[Anthropgrad] [Fwd: Weds seminar series]

[Fay castles]

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Splitting the Atom of Kinship: The Symbolic Economy of the Warlpiri Fire 
Ceremony
John Morton, Anthropology, La Trobe University

The Warlpiri fire ceremony, in its various guises as 'Ngatjakula', 
'Buluwandi' and 'Jardiwarnpa', has become ethnographically famous. In 
his 1970 paper on 'Buluwandi' (in Ron Berndt's Australian Aboriginal 
Anthropology), Nic Peterson clarified the meaning of the fire ceremony's 
conflict resolution, teasing out the pattern of ceremonial interaction 
and relating it to tensions between matrikin and patrikin in the 
bestowal of nieces/daughters. But why should tension between matrikin 
and patrikin be mediated by the aggressive use of fire? Why is it 
appropriate for certain classes of relatives to be dramatically 
'torched' in a manner which once caused Frank Gillen to liken ritual 
antagonists to 'fiends escaped from Hades'? Although Nic Peterson once 
suggested to me that psychoanalytic takes on Aboriginal ritual symbolism 
seemed to be 'right for all the wrong reasons', I show how Gaston 
Bachelard's The Psychoanalysis of Fire contains much which clarifies the 
symbolism of the Warlpiri fire ceremony in relation to kinship and 
marriage. Fire, it appears, is emblematic of the contradictory forces, 
both creative and destructive, articulated by incestuous desire. The 
Warlpiri fire ceremony, I suggest, dramatises these forces and their 
resolution.

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Fay Castles
Departmental Administrator
Department of Anthropology
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
+61-2-612 52162  Fax: +61-2-612 53023
Fay.Castles at anu.edu.au
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology
ANU CRICOS Provider Number: 00120C
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