Touch is a subtle element of everyday life in Kutjungka culture which has affected me both during fieldwork in the Balgo area in 1992-3, and on subsequent trips to visit senior women with whom I worked. 2 From a funeral held in Billiluna in mid-1997 the memory of the coffin of a middle-aged woman is still strong-a coffin ritually stroked by the gum-leaf tips held in our hands, and embraced by the arms of distraught relatives as we wailed her spirit to the grave.On Christmas Eve in 1992 the sight of a lone mother pushing a child in a pram stood out as an unusual physical alienation amid the familiar closeness of children held in their relatives' arms.During my fieldwork I was continually touched and touching as I sat talking with women or walked with partially sighted women through the camps.The element of touch was so ever present that when I finished my fieldwork and came back to Canberra, there was a void around my body when those women were no longer in physical contact with me. 6.1Nungurrayi making track marks in sand.
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