Christianity, identity, power, and employment in an aboriginal settlement.
Article from:Ethnology
Article date:January 1, 2006
Author: Schwarz, Carolyn
This essay examines Aboriginal people's expression of Christian ideologies, values, and behaviors in regard to personhood. Christian practice in Galiwin'ku is a repertoire of individualization that fosters self-reliance and self-actualization, which relate to employment benefits and positions of political authority. Christianity is an important and equivocal site for staging opposition between community residents and for the expression of indigenous political agency within and beyond the settlement. Examining how Christianity informs the production of identities sheds light on some of the ways in which Aboriginal people negotiate tensions arising from a market economy and an egalitarian ethos. (identity, Christianity, indigenous agency, Aboriginal Australia)
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Prolonged marginalization in the national economy has affected Aboriginal people living in remote regions of Australia (Austin-Broos and Macdonald 2005), and for several years the Aboriginal politician, Noel Pearson (2000), has urged for the indigenous people's integration into the market economy in order to reach greater economic self-sufficiency. Australia's indigenous citizens are currently confronted with a "dual challenge of cultural difference and rapid change," Austin-Broos (2005:1) declares. She contends that the central issue now facing many Aboriginal people is the tension between their resistance to out-migration from their communities and the state's and Australian federal government' s reluctance to create jobs in these regions. The harsh reality of these competing interests has meant economic deprivation, poor health, limited educational opportunities, a small labor market, and welfare dependency for the majority of Australia's indigenous citizens.
A notable absence from these pressing issues is a consideration of the role that Christianity plays in negotiating the tensions between government and Aboriginal interests. An exception to this neglect is a review of the transition from a domestic moral economy patent to hunter-gatherers to an engagement with a cash economy by Peterson (2005), who discusses the emergence of life projects that are indigenous derived and developed independently of those promoted by the state and market. Peterson (2005) contends that in comparison with North America, life projects in Australia are often fragmented, reactive to government policy, and contested within communities. He observes that when discussions about life projects seem to be the most self-conscious and coherent, they are often formulated in a Christian context. Peterson (2005:14) also notes that the ways people involve themselves in "the treadmill of wage labor" include out-marriage, moving away, or becoming involved with a Christian sect.
This essay attempts to contribute to understanding how Aboriginal people have responded to new conditions and how they remake themselves in the changing contexts, with Christian practice as the point of entry. Fieldwork (2003-2005) in the Yolngu settlement Galiwin'ku, located in northeast Arnhem Land, examined how particular forms of Christian ideologies, values, and behaviors inform Aboriginal people's understanding of personhood and selves. Research also considered the relationships among productions of identities and the realities of employment and power in remote community living. (1)
REPERTOIRES OF INDIVIDUALIZATION IN ABORIGINAL SOCIAL LIFE
Following Weber's (1930) connection of the Protestant work ethic with the spirit of capitalism, Christianity may be contextualized as a space within which individual initiative and agency are shaped. Protestantism, notions of "citizenizing," and the permeation of a market economy into Aboriginal social life must all be viewed as processes and discourses of individualization. They are individualistically grounded models that prioritize the relationship of the spirit and body to an almighty God and to work, and in doing so transform the notion of person to enable wealth accumulation and procurement of citizenship rights mainly through social security and welfare payment schemes. Regarding the changes that ensue with the influx of a market economy, Peterson (2005:14-15) has argued that affluence and emerging consumer dependency reduces the intensity of sharing practices in Aboriginal communities. Embedded in these processes, he contends, is a shift towards a more individualistic orientation. Peterson (2005:14-15) writes:
Sharing becomes the site of intense social struggle, shaming practices, threats of ostracism and appeals to ideologies of what it means to be Indigenous are turned on relatives and acquaintances who are clearly prospering, in an attempt to maintain the levels of sharing, relatedness and the values of egalitarianism. For many, issues of identity also become of great importance as individuals move into a moral and reflexive psychological space that is increasingly separated from the dense sociality of extended kin relations and abstracted from community.
From Peterson's perspective, there is an inevitable tension between sharing practices inscribed in kinship networks and a market economy based on individualism. Others, however, have argued that an emphasis on sharing and an ethic of egalitarianism are not necessarily incompatible with individual economic success. Trigger (2005:47-56) contends that there is substantive evidence that vigorous competition over cultural and material capital (e.g., religious knowledge, access to sacred lands, cash, royalty payments) between kin and individuals is a prominent feature of Aboriginal societies (e.g., Dussart 2000; Keen 1994; Trigger 1992:111-18, 1997). Trigger (2005) argues that while these forms of competition may be connected with engagement of the market indirectly, it seems inadequate to generalize that "egalitarian tendencies completely negate persons' capacities for competitive performance, pursuit of individual careers, or entrepreneurialism" (Trigger 2005:47). Similarly, Austin-Broos (2003) has argued that the move from a foraging to a cash economy fueled by welfare and intermittent labor has increased the importance of commodities in some Central Desert Aboriginal communities. Yet, she asserts that while there is a certain degree of individual accumulation of cash or human capital, sharing among kin to establish and maintain social relatedness remains what is most valued. A consideration of how Christianity informs the production of identities helps shed light on these issues by showing how Aboriginal people negotiate tensions arising from the intersection of a market economy and a kin-based sharing ethos.
THE PRODUCTION OF LOCALIZED IDENTITIES
An analysis of identity formation in the Galiwin'ku settlement cannot be made apart from historical and structural factors (Asad 1993). The Methodist Overseas Mission established the settlement in 1942. In comparison with missionary organizations elsewhere in Australia, such as the Anglican or Catholic missions, the Methodists were relatively benign in maintaining a doctrine of noninterference in religious and cultural practices (Keen 1994). While this may be so, the Methodist missionaries attempted to instill a habitus (Bourdieu 1977) more in tune with Euro-Australian ideas of citizenship. These ideas derived from coupling Protestant ideologies of work with the state's aims to "educate," "consume," and produce laborers for the nation's agricultural development. The main tool for implementing the missionaries' and state's schemes to turn Yolngu into Christian subjects and good citizens was the establishment of a working routine that regulated people's daily lives. The close linkages between the state, the Mission, and the structure of work created a framework for Yolngu understandings of Christianity as tied ideologically and habitually to the state, and as a religious construction associated with behaviors and ways of living, the ramifications of which carry over to the present day.
With the advent of self-determination policies under the Whitlam government in 1972, the Uniting Church (the Methodist's modern day successor) adopted an advisory role and the administration of the mission settlement passed to the Galiwin'ku Community Incorporated. Established under the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act (1976), the Galiwin'ku Community Council was designed by the state and federal governments to promote indigenous autonomy and self-reliance. The idea of self-reliance, however, conflicts with and ignores the historical and structural factors that created and perpetuated a situation of marginalization and dependency for the Aboriginal population. The Council is today the principal governing organization in the settlement and is the main vehicle for administering the current Howard Government's policy of "practical reconciliation." As stated in the Coalition Government's 2004 election policy, the agenda of practical reconciliation aims to close the gaps (as measured by social indicators) in health, housing, education, and employment, and targets those most in need rather than on their identification as Aboriginal. The policy states that its "commitment to improving the circumstances of Indigenous Australians is based on focusing on individuals by encouraging self-reliance and independence from welfare" (Liberal Party 2004:6). Such an individualized focus perpetuates the ideologies of earlier self-determination schemes and has profound implications for how indigenous personhood is defined and negotiated within state bureaucratic structures. Local interpretations of self-reliance ideologies are most clearly accentuated and reproduced in the roles attached to individualized positions of both "Councilor" and "worker" in the settlement and are intertwined with Christian identification.
Christian practice in the Galiwin'ku settlement today is a way of life and system of values that patterns how people engage with others in the community and the society beyond. While only approximately 9 percent of the population (72 out of 848 adults (2)) is actively involved in what Yolngu term "Christian Business," the ideologies, values, and practices of Christianity pervade settlement life (see also Tonkinson 1981, 2004). The pace of daily life at Galiwin'ku can best be characterized as fluctuations between periods of intense activity, namely during ceremony time, and lulls marked by monotony and boredom. People try to avoid the latter through activities such as participation in Christian Business, (3) playing cards, drinking kava, hunting, taking part in sporting events, visiting to exchange stories, or traveling to other Yolngu settlements. Participation in Uniting Church Sunday services, meetings, rallies, and revivals are thus one of many ways to pass time with unemployment, low school attendance, and a traditional ritual life that is under increasing strain. A similar situation regarding church activities exists among the Mardu Aborigines at the Western Desert settlement Jigalong (Tonkinson 2004:194-95).
SELVES AND WORK AMONG YOLNGU CHRISTIANS
The constraints and possibilities of historical and structural circumstances have shaped Yolngu people's understanding and practices of Christianity and of being a Christian. No longer living and working under missionary tutelage, Christians today tie Christian processes to ideas of self-reliance and to the rippling effects of colonial and neocolonial policies, particularly in relation to health and education. They believe that Christian practices are means of empowerment. Empowerment is directed at achieving ends such as healing for chronic illnesses, learning how to read and write English, and being able to stop gambling and substance abuse. When Yolngu talk about God's power, they use the terms Garraywung ganydjarr (power from God) or Garraywu ganydjarr (power belonging to God). Yolngu characterize this power as differing from the power of the Ancestral Beings for several reasons. God's power is seen as emanating from djiwarr (above) as opposed to from the munatha (earth). It is viewed as all encompassing as opposed to site or group specific; and God's power is perceived to be life-giving (walngamirr) as it is the first creation (bokmanda) and able to heal the sick, which is something the Ancestral Beings cannot do. God's power is viewed as transforming. It can enact change against and within the confines of impositions brought on by colonization, such as disease, and Euro-Australian modes of education, employment, and technologies. Yolngu believe that God' s power is mobilized through Christian practices, which include prayer, going to Church, evangelization, or sharing Godku dhaaruk (God's word). All of these are included in the "working for God."
Empowerment through Work
Christians employed in the settlement draw a connection between what they see as their work for God and empowerment for Yolngu people. They believe that it is through using God's power that people acquire the skills necessary to achieve self-determination and political and economic integration, such as learning how to save money, English literacy, and understanding the Australian political system. Yolngu define self-determination as the ability to have control over decisions that affect the community and one's life. A woman who holds an important position in the organization managing Galiwin'ku's 28 homelands, and who is also a Church elder, expressed the relations of work, empowerment, and Christian practice:
Now my work at Marthakal [the homeland management center] is important ministry, working for development at the grassroots to empower them. Mine is a big ministry. God was the first community worker. He came as a child. He set up ministry with people, ate with them, slept with them, give them empowerment.... We have to understand something that is coming if [it is] a new law or new power, because we have to act.
Although this woman's work is not with Christian ministry, she articulates her roles within the Marthakal organization as empowering people through following a "Christ-like" example, and conceptualizes herself as an activist helping Yolngu to understand the Australian legal system and forms of governance that affect their lives.
A bible translator who is also heavily involved in Church activities drew a similar connection between his occupation at the Translation Center and empowerment. He explained his position as a mechanism for empowering Yolngu persons for self-actualization. Such ideologies highlight how notions of personhood are changing in Yolngu consciousness to a more individualized model based on Western constructs of self-improvement through work and education. Christian practice is presented as the main avenue for these transformations.
We'd like to help people to get away from whatever they're doing to become a people that God intended them to be. How to ... empower people so that they can fulfill their destiny in God and with the people whom they are serving. Becoming that law abiding citizen. They have got that potential, that they're not putting into practice. They need some liberating message of God Baapa [father].... How to become a manymak [good] person. That they've got some worth in them.
This Christian man's statement equates empowerment with becoming a good person and having a sense of self-worth. For both the Marthakal worker and the bible translator, empowerment is perceived in terms of self-improvement, advancement, and promoting "development" in Yolngu society and the nation. All these ends parallel the ideals of self-determination schemes instituted by the state. According to these two speakers, Christian practices are the means for these transforming processes, either by emulating God's example in community work or by making God's message (in English) available to Yolngu speakers through translation work. Christianity is understood as creating pathways toward newer productions of selfhood. These productions are embedded in Euro--Australian notions of self-advancement that ultimately privilege individual integration within the labor economy.
English Literacy Practices and Christianity
A main vehicle fostering this integration is learning to read and write English. English literacy is both iconic and practical in its ability to provide the means for engaging with Euro-Australians. Galiwin'ku people infer that someone who is Christian is someone who can speak good English, and in many cases is someone who is literate. Such parallel processes are neither particular to Galiwin'ku nor to Australia generally (Kral and Falk 2004; McLaughlin 1989; Mills and Grafton 2003; Schwab and Kral 2003; Wyss 2003). They are the product of colonizing enterprises that aimed to culturally and economically assimilate indigenous peoples.
In a Central Desert and a Central Amhem Land community, Christianity is "a key motivating factor for many people in acquiring and maintaining reading skills in both English, and where materials are available, in the vernacular" (Schwab and Kral 2003:17). In the Sandover River Region, it is in the "Christian domain" that the most concentrated literacy practices are evident in comparison with other domains such as work, study, and home (Kral and Falk 2004). "Christian literacy" encompasses those practices related to reading hymnals, songbooks, the bible, and writing prayer. When reading and writing are "personally meaningful," people are motivated to improve their reading and writing skills. A point of significance regarding the nature of reading as an individualizing process, Kral and Falk (2004:54) write:
It was observed by the researcher that there is also a high level of motivation for reading Christian texts in English. In fact, the most purposeful English reading practices observed were Christian literacy activities, where people were attempting to comprehend longer and more complex texts than in any other domains. This is often a self-initiated, independent activity.
This connection between the Christian repertoire of individualization and English literacy is apparent at Galiwin'ku and has implications for securing an education, employment, and political offices. The following example illustrates how English literacy tied to Christian practice is conceptualized as a vehicle for autonomy. A Church minister related his experiences at Nungalinya College, an indigenous theological college in Darwin, stressing the linkage between God and learning English:
I never been in the school, in the high school, or preschool, no secondary, no primary.... Not at all. Very poor English ... when I grown up. This is where you, you need to understand Gaminyarr [kin term for man's daughter's child]. Then I changed my life to God, and the Lord helped me.... My friend write a letter for me and asking the Church Council, see if I can go to studies in Darwin. And they working out very hard.... How will he learn? How he can learn there because all English.... Took them three months to working out this one. Before they can accept it.... And the first thing they put on the program for me is the literacy, English, reading and writing.... In my program for the whole year.... And I start reading and writing in English. And speaking in public.... When I finish, with English ... done my certificate of Theology, pass, and Associate Diploma, pass. Because God helped. I did by the spirit ... learned quickly as possible, you know, quickly to read and write and speaking in public.
The minister explains that he was able to succeed swiftly because God helped him. These ideologies translated into practice for him. For several years he held a lecturer position at Nungalinya College and received a Bachelor of Theology degree from Sydney University through correspondence courses. His educational achievements are particularly astounding considering that only 3 percent of the Aboriginal population has completed a Bachelor or higher degree, compared with 18 percent of the nonindigenous population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2002).
English is also connected to Christianity through less formal educational means that may be an entry to employment. Many Christians believe that God can help them learn English through Christian media outside of educational institutions, or what Kral and Falk (2004) call "Christian literacy." At Galiwin'ku, Christian literacy mainly includes English Bible and songbook reading. During a well attended Church service, for example, a minister who had attended Nungalinya College for theological training, and held positions on the governing body of Aboriginal Resource and Development services and the Northern Regional Council of Congress of the Aboriginal presbytery of the Uniting Church, explained to the congregation and visitors from other Yolngu settlements in partial English and Yolngu that despite not being enrolled in formal English training programs at Nungalinya, he was able to learn English through God.
I don't have any education.... I haven't got education. Amen. But I've got hope of Jesus.... I was not able to speak. [I had] no education.... He was the only one who taught me English through the Bible so that I could speak. The Bible is always helping me.... Jesus only help me for English in the nation.
Thus, whether a person takes formal English courses or is self-trained in Christian literacy, God is viewed as the primary source of power assisting people in English proficiency. Christians believe that individuals can activate this power through prayer and by changing their lives to follow God's path (Garraywu dhukarr).
Promoting Well-being and Health
Education levels and health are interrelated social indicators (Mooney 2005:66). With health problems having increased in the past two decades, that include higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, and pulmonary diseases (Productivity Commission 2005), Christian practices are also regarded as resources for healing people from what are regarded as "Western" diseases. Christianity is perceived to act against colonizing effects and empower the self and kin with healthy bodies. The following narrative illustrates how Yolngu understand the relationship between God's power, healing, and well being generally. A senior Yolngu woman who calls herself a Christian explained:
If I get sick ... my Wangarr Wititj [Ancestral Olive Python], yes, he won't help me.... If I get sick, I will feel in my body like someone is talking to me like the Holy Spirit. Or, we will feel God the Father's power.... If I will worship him, that Wititj, he won't talk to me.... If I get sick ... he won't come here and say to me, "[Name], get up, you healing now," he won't say this.... If a Yolngu gets sick, somebody comes and prays for us.... Or, if we get sick, really sick, by faith, we will beat that sickness because we are living with God. We already received God's Law. We already received his authority.... He already gave authority to us Yolngu today.... Go out sit with the people. Never mind they are playing cards. Never mind they are drinking kava. Never mind they are drinking alcohol. We will go and sit with them and help them.
Most people at Galiwin'ku say that people can overcome sickness through faith in God and through interventions by others in prayer. The ideology of achieving well-being through the enactment of Christian practices is understood as a particular form of empowerment that produces healthy persons. As well as healing, the senior woman's narrative of God's power is tied to ways of daily living as kin and to notions of authority. She stresses the importance of looking after kin whose status is represented as anonymous (e.g., drinkers, gamblers) by those who are in a position of authority. Authority in Aboriginal society is derived from having the responsibility and the ability to look after those within one's care (Myers 1986:219-55). The woman speaks about God's authority being given to Yolngu who are Christian, upon which they can act to help people with gambling and substance abuse.
To summarize, Yolngu Christian notions of empowerment through individualized effort, education, and the creation of healthy Aboriginal bodies merge to produce new pathways for the articulation of Yolngu personhood. Such changing forms are based on individualized models of self-betterment that enable people to more readily engage with structures stemming from the Australian economy and governance system. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, these ideologies held by Christians correlate with employment and holding political offices within the settlement.
CHRISTIANS, COUNCILORS, AND POLITICAL POWER
Quantitative data gathered during fieldwork show that individual economic and political integration is fostered through being Christian (see also Trigger 1992:170-75, 213-215). Those taking part in Christian Business were more than six times as likely to serve as Council members and proxies than those who did not, one-and-a-half times as likely to be employed by the Council, and four times as likely to be employed in Council positions that require formal educational training. (5)
Residents see the Council and Councilors as links to somewhat more permanent power than through the traditional political system, in which authority was always situational and temporary (Dussart 1989, 2000; Meggitt 1962; Tonkinson 1988). Councilor positions come with political authority in the settlement, but it is not an authority that can be passed on nor is it an absolute power. The community uses various leveling mechanisms that curtail the excessive use of power and the inequitable distribution of economic resources (Dussart 2000:110-111).
There is a sense among residents that Council members use government funds to benefit themselves and their close kin. This emerges in accusations of improprieties over housing allocation, motorcar usage, personal travel to nearby towns, and control over community vendors. For example, rounding up Councilors for meetings often takes repeated announcements over the community loudspeaker by the Chairperson or individual Councilors. On one occasion, there were not enough Councilors to hold a meeting and the Councilor members who were present decided to close the community's main shop and two other stores to coerce people to attend. Such nonattendance suggests a certain degree of noncompliance among Councilors themselves to assert their own autonomy from the control of other Councilors. Closing the shops, which are the only places to buy food in the settlement, was particularly irksome for people who store little food for lack of refrigeration. When the meeting continued past three hours, a fight erupted near one of the shops due to one young man's extreme hunger. Residents expressed anger over the Council's decision to close the shops, saying Councilors thought of themselves as "big bosses" who wanted "power" and "control" and were not concerned about others. The shops remained closed until the meeting ended, and the Council successfully exerted its power.
On another occasion the Council held a large community meeting on the Church lawn. Such community meetings took place only three times during the 17 months of fieldwork. The meeting was about the changes occurring within the Community Development Employment Projects. A point of contention was the issue of introducing a stricter system for documenting work time. One female resident declared that the Council's role was merely to help those who were employed in the community and not to try to control their lives through regulating work.
The point here is that Councilor positions are a pre-eminent vehicle for asserting authority in the day-to-day dealings of settlement life. At the same time, the use of this authority produces ambiguous and strained relations among Councilors and between them and others due to the frictions of hierarchical structures against a traditional egalitarian ethos and sharing network. The exertion of political power with work and Christian practice in settlement life penetrate into ideologies of self and power among nonChristians and create tensions between Christian and nonChristian ways of conceiving the individual and community.
EXPRESSING IDENTITIES AND OPPOSITIONS IN NONCHRISTIAN DISCOURSES
An analysis of nonChristians' perceptions of Christian identity reveals how others affirm identities and construct themselves around particular cultural practices and values. It is important to note that beyond performing Christian Business, Christians rarely act as a group in the community. This occurred once during the fieldwork period when Christians raised money to repair the Church building. Traveling together to Christian conferences and educational institutions does occur, but this predominately involves action outside of settlement life. Within the community, persons act as individual Christians who are members of their residential kin groups. But in Sunday services Christians claim to have authority based in God's power. This is very much like how Yolngu understand ancestral powers and clan membership (Morphy 1991). While Christians view themselves this way, these beliefs are not promulgated via the Council or any other institutionalized process. Indeed, this lack of collective Christian action in daily life is not surprising, given that Christian identity is an individualized practice that for Yolngu comes with particular ways of living and being.
However, community residents do express resistance to Christian-ness that can be conceptualized as "oppositional identity" (Jolly and Thomas 1992; Linnekin and Poyer 1990; Norton 1993). Yolngu people who identify themselves as "Lawmen" (people who follow traditional custom) see Christian practice as Eurocentric constructions of values and life-ways and contrast them with values of an egalitarian ethos. The following example illustrates the common viewpoint held by self-proclaimed nonChristians.
I once asked my adopted sister's husband why a Sunday church service was not being held at the site of a funeral ceremony. If a funeral falls on a Sunday, the service is usually held at the funeral site. As a self-identified Lawman and member of the Northern Land Council, he answered by stating:
Christians only like other Christians.... They think that God only likes them.... When I die there won't be a service, because I am a nonChristian, but I believe in God.... Christian people don't go there [the funeral site], because they reckon that God only likes them. In Yolngu way, they are nothing to us. They only believe in the Bible. Yaka manymak [not good].... They think they are higher than us, but nothing. They don't know the traditional way, but only the Christian way.... People that go to Church think that they are the same as Jesus Christ and God, higher.... Or they think that they have more power.
The statement depicts Christians as people whose way of life emphasizes Christian powers and churchgoing in contrast to the traditional "Law," that Christian persons prefer relations with each other, and claim to have a privileged relationship to God. The notion of having "more power" than others rests on the idea of gaining God's transformational power as well as the positions of Christians having more powerful places in the community. This use of God's power in work and in prayer is believed to promote self-betterment and political agency. The way Christians act through work and political authority becomes the grounds for talk of resistance to Christian-ness.
Self-proclaimed nonChristians believe that Christian practice is foreign Law based on different models of self-production and value. NonChristians often say that Christians do not follow the "normal" or "ordinary" way. One nonChristian man at a small informal gathering of Christians and nonChristians, said the Bible belonged to white society.
I believe in who I am and what I am.... [We are] dealing with two cultures, bible ga [and] cultural person.... That's their property, where they came from. That's who they are. Nobody will change who they are.... I stay who I am, and stay where I am, otherwise I might get confused.... If you stand on somebody else's property, you don't know where you are coming from.... I want to stand where I am. I know where I am.
This nonChristian man describes the two identities in terms of cultural property. Confusion and the loss of the real self are the result of engaging in activities that are not of one's own culture. In order to avoid these entanglements, this man chooses to avoid Christian Business or its life-ways.
Similar associations between Christian behavior and white society focus mundane aspects of life. Yolngu phrases, "balandakunhamirr" or "ngaapakikunhamirr," suggest that someone is "making oneself white." These are employed in reference to behaviors such as keeping a clean house, reading, saving money, not observing "right skin" marriage rules, or wearing certain clothing. NonChristians say that being Christian is associated literally with bodily cleanliness (people often take a shower and put on clean clothes before going to Church). The viewpoints expressed by nonChristians about Christians support the claim that Christianity fosters integrationist behaviors. The heart of the matter in contesting Christian personhood is the issue of power and access to resources in contrast to equality and sharing. An example is how people contest the participation of Christians going to conferences.
When Christians return from trips to conferences, other residents often complain that they do not share God's story with local Galiwin'ku people. Sharing in Aboriginal societies involves nothing less than the demonstration of social relations through specific behaviors. Kinship relatedness is produced and maintained through social and economic exchanges and sharing is thus of the utmost importance (Peterson 1993). One woman's comments about some Christians who had gone to the "World of Worship Conference" in Cairns are representative of many others made during the same period. She explained:
Christians ... aren't sharing the story to the people of Galiwin'ku. That's why bad things happen. And every time they go somewhere else, like prayer, they don't share the story about God. That's why today, it is too hard for young people to find out about the story. There is no sharing of God's story.
She expresses the belief among nonChristians that Christians think they have exclusive rights to God's story, and connects this kind of thinking with not sharing with "young people" that results in "bad things" happening. Bad things refers to several deaths and youth suicides that had occurred in the community. Explanations offered for why Christians want to keep the story for themselves as opposed to sharing it must be approached from the context of how knowledge is transmitted or withheld within the traditional religious system (Keen 1994; Morphy 1991).
The exclusion of outsiders to knowledge held by those on the inside is a mechanism of control. Having the ability to exert this control is a way to assert one's authority over others (Myers 1986). Christians may be perceived to exclude others, particularly young people, from having access to knowledge about God's story as a way to enhance their authority within the community. This positioning is enmeshed with holding positions in the Church as elders and in the Council.
The important point is that the perceived acquisition of resources by Christians, coupled with the failure to distribute them, is the basis of nonChristians' antagonism to Christians. The perceived failure to share resonates with how Yolngu understand the world of whites as a world fraught with conflict and greed. Articulations of Christian identity in nonChristian discourse highlights the persistence of Aboriginal sharing practice and the all-important value of autonomy through relatedness (Myers 1986) despite, and even perhaps as a form of resistance to, the incursion of a market economy based on individualism.
CONCLUSIONS
This article examines some of the different ways Galiwin'ku Yolngu identities are connected with remote settlement living, taking Christian practice as a pivotal point. Christianity has become an important form of social capital (Bourdieu 1977) to Galiwin'ku Yolngu, embodied in benefits like work and political power, and is a key site for staging oppositional identities between community residents. The hope here is to shed some light on how Yolngu people negotiate new dilemmas arising from the intersection of a market-based economy and system of individualized values with a kin-based sharing that privileges values of relatedness. Christianity plays an important and equivocal role in these entanglements and in the reconstitution and affirmation of identities. In contemporary Australia, Christianity can be understood as a manifold site for the expression of indigenous agency and power in intra-settlement politics and in relationship to the wider society. Those who live by the "Christian way" have been able to learn how to exercise control over one's own future and that of others. Yolngu who identify as Law people prioritize the continuity and immutability of the Ancestral self in opposition to what they see as being Eurocentric constructions of values and ways of life. They contest Christian behaviors and identities in settlement life because they believe that claims on such grounds are derived from outside or foreign models of agency.
A cross-tabulation of the two variables (participation in Christian Business and Councilorship 2003-2006) shows that of the 72 people participating in Christian Business, 17 were Councilors (including proxies), 55 were not. Of the 776 people not participating in Christian Business, 27 were Councilors while 749 were not. The Chi-square value for the two variables was 55, showing that there is a highly significant relationship between attendance to Christian Business and Council membership beyond the .001 level (df=1). Additional data show that Christian identification is strongly linked to employment. A cross-tabulation of participation in Christian Business with employment in all the Council departments revealed that out of 72 people participating in Christian Business, 25 were Council employees while 47 were not. Of the 776 people not participating in Christian Business, 178 were Council employees, while 598 were not. The Chi-square value for these two variables was 5, showing that there is a significant relationship between employment by the Council and participation in Christian Business at the .05 level. Finally, a cross-tabulation of the two variables (participation in Christian Business and employment at the main Council Centers, excluding manual labor positions) shows that of 72 people participating in Christian Business, 23 were Council employees at these centers, 49 were not. Of 776 people not participating in Christian Business, 62 were Council employees at these centers, while 714 were not. The Chi-square value for these two variables was 42.5, showing that there is a highly significant relationship between employment at the main Council centers and participation in Christian Business beyond the .001 level (df=1).
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NOTES
(1.) This research was supported by a grant from the International Institute of Education Fulbright Program, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Grant #G2004/6934), and the University of Connecticut Research Foundation. An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 2005. I thank Professor Francoise Dussart for her many valuable suggestions and Professors Howard Morphy and Nicolas Peterson for their fieldwork guidance. Thanks also to Professor Michael Christie and Charles Darwin University for hosting my Fulbright Program. I am deeply indebted to the people of the Galiwin'ku community for their patience and care during my stays.
(2.) The figure of 848 adults (age 15 and above) is based on the 2001 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing. This is the best estimate for the population at Galiwin'ku during the fieldwork period because the census is conducted every five years.
(3.) "Business" is used in Aboriginal English to capture the extensive organizational and political aspects of ritual as a form of social production (Myers 1986:225). Originally applied to "traditional" ritual, it is presently associated with Christian ceremonies as well.
(4.) I compiled a list of those who attended Christian Business regularly and irregularly (i.e., more than just during Christmas, Easter, and the annual celebration of the 1979 Christian Revival) from February 2004 to December 2005. The Council's accountant provided me with data on Council Employment, which includes people on the Community Development Employment Projects Scheme (CDEP).
Carolyn Schwarz
University of Connecticut
