ackerman 1979:240).
Movement
Together with evidence for the mechanisms of change, it is
also possible to trace something of the advance of the
circumcision rite into the southwest and central regions. In
addition, several writers from the 1870s to the 1930s
recorded material that provides an insight into the tensions
within and between communities gripped in the transition.
The most detailed evidence for these tensions is
available for the southeast coast of Western Australia. For
instance, it appears that a larger Wajjari community had
fissioned, probably in the late nineteenth century, as a
result of the eastern portion of the community choosing to
adopt circumcision while the western portion refused
(Tindale 1974:78; see also Helms 1896:281). There is
evidence that this corporate decision was made after some
years of resisting increasing pressure from their
circumcising neighbours. The newly converted group
apparently renamed themselves ‘Bardonjunga’
(circumcised men) and now considered themselves superior
to their non-circumcising kin (Tindale 1974:248).
However, the Ngadjunmaia, from whom the new rites
came, referred to them as ‘Baadok’, or ‘know nothings’,
because their knowledge of the rituals was incomplete
(Tindale 1974:248; Williams 1886:394). It is interesting
that subincision had not yet been adopted by this group, as
indicated in the split in the circumcision/subincision line on
Tindale’s map. This lag may indicate that the latter rite was
not possible until the men had reached the more advanced
stages within the new system. Although further research is
required, there seems to be evidence for successive groups
along the southeast region succumbing to this shift in ritual
orientation.
In addition to the more overt issue of changing ritual
structures, Tindale also recorded for the southeast region
antagonism between neighbouring Njunga (non-
circumcising) and Ngadjunmaia (circumcising) groups over
competing claims to land in the Balladonia-Norseman
region. Tindale recorded names and stories from both sides,
but felt that the evidence weighed in favor of the Njunga.
Tindale noted that the Ngadjunmaia appeared to have
created new place names or modified some of the Njunga
place names to have Ngadjunmaia suffixes, so that for
example Tjitjalap near Cape Dempster had become
Tjitjilanja. He felt that this was evidence for a ‘territorial
grab, followed by an attempt at modification of the
nomenclature by people of a different dialect’ (Tindale
1974:78). Whether this can be tied into the wider question
of attaining territorial ascendancy requires further
consideration.
In other areas there is further evidence suggesting the
passage of the circumcision rite and its attendant
transformations. In the coastal regions at the northern
extreme of the southwest and into the central regions, Bates
recorded a number of ‘isolated groups’, which appear to
have been small non-circumcising communities which had
over time been surrounded and isolated by circumcising
groups (Bates 1938b:125). These groups were attempting
to maintain their own ritual forms, totemic systems and
marriage laws, remaining endogamous with similar
remnant non-circumcising peoples (Bates 1985:58, 109).
Interestingly, Bates notes that these isolated groups were
also, to some extent, linguistically distinct from their
neighbours. However, they were under extreme pressure
from their circumcising neighbours, with their women
being kidnapped and their boys taken for initiation (Bates
1938b:125).
Along the eastern boundaries there appears to be
evidence for perhaps even earlier stages of the transition.
Prior to the advent of Europeans, the peoples of the
southwest culture bloc were linked by a common (non-
circumcising) ritual base, a shared material culture, a
descent system based around moieties, and a single
language with only minor dialect differences (now referred
to by the portmanteau terms Nyungar or Bibbulman)
(Berndt 1979b). However, linguists working along the
eastern frontier area have recorded Nyungar speaking
groups on the circumcising side of the line (Douglas 1976).
There are also small Nyungar-type dialect groups located
even further inland and surrounded by Western Desert
language forms (Douglas 1976:6), a situation clearly
reminiscent of Bates’ ‘isolated groups’.
Even more interesting is that the Nyungar groups
closest to the circumcising frontier were using alternate
generation levels, sometimes with patrilineal local descent,
similar to the Western Desert form (Jarvis 1979). It might
be asked whether this represents a precursor to a more
extensive cultural shift. Bates notes that the ritual
conversion of Nyungar men and boys inevitably
transformed into social relations, with some of her
informants stating that they had been obliged to betroth
their female kin to their new ritual partners (e.g. Bates n.d.
NLA IV, 1, 15/322, p.75). There were also established
Gibbs and Veth
17
systems of equivalence to allow members of the southwest
moieties to be integrated into these interior Western-
Desert-style descent systems (Bates 1985:89).
Even in the deepest southwest coastal communities, far
from the actual frontier with the circumcising groups,
people were obviously aware of the interior ritual systems
(Hammond 1933:63). These groups were also receiving
ceremonies and dances that had originated to the north and
east, including the yenma, which is undoubtedly the
Western Desert yinma (Bates 1938b:142, 1985:314, 321;
Berndt 1979b:85). Although the southwest people
professed ignorance of the language of these ceremonies
and only a general idea of content, some loan words from
northeastern regions had been adopted as far southwest as
Capel (Bates 1985:109). Ceremonial items such as sacred
carved boards, bullroarers and pearl shell ornaments were
also being traded into the southwest, while coastal items
including ochre were passed into the interior areas (Bates
1938a, 1938b:142; Bates in Bridges 1992:94).
Discussion
The historical record indicates a widespread and relatively
aggressive infiltration of the circumcision rite, and by
extension the Western Desert cultural system, into the
southwest and central portions of Western Australia. There
are indications that this shift in ritual orientation was
actively resisted, although mechanisms ranging from
proselytising, through to intimidation and kidnap, were
used establish a bridgehead into communities. Despite
initial reluctance, the act of initiation created bonds and
obligations between the initiates and those who put them
through the rites, which in turn transformed into access into
new social, economic and ritual networks. Some of these
changes can be summarised as follows:
!ritual relationships were re-oriented to an east-west axis
and increased in intensity;
!as the senior Law men, the men from the circumcising
eastern groups obtained a form of ritual dominance
over the newly recruited southwesterners;
!because of these increasing ritual contacts, trade
systems also opened and/or intensified;
!obligations to ritual partners and increased contacts
extended to betrothals of female kin. Presumably this
may have included or required alterations to social
systems;
!with these ties of kinship came access and rights to new
territories and resources; and
!children of circumcised men were also put through the
new rites, creating generational continuity and fixing
the system into place and providing the dynamic for
continued expansion.
It must be recalled that none of these transformations
was based around changes in overall population levels,
with the essence of the process being the conversion of the
existing population. In addition, such changes could be
quite swift. Depending upon the extent of the social and
economic networks of the persons being recruited, the
geographic spread of circumcision could potentially
incorporate hundreds of square kilometres of territory
within a single generation. What is obvious is that the
‘circumcision/subincision line’ shown on Tindale’s (1974)
map (see Figure 1), is in fact a highly conservative
depiction of the frontier, probably to what he perceived as
a ‘pre-contact’ situation and in line with his notions of
ecological boundedness. It must also be recalled that this
outflow was not limited to the southwest and central
regions, but was a far wider phenomenon right along the
boundaries of the Western Desert cultural bloc.
The historically-recorded mechanisms would appear to
achieve the situation of territorial ascendancy proposed by
McDonald and Veth (in press), with the appearance of
Western Desert cultural traits in the southwest and central
regions matching the likely rate of expansion. However,
further work is required to correlate these with the
archaeological signifiers identified for the interior regions,
particularly in those regions between the coastal southwest
and the semi-arid interior which have not seen systematic
archaeological investigation.
Conclusion
The ritual engines of the Western Desert describe
intensifying ceremonial and ritual aggregation cycles,
which we argue are a natural condition of foragers in one
of the world’s most stochastic landscapes. These have
resulted inevitably in a form of territorial ascendancy at
least with respect to the spread of ceremonies, song cycles,
the ‘pressing’ of novitiates and not least the ritual practices
of circumcision and subincision. Such transmissions do not
require changes in population. Changes in the nature of
social relations between Western Desert people and their
neighbours, facilitated by these accelerating ritual engines,
essentially served to provide access across old boundaries.
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