Nunggubuyu Aboriginals and Marind-Anim: Preliminary Comparisons between Southeastern Arnhem Land and Southern New Guinea

Abstract

“The Cult of the Bull-Roarer in Australia and Southern New Guinea” (Van Baal 1963) is not the only, but certainly a spectacular, illustration of Van Baal’s profound knowledge of and comparative approach to southern New Guinea and Australian Aboriginal cultures — a comparative approach, nourished by his conviction that “significant similarities” between these sultures exist, which make such a comparison both worthwhile and necessary. Van Baal concludes his article by emphasizing that these similarities are not limited to the important and spectacular role of the bull-roarer in New Guinea and Aboriginal Australia. Rather, they are of a general nature and concern “the totemism of the Marind-anim and the Orokolo on the one hand and that of the Australian tribes on the other, as well as the functional similarities between the Australian system of sections and totem-relationships and the organization of over-all clans in southern New Guinea”. He adds cautiously: “In the absence of a detailed investigation of the mass of relevant data any discussion of these similarities is a hazardous undertaking. The similarities demonstrable are counterbalanced by significant differences and without a preceding analysis of the cultures involved any discussion of the relations between Australian and Papuan cultures is decidedly premature” (p. 213).