a Mangarrayi representational system: environment and cultural symbolization in northern Australia

Abstract

It is common enough for aborigines in many parts of Australia to regard environmental features as visible signs of world‐forming activities of totemic creator figures. The relationships between individuals, social groups, and the creator figures are cast in complex ideologies that express the ties between men and locality. In the Northern Territory along the Roper River, an aboriginal group, the Mangarrayi, also use vast numbers of environmental objects, mainly trees, to represent directly individuals linked to creator figures who made the localities where the objects stand. Thus, all three components of totem/man/land relations, which are so central a part of aboriginal culture, exist or are represented in the landscape. This paper explains how the environment is utilized to represent this system of relations in a way and to an extent that has not been previously reported in the Australianist literature, illustrating the cultural constitution of the “natural” environment. [Australia, totemism, environment, semiotics]

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