A quality of being: embodied kinship among the Tiwi of Northern Australia

Abstract

Setting the sceneThirty years ago, almost exactly, I argued in my PhD thesis that, among the Tiwi, dance was kinship-in-action, not so much because it reflected kinship practices in other social domains - which it did - but because I observed on the dance floor kinship relationships being explored and new ones being generated. As I put it then ‘the kinship dances are not models of, but rather models for kinship practices’ (Grau 1983: 333).The anthropologist Jane Goodale coined the term ‘kinship dances’. In her book Tiwi wives, she described them as ‘special types of dance performed by individuals or groups of kin who have a particular relationship to the deceased’ (Goodale 1971: 300). It is important to note here that among the Tiwi, almost all dance performances are dedicated to someone, dead in the context of mortuary rituals, alive in the modern contexts of celebrations for weddings, birthdays, or graduations. The bereavement term and status given to an individual becomes by extension the label given to the dance they are entitled to perform and the modern contexts follows the structure of the mortuary rituals. In my work I have contrasted this part of the dance repertoire with another, which I have labeled the Dreaming dances.In 2007 the artist Pedro Wonaeamirri, Vice President of the Jilamira Arts and Craft Association commented, in the context of an exhibition of the works of late Kitty Kantilla at the National Galery of Victoria.I perform my brolga dance and my tide da [...]