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Mawul Rom Project: openness, obligation and reconciliation.

Article from:Australian Aboriginal Studies
Article date:September 22, 2008
Author: Brigg, Morgan ; Tonnaer, Anke

Abstract: Aboriginal Australian initiatives to restore balanced relationships with White Australians have recently become part of reconciliation efforts. This paper provides a contextualised report on one such initiative, the Mawul Rom cross-cultural mediation project. Viewing Mawul Rom as a diplomatic venture in the lineage of adjustment and earlier Rom rituals raises questions about receptiveness, individual responsibility and the role of Indigenous ceremony in reconciliation efforts. Yolngu ceremonial leaders successfully draw participants into relationship and personally commit them to the tasks of cross-cultural advocacy and reconciliation. But Mawul Rom must also negotiate a paradox because emphasis on the cultural difference of ceremony risks increasing the very social distance that the ritual attempts to confront. Managing this tension will be a key challenge if Mawul Rom is to become an effective diplomatic mechanism for cross-cultural conflict resolution and reconciliation.

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On the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 referendum, Mick Dodson and Fred Chaney (2007) argued that advancing reconciliation requires engaging individuals, schools, employers, private enterprises and the media. Their argument echoes Andrew Leigh's earlier (2002) call for 'adaptive leadership'. Leigh's (2002:132) prescription for undertaking the 'adaptive work of reconciliation' is straightforward: focus on changing attitudes and developing stronger interpersonal relations and understanding, rather than (predominantly) on elected politicians or high-level leadership. This work involves generating some level of social stress and discomfort among those called to participate, but not so much as to lead them to shun the process (Leigh 2002:140). Aboriginal peoples have long practised this type of leadership by engaging outsiders in efforts to establish relationships of equality and respect. Perhaps the most notable documented instance is the 1957 Arnhem Land Adjustment Movement. On that occasion senior Yolngu leaders revealed sacred objects in public in an attempt to institute an exchange with White Australia to restore a balanced relationship (Hamilton 2004:8; Berndt 1962; Morphy 1983; Keen 1994:276-80; Magowan 2004-295).

What, though, of the contemporary practice, dynamics and challenges of adaptive reconciliation work initiated by Aboriginal peoples ? In this paper we report on the Mawul Rom 2004 cross-cultural mediation workshop, an effort directly engaged in adaptive reconciliation. We reflect upon questions of receptiveness, relationship, responsibility and the use of Indigenous ceremony in efforts to build bridges between settler and Indigenous Australians. Now is an opportune time for a contextualised account of Mawul Rom and some reflection and analysis because Mawul was held again in July 2007, this time as part of a four-year program explicitly targeting mediation, conflict resolution and leadership training.

We introduce Mawul Rom by providing some background information and presenting the key Yolngu figure driving the project. Our second section notes parallels between Mawul Rom, earlier Rom rituals and the 1957 Adjustment Movement. We show that Mawul Rom is part of a lineage of Yolngu attempts to reach out to settler Australians, which both continues and reworks the trajectory of earlier efforts. This highlights ongoing Yolngu openness to outsiders and provides the context for our account of the ceremonial component of Mawul Rom 2004. The third section begins by introducing our involvement as non-Indigenous participants and shows a tension between reporting on the event in social-scientific terms and the dynamics of our participation and adaptive leadership. Our report of Mawul Rom--excerpts of our personal experiences are interspersed with short descriptions of ceremonial events--describes the event and its effects, while also meeting our obligation as participants to experience the ceremony personally rather than intellectually and to become at least partial advocates for Yolngu. Our excerpts show that Yolngu are able to have remarkable impacts upon individuals in ceremony by working to activate a sense of individual obligation to Yolngu and to the work of reconciliation.

We conclude the paper with broader reflections upon Mawul Rom's capacity to achieve its aim of bringing about positive change in contemporary Australian settler--Indigenous relations. In view of our experiences, Yolngu innovation in ceremony and the treatment of knowledge, and the capacity to draw people into relationships of responsibility and obligation through ceremony, promises to contribute much to reconciliation efforts. But a paradox also arises between affording settlers an 'exotic' ceremonial cultural experience and simultaneously striving to narrow the social distance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Introducing Mawul Rom

The Mawul Rom Project was first held in June 2004 at the Dhudupu Homeland on Elcho Island, the island of the 1957 Adjustment Movement. The workshop engaged participants in Yolngu ceremonial practice and an exchange of conflict resolution methods as a practical way to revive the stagnated process of reconciliation in Australia. The July 2007 event, occurring in the context of the announcement of sweeping and hotly debated federal government intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, brought attention to the troubled nature of recent reconciliation efforts. The distinctiveness of Mawul Rom as a reconciliation venture arises from an alliance between Yolngu and Western mediation practitioners, a focus on cross-cultural education, a particular historical and political context, and the fact that it is very much an Aboriginal effort to engage settlers. (1)

The central Yolngu figure in the Mawul Rom Project is the Rev. Dr Djiniyini Gondarra. A previous member of the Australian Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Gondarra is member of the Dhurili clan nation. (2) Among his other roles, Gondarra is Chairman of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress and Chief Executive Officer of the Aboriginal Resource and Development Services, which is based in Darwin. In 1998 Gondarra was involved in a ceremonial event at Kormilda College, Darwin, as part of the National Youth Reconciliation Convention (MRP 2004:S2.3). Success at Kormilda led to further pursuit of the ceremonial exchange project and the development of Mawul Rom (MRP 2004: S2.3).

The Mawul Rom Project emerged through the collaboration of Gondarra and members of the (Yolngu) Dhurili clan nation with mediation practitioners and advocates. Links were made in 2002 (MRP 2004:S2.3), with Darwin-based mediator Pat McIntyre serving as a central actor in the mediation community. Gondarra and McIntyre remain co-chairs of the project.

This alliance between mediators and Yolngu is unique on the Australian scene. Yet it is also a logical and plausible alliance. Mediators have been exposed to Indigenous culture and interests since 1993, when mediation began to play a central role in processing Native Title claims in Australia. Although the mediation movement is a relatively recent phenomenon, flourishing in Australia since the 1980s (Faulkes 1990), its goals of social justice and personal transformation (Adler et al. 1988) are broadly aligned with Yolngu efforts to reach out to settler Australia through Mawul Rom. A letter of invitation to partake in Mawul Rom, for instance, vouched that participants would leave as different people (Gondarra 2004).

The project was promoted in late 2003, and in June 2004 approximately 43 participants, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from across Australia, came together with Yolngu participants on the Dhudupu Homeland. (3) Here we participated in both Western mediation training and ceremony led by Yolngu clans. A description of the project, drawn from early promotional material (Wukindi Rom Project 2003:3), states that in a 'unique experience',


indigenous and non-indigenous [sic] young
people from across Australia will learn
through direct contact, the shared cross-cultural
ideas, processes, symbols and ritual
related to peace-making and conflict
resolution.
The Yolngu ritual aspect of the event is described as a 'healing process' (MRP 2004:81.3). Elsewhere Gondarra (2003) explains that:


... traditionally the mawul [sic] ceremony has
been held in N.E. Arnhem Land in the context
of mortuary rites, bereavement and the restoration
of relationships following the death of
a person at the hands of another.
Rom ceremonies are common to Yolngu and other Aboriginal peoples throughout the region, but their particular form varies among different groups and according to context. (4) For the event on Elcho Island, the ritual's capacity to effect conflict resolution and reconciliation were emphasised. Through Mawul Rom, scarred relationships between individual persons, different clans, and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can allegedly be restored. As Gondarra states, 'It is through the Mawul ceremony that we bring people together, into the spirit of reconciliation' (cited in Wukindi Rom Project 2003:7).

A letter confirming our participation stresses the importance of the ceremony and the innovative nature of Mawul Rom (Gondarra 2004). Gondarra (2004) writes that the ceremony is 'holy and special'. (5) He further says, 'It is now our privilege to begin sharing this with others in Australia so that we can live on this land together in a better way' (Gondarra 2004). Personal transformation and responsibility are also highlighted. In the same letter, Gondarra (2004) requests,


As you come, come with open eyes, open
ears, and an open heart. We know that you
will leave Elcho Island as different people
who will have a greater understanding of
Yolngu ways.
These themes are continued in the report on Mawul Rom posted online after the inaugural June 2004 event. The report states (MRP 2004: S1.3) that the project offers an


introductory formational encounter which
contributes in a positive and practical way
towards reconciliation at a personal and
professional level.
In short, organisers frame Mawul Rom in terms of openness to difference, bringing people into relationship for personal transformation, and links with an ancient tradition. The goals are cross-cultural education and the development of conflict resolution capacity. These emphases invite participants into relationship with Indigenous culture and highlight the distinctiveness of Mawul Rom. It is certainly appropriate to describe Mawul Rom as unique. But we can gain additional purchase for reflecting upon Mawul Rom by considering continuities with earlier diplomatic rituals and events. Some intercultural Rom ceremonies and the 1957 Adjustment Movement resonate with contemporary efforts to show that adaptive leadership is an ongoing part of Aboriginal efforts to engage settler Australians.

Relating through Rom

Photographer Axel Poignant is thought to be the first settler Australian to observe or participate in a Rom ceremony. (6) In 1952 Poignant was invited by Anbarra to photograph a ceremony at Nagalarramba on the west bank of the Liverpool River (Poignant 1995:7). Roslyn Poignant, who collaborated with Alex in producing photographs (Poignant 1994-95), interprets the request from the Anbarra as expressing their wish to establish a 'mutuality of interest' with settlers (Poignant 1995:7). Poignant notes that the ceremony was used before 1900 to draw Macassans from Indonesia into reciprocal relations. (7) Another Rom ritual by Anbarra was witnessed by anthropologists Les Hiatt and Betty Meehan in the 1950s (Hiatt 1986).

The involvement of non-Yolngu in Rom ceremonies may be seen as an instance of both 'adjustment' and adaptive leadership because a key feature of the 1957 Adjustment Movement--which occurred on Elcho Island to the north of Anbarra Country--was the showing of sacred objects in an attempt to establish a relationship with outsiders. These relationships are at once 'personal' and directly connected with broader political dynamics and circumstances. Anthropologists Ronald Berndt (1962) and Annette Hamilton (2004) emphasise slightly different Yolngu motivations for the Adjustment Movement, and the work of Ian McIntosh (2000) is also important for considering the complexity of Yolngu efforts to establish relations with outsiders. But a common thread is a desire to be proactive in the process of exchange by pursuing relationship. Two key desired effects, identified by Morphy (1983:114), are the binding of individual Europeans to Yolngu in respect of Aboriginal values and 'the use of those Europeans as intermediaries in the communication of those values to wider society'.

Following the experiences of Poignant, Hiatt and Meehan, a Rom ceremony was to be used again in efforts to establish relations with outsiders in the early 1980s. In the first public performance for non-anthropologists or specialists, a Rom ceremony came to Canberra in 1982. Anbarra were again involved, and again they initiated the event. Following a Rom ceremony in Arnhem Land in 1979, two Anbarra ceremonial leaders approached anthropologists to ask them to take a recorded message to the Principal of the Institute of Aboriginal Studies (8) proposing a Rom performance in Canberra (Meehan and Jones 1986:24-6; Sutton 1987:15). This event would reciprocate the longstanding involvement of anthropologists with Anbarra, and make links with southern non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples (Meehan and Jones 1986; Sutton 1987). The ceremony and accompanying events were recorded, and are substantially documented in the collection edited by Stephen Wild (1986).

Another Rom ceremony was performed in Canberra in 1995. This time AIATSIS initiated the event by inviting Anbarra to perform in conjunction with an international musicology conference (Poignant 1994-95) and the Australian Heritage Commission's Indigenous Art Awards ceremony (Greenslade 1995). Public interest was significant, with more than 3000 people witnessing the ceremony (Greenslade 1995:21).

So, from central Arnhem Land to Canberra, Arnhem Land Aboriginal peoples have practiced a form of adaptive leadership by initiating ceremonies to enter into relationships with outsiders. Rom ceremonies have been substantially adapted in these diplomatic efforts. The involvement of Axel Poignant, and particularly the invitation to record the event in photographs, was exceptional in the conventional practice of Anbarra Rom ceremonies. The move to perform a Rom ceremony outside Arnhem Land was remarkable for its faith in the capacity of ceremony to have impacts beyond its home Country, and for its considerable modification of conventional practice (the ceremony, usually performed over weeks and even months, was performed in four days in 1982 to fit Canberra conditions (Ross 1986). The ceremony was modified yet again (to three relatively short performances) to meet the needs of the 1995 program (Greenslade 1995).

The willingness of the Anbarra to share ceremony with outsiders, and to modify it substantially in the process, resonates with the recognition of the need for change and the vision of the Yolngu 'Adjustment' leaders at Galiwin'ku. The Anbarra efforts generated national and international exposure. Perhaps the return invitation leading to the 1995 event is an appropriate measure of success, given the goal of drawing outsiders into relationship.

It was inevitable that Rom ceremonies of the 1990s would become part of reconciliation efforts, which began under the auspices of the Keating government in the early 1990s. Here we rejoin the background to the Mawul Rom Project. We have already mentioned that Gondarra, a key Yolngu leader in Mawul Rom, was also a member of the Australian Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. In 1997 Gondarra (1997) spoke at the Australian Reconciliation Convention about the potential of Rom ceremony for advancing reconciliation, and we have noted that ceremony was performed at Kormilda College in 1998 as part of the National Youth Reconciliation Convention.

However, reconciliation was stalling at the beginning of the twenty-first century. While the reconciliation movement enjoyed much popular support, it received only qualified endorsement--and perhaps active resistance--by the Howard government (1996-2007), which shifted the accent to 'practical' reconciliation after its election in 1996. (9) As we have noted, however, Yolngu and other Indigenous efforts to reach out to settlers have a much longer history. Following Hamilton's (2004:8) observations, we suggest that Yolngu efforts through Mawul Rom are an instance of wider and ongoing Indigenous efforts (Yolngu activities are perhaps more visible than many others) aimed at gaining recognition and attempting to make a significant change in their relations with the settler Australian community. These efforts can be considered as diplomacy, but this does not imply proscribed or constrained practice: 'Rom' or law ceremonies can manifest in modified forms, and they can be used for purposes beyond those discussed here. The Adjustment Movement is the most notable documented instance of sharing sacred objects and ceremony, but the sharing of Rom ceremonies can justifiably be seen in a similar light.

We suggest, further, that in the new century Dhurili (Yolngu) formed a partnership with conflict resolution practitioners in yet another manifestation of Rom and innovative continuation of the Adjustment legacy. This time, however, the movement of people was reversed: non-Yolngu would be invited to participate in a Rom ceremony on Yolngu land. In the following sections we show that Mawul Rom takes up the adaptive work of reconciliation through an explicit appeal to individual openness and responsibility.

Mawul Rom 2004

Providing an account of Mawul Rom presents us with tensions between our vocation as scholars and the dynamics of our participation. On the one hand, scholarship suggests the inclusion of our experiences within Western social science. On the other, we have commitments and responsibilities to treat our experiences in personal, rather than intellectual, ways. (10) Moreover, precisely this personal connection, including our visceral and affective involvement, is crucial to the work of adaptive reconciliation.

Therefore, the following account, while informed by our social science training, principally represents our views as participants. Our experience of what might be termed responsibility-through-participation resonates with that of Ian McIntosh (2000). Of his experience with Yolngu, McIntosh (2000:xii) notes that he was told 'inside' narratives from the Dreaming and was told not to 'parade' this knowledge to his self-interest in front of non-Indigenous audiences, but rather 'for the furtherance of their [Yolngu] ambitions'. A similar sense of responsibility requires foregrounding our experiences. A personal account building upon diary entries, memories and reflections is also an appropriate scholarly method because it acknowledges our necessary oscillation between participation and observation (Jackson 1989:51).

As will become clear, we do not seek to provide either complete interpretation or description of the ceremony. As neophyte participants, we are precisely meant not to know the ceremony's full symbolism. Much of the power of participation, and the prospect for being drawn further into Yolngu Law, rely upon 'not knowing'. Though this kind of approach has limitations, Tamisari (2005) and others demonstrate the importance of coming-to-know through performance--and the accompanying merits of an experiential methodology--for approaching intercultural relations. We provide, then, a description and a personal account of our experience, which highlights the dynamics of adaptive reconciliation and, following Stengers and Zournazi (2002:265), attempts to take into account Yolngu, the organisers and other participants in ways that are relevant, respectful and of interest to them.

We have mentioned that Mawul Rom 2004 included both Western mediation training and the Rom ceremony. Yet in our experience and, we believe, that of other participants, a process of reconciliation occurred primarily through Yolngu ceremony rather than mediation training. In hindsight, this seems to be expected. Mediation trainers are unlikely to have the same presence or appeal as Yolngu dancers and performers, particularly on Yolngu land. The following account, then, primarily focuses on the ceremonial component of Mawul Rom, which was run in the afternoons and evenings over the course of seven days.

Day one

Morgan:

Awkward moments, transformations and shifts come with travel ... From Brisbane to Darwin, then a slow wait for a charter plane at the aircraft hanger. Conversations with strangers, also Mawul Rom participants, are cautious and expectant--we're not sure what we are going into. After a spectacular flight we're amongst the red dust of Elcho Island. The other participants look out of place; no doubt I do, too.

We're required to sign a series of documents, including one vesting the intellectual property rights of the ceremony with Yolngu. I am now 'registered'. One of the balanda (non-Yolngu European) organisers introduces us to the site. He underscores the sacred nature of the ceremony by stressing that we should only enter the ceremonial ground among eucalypts in the centre of the campground when invited, and that to enter uninvited risks illness.

Anke:

I am the only international participant and I fear that I'm more out of place than any of the other participants. I am attracted to Mawul Rom out of academic curiosity rather than a desire to initiate ongoing interaction and cross-cultural exchange with this group of Indigenous people. The oddness of my foreign identity presents itself as I wait for the airplane to take me and 18 other participants to Elcho Island. The confined room invites mutual introductions--who we are, where we have travelled from. Though I feel awkward, I sense that the others in the room are just as uneasy and unsure about what lies ahead.

On the first day the ceremonial space is created by the spearing of the ground by senior men. This occurs in the evening of the day upon which the participants arrive at Mawul Rom 2004. Gondarra (2003) explains that the site becomes restricted upon the spearing of the ground. Then a spear symbol is formed in the sand (Gondarra 2003). The completed sand sculpture, enclosed with eucalyptus (stringybark) leaves and termed the Molk, is formed during the night of day one and becomes the focus of the ceremonial activities for the week.

Day two

After the official opening of the project, a large part of the day is reserved for the Rom ritual. Day two of the ceremony begins with practice of 'singing, dancing, disciplined teaching and the ritualised sharing of food' (Gondarra 2003:3). The goal is 'personal reflection and cleaning out ... rubbish and accumulated hurts' (Gondarra 2003:3).

Anke:

In the early afternoon we are invited to observe the first performances to one side of the Molk. A large group of performers dance with spears around the Molk. I don't understand the dances, though I recognise the type of singing from other Aboriginal performances I have seen. I come to feel somewhat embarrassed about motivation to do research. Djiniyini is explicitly critical of the 'notebook attitude' of anthropologists. He wants us to surrender to the ceremony; we should experience the events not with our intellect or desire for reason, but with our senses and feeling.

Later in the afternoon we are 'painted up' in preparation for the dancing at the Molk. My hands, hair and parts of my face are covered in ruddy, brown clay. I become 'dirty', smeared with the earth, and have to feel a part of the event for the first time. The two elderly women who apply the paint let us giggle about the way we look. Together with the other female participants, I imitate and dance along with the Yolngu women. Occasionally one of us receives quiet instruction about the movements, but we mostly learn by watching them and from each other. A double feeling of awkwardness and fun permeates my experience.

Morgan:

Two senior women prepare us for ceremony in the early afternoon. Brown and white clay is applied down our forearms, encasing our hands, and across our foreheads. We are now able to enter the Molk without risk of illness.

At sundown the first phase of dancing ends and we collect our evening meal before returning to sit around the Molk. Each of us is rubbed with sweat from the armpits of one of the senior men before the group eats. As we eat, Djiniyini promotes introspection and self-reflection. He is inviting us to enter a type of meditative state in which the eye of the curlew, symbolised in the Molk, sees through our being. The regulatory dimension is clear: Law sees into the self and prepares to rework it in ways that will recast selves and relationships in alignment with Law. I could analyse and resist this, but analysis itself requires that I participate. I cannot easily escape Djiniyini's invocation of the Law: the eerie night-time call of the curlew bird occasionally haunted my youth. I know this bird well enough for it to haunt me now, for it to see through me ...

Days three and four

The ceremony falls into a regular pattern over the next two days. In the early afternoon we 'paint up', rubbing clay down our forearms and hands, across our faces and through our hair. We move toward the public ceremonial ground and Molk at its centre. This space links with a second smaller and more private space (in adjacent bushland), which women cannot visit and from which dancers for the various manikay (song series) emerge to initiate the main ceremony on each day (cf. Ross 1986:37). Each day we observe the dancers move from the private to the more public ceremonial ground. Then we are invited into the space to dance, before we sit by the Molk eating our food and listening to Djiniyini and others.

Anke:

My initial awkwardness around 'painting up' has swiftly faded: covering myself with clay in preparation for ceremony is now a significant and transformative part of my day. I remain fascinated by the ceremony but still do not understand what is going on. This mixed sensation dominates my experience of the Rom ritual, but does not diminish the impact of the ceremony. I realise that the meaningfulness of the event relies on participation and interaction, rather than on learning in the straightforward sense I had anticipated.

Even so, I cannot help wondering how the message or meaning of the ceremony can be brought across effectively with everyone participating in the individual way suggested by Djiniyini. Is there a particular message or meaning I am to receive? How can one be taught the specifics of the Law without a degree of explanation? I realise that in this mode of learning one is given the responsibility, as well as autonomy, to pay heed. I am not used to this kind of learning process. A week seems frustratingly short.

Morgan:

After dancing through the afternoon and early evening, we eat and sit in silent introspection around the Molk. We listen to Djiniyini and other managers of the ritual. I have discarded negative feelings from the day into the centre of the Molk with my food scraps. I settle into listening to Djiniyini, the bilma (clap-sticks) and yidaki (didjeridu). I look through a silhouetted eucalyptus on the far side of the camp, glide over the rocky cliff to the estuary below. I feel the mixing of salt and fresh water of other estuaries I know, and begin to travel with the bilma and yidaki. What is this song and where does it travel? At this point it does not seem to matter; the honeybee and crow carry me along. The rest of the ceremony and my evening alternates between self-reflection and the experience of the honeybees of the didjeridu sticking to me and me travelling with them.

After eating and introspection there is more dancing. Each evening now ends with a dance calling forth a new fresh wind, a new beginning to move on from the negativity that we have symbolically discarded into the Molk with our food scraps. Each day and night the Molk is watched over and tended by Yolngu. Connections between participants and Yolngu begin to emerge beyond the Rom ritual. Individual participants are given a 'skin' name, an Aboriginal name and a family; we are beginning to be 'adopted'.

Days five and six

Participants become more involved and entwined with both Yolngu and the ceremony over days five and six. The adoption process continues, eventually taking in all participants. Each of us is identifiable by moiety, skin name and a series of kinship connections, which many of us struggle to understand.

Anke:

The effect of the adoption process is remarkable. Many Yolngu now interact more freely with the young foreign participants. I am aware of the convenience and relevance a skin name has for interaction with Aboriginal people, but I am unsure of how to act in this setting. We are instructed about the opportunity this adoption might bring, and are encouraged to stay in contact with our families after the event has ended. Indeed, this will enable us to engage in long-term exchange with the people on Elcho Island. But how realistic is this? Geographical distance, cultural difference and a lack of appropriate means of communication seem to present real challenges for maintaining contact with people I hardly know.

This question becomes even more pressing on the morning of our departure when my classificatory 'mother' and 'father' give me a large woven mat. It is beautiful craft work, but I find it difficult to accept such a great gift. Why do they give this to me--a foreign woman they hardly know? Moreover, how can I react appropriately? What are the implicit obligations that come with accepting this gift?

The Yolngu organisers seem to have become increasingly confident about their ability to act upon us as we have become more involved with them and ceremony. I experience this, for instance, through a process of 'gender grooming'. I, like the majority of the female participants, initially wore trousers in ceremony. But a message has been passed from the Yolngu organisers to one of the balanda mediators. The managers of the Yolngu ritual believe it is inappropriate for the women to wear pants in ceremony--women should wear skirts that extend below the knee. We are also asked to alter our manner of sitting on the ground: in the view of Yolngu participants, the women are often sitting like men.

I feel glad about being informed. I want to act suitably; to submit myself to the ceremony and the ritual rules that accompany it. It is good to be made aware. But I cannot ignore slumbering resistance against this gender regime, which, in my view, derives at least partly from former missionary presence in the area. I do not want to be subjected to Christian views from which I have turned away during my upbringing. I catch myself drawing a distinction between 'authentic' Yolngu culture and outside influence. The temptation to go in search for the 'pure' and 'authentic'--something I consider with a critical eye in my study of Indigenous tourism--falls to me all too easily. But like the other female participants I duly obey. (One Yolngu woman has a considerable stock of skirts, and does good business.)

All participants are bestowed a gift after dancing in the late afternoon of the fifth day. The men are each presented with a galpu or woomera (a spear-thrower) and the women with a dilly bag. We are glad to receive such gifts, yet Yolngu are quite clear that they come with strong expectations and responsibilities attached. We are to be mindful of our responsibilities to Law, and to become the emissaries of Yolngu in our home communities. The prospect of a longer-term engagement is also mooted: there will be an opportunity to return in subsequent years to complete further instruction in ceremony and Law. Parallels with the Adjustment Movement are striking: it is clear that the Yolngu envisage mutual exchange based upon extending relationships.

Morgan:

In the morning we are instructed in the meaning and use of our galpu and related matters. The Yolngu have clearly enrolled us in their enterprise, their goals. What is the meaning of these new responsibilities? Do I accept them? I am typically inclined to resist such efforts--to assert my autonomy against attempts to enrol me in particular projects. But Yolngu have drawn us in very skilfully: the gifts oblige us and I am convinced that we are participating in something significant and valuable. I could choose to ignore these responsibilities yet I cannot take them lightly ...

We are now much more part of the ceremony. We dance with Yolngu and I feel more closely engaged with it. The links between wild honey, stringybark and other elements make sense to me, even if the manikay remain obscure. We have been drawn into Law without full knowledge of it. Is my relation to Law a marker of the success of the ceremony in Yolngu terms? I feel my responsibilities keenly, yet I also feel that I've chosen them; that they haven't been foisted upon me.

Anke:

In the morning, other female participants and I are addressed by several elderly Yolngu women. The women talk to us about female matters--we are invited to ask questions that would otherwise be considered improper, especially if men were part of the assembly. The atmosphere is relaxed and familiar.

We are told that our gifts signify our ritual transition from boys and girls to adult men and women. We are now capable of dealing with the responsibility that our gifts entail. But I am not sure what this responsibility implies--can I respond in the appropriate way? Indeed, it emerges that my initial treatment of the dilly bag is not what the Yolngu creators intended. I had stowed my dilly bag with my other belongings so as to prevent any accidental damage. Instead, we are instructed to carry the dilly bag with us all the time, and handle it with care by using it in the right way.

We have made one transition but are also told that this workshop is only the first of four stages, and that we need to return for further ceremony to become a cross-culturally classified mediator. It appears that the workshop acts as a pliable space in which the degree of cultural engagement is adjusted along with the effects the ceremony is able to produce. Mawul Rom seems to solidify on the basis of the success of our participation and the wider effects of the ceremony, which has taken in increasing numbers of people from Galiwin'ku township and elsewhere on Elcho Island.

Day seven

The distinction between gender groups manifests more fully as we prepare for the last day of ceremony. The mediation training session is replaced with separate meetings of female and male participants with their senior Yolngu counterparts. The remainder of the day is taken with preparing for ceremony, dancing in the afternoon and early evening, a meal, and then the climax of the ceremony.

Anke:

In the early afternoon we are painted up for ceremony by the women. Male participants go with the Yolngu men. The painting designs are now much more elaborate and detailed. This signifies--along with increased ceremonial separation from the men--our increasing participation and involvement in the Rom ceremony over the week.

I feel the influence of our increasing standing in the ceremony as we dance on the Molk: we have to perform well. I am no longer uncomfortable while dancing; in fact, I like it. I am learning the movements, and even though the lyrics, as well as the meaning of the ceremony, are still largely obscure to me, the experience is motivating.

Morgan:

In the early afternoon we are taken to the smaller private shelter in adjacent bushland. There we are prepared, for the first time, to take our place in the beginning phase of the ceremony. As with dancers who emerged from the private bushland area on other days, we dance our way across the open space to participate, with the women, in dancing at the main ceremonial area.

We again listen and eat in silence by the Molk before discarding our food scraps into the designated spaces. I am ready to return to my everyday life to take up the challenge of cross-cultural learning and conflict resolution that Yolngu have set for us. The dancing tonight is more serious and athletic than previous nights. We dance inside the Molk for the first time, around the sculpted sand symbols and the square areas holding our food scraps.

After dancing within the Molk, dry stringybark leaves from the sculpture are piled atop the sculpted sand symbols and set alight in turn. Yolngu men dance vigorously around the fires, thrusting spears into the flame until the spears are broken and consumed by the fire. As the fire silhouettes the eucalyptus trees, I again find myself travelling through the trees, across the estuary and out to the bay ... With others I further cleanse myself by 'washing' my arms and legs with the sand from one of the prior fire sites. My mood--along, it seems, with most participants--is euphoric.

Anke:

The introspective consumption of the meal culminates tonight in a large fire of the food rubbish we have thrown into the Molk. The fire burns the aggregate negativity that we discharged into the Molk during the week. The bonfire lifts the taboo that rested on the ground--we now move around freely. Our night finishes with a round of speeches, and ritual payments to the producers of the ceremonial items and other elements. Participants and Yolngu seem bound through the performance and successful conclusion of the ceremony. A sense of elation and fulfilment suffuses the site. We share this experience. Will this be a common frame of reference from which to build?

Adjustment and adaptive reconciliation for the twenty-first century?

Mawul Rom involves participants in a unique event embedded in a long history of comparable Yolngu efforts to draw outsiders into respectful exchange. In Mawul Rom 2004, Yolngu ceremony spoke to the contemporary political context by enjoining participants to revive reconciliation between Indigenous and settler Australians. Members of the Dhurili clan nation, led by Gondarra, explicitly advocated Mawul Rom as a valuable addition to non-Indigenous practices of reconciliation. The call for reconciliation through an Aboriginal ritual and upon Yolngu territory marks a significant innovation in view of previous rituals. The invitation to exchange, learn and build a mutual relationship resonates with earlier Yolngu efforts, but this time a relatively large group (rather than individual anthropologists or officials) was invited onto Yolngu land. A large number of European Australians had previously witnessed a Rom ceremony in Canberra, but the fact that we were brought into Aboriginal land suggests greater opportunity for Yolngu to be in control of the proceedings.

Participation 'on Yolngu terms' saw us drawn more thoroughly into ceremony than had occurred in prior (documented) Rom events. We were participants in ceremony on the Country of our hosts. We were subjected to Yolngu practice in a thoroughly physical fashion; our participation in dancing and other daily rituals was, from the outset, a corporeal experience. The physical experience began with our travel to Elcho Island from across Australia (and overseas), and continued throughout the daily ceremonies, including dancing and contemplative sharing of food around the Molk. Our experiences shifted from uncertainty to discomfort to integration into the ceremony and to a feeling of responsibility to our Yolngu hosts. Throughout the week a delicate and seductive disciplining process unfolded in which we were inscribed with unfamiliar rules of behaviour and movement. We were exposed and subjected but also opened up to a complex ritual, which we only partly understood. In short, we participated and abided by 'adjustments' to our physical and cultural presence in an apparently consummate effort geared towards settler-Indigenous reconciliation.

The ritual achievements of Mawul Rom are intended to have broader outcomes, and these were increasingly emphasised over the course of the event. Towards the end of the week, Gondarra and the balanda organisers encouraged us, with our augmented understanding of Yolngu ways, to work as 'representatives' for reconciliation and cross-cultural conflict resolution in our home communities. To support this effort, emphasis was placed upon building enduring connections with Yolngu accomplices. Relationship with our 'families' was important, as was our (potential) return for subsequent ceremony and learning. Looking to the 'outside', we came to be positioned not just as participants or advanced novices in ceremony, but as the personified 'outcome' of Mawul Rom. We were, in short, bestowed a responsibility to enact our representative roles in wider Australian society through our involvement with Yolngu values (cf. Morphy 1983; McIntosh 2000).

The mobilisation of individuals rather than governments reflects a key principle of the 'adaptive leadership' that Leigh (2002) proposes for advancing the reconciliation process in Australia. The impact of the ceremony upon us, and our continuing interest in Mawul Rom, testifies to the success of this Yolngu effort. Even so, an interesting paradox and tension emerges because the impacts of Yolngu ceremony upon participants seem to be linked with the fact of our 'not knowing' elements of the ceremony. Careful management of (incremental) knowledge acquisition is, of course, a way of life among Aboriginal people. The implication of the application of this approach in the intercultural setting of Mawul Rom is that the success of the 2004 ceremony was founded on a certain staging of, and capitalising on, cultural difference.

To undertake adaptive reconciliation work in the contemporary settler-colonial context, Mawul Rom seems to rely upon an exoticism akin to the cultural experiences proffered in the tourism industry. Emphasis on the privileged access to an 'ancient ceremony', and reference to a 'formational encounter' and 'rich symbolism' (MRP 2004: S1.1, 1.3), may be necessary to recruit participants and to induce them to part with the money necessary to offer the ceremony in a remote location on Yolngu land. Indeed, it seems that in the twenty-first century 'adjustment' of the type exemplified at Mawul Rom 2004 must proceed in a market that desires both reconciliation and the experience of cultural difference. But a tension arises here: the work of exchange and diplomacy requires working away from exoticism and towards a type of mutual learning that addresses the complexities of difference, sameness and conflict between settler and Aboriginal Australians.

Indeed, Andrew Schaap (2004) draws attention to a parallel tension in the dynamics of political reconciliation. For Schaap (2004:525), reconciliation is caught between the necessity of invoking a shared horizon for understanding and the risk of promoting a divide by reducing the reconciling partner to otherness or sameness through the process of recognition. In Mawul Rom the initiative for reconciliation may be partly promoted and appreciated through an emphasis on an experience of cultural otherness, but this emphasis effectively enlarges the social distance that the ritual aims to challenge. This, in effect, bypasses, rather than grapples with, the challenging dynamics of reconciliation.

Just as Schaap (2004:525) notes that the tensions accompanying the recognition dynamic of reconciliation appear untenable yet necessary, it seems that Indigenous alterity is a currency in which Yolngu and settler Australians are required (and desire) to trade, but which may obscure the mutual understanding and reconciliation pursued in Mawul Rom. Negotiating this situation is certainly challenging. Yet Jennifer Deger interprets Yolngu expectations about how this difficulty might be dealt with. She notes that, of outsiders, Yolngu expect (Deger 2003:312, cited by Hamilton 2004:12):


... a form of seeing that is neither detached
observation, nor a desiring, acquisitive
gazing. Rather, there is an expectation that
the act of showing--and the powerful presences
that are brought forth--invite a
response in the viewer that is open and appreciative
thus allowing the other their place--their
perspective--from which a certain
kind of understanding prevails.
Mawul Rom is a project in the lineage of earlier Yolngu attempts to reach out to settler Australians through Rom rituals. It both reworks and continues these earlier efforts. Mawul Rom's distinctiveness as a reconciliation venture derives from the alliance between Yolngu and Western mediation practitioners and the emphasis on cross-cultural education in the contemporary political and social context, but an appeal to relationship, individual openness and responsibility is shared with earlier attempts. Yolngu are effective exponents of this style of 'adaptive leadership' if we use their ability to act upon individuals as a gauge. This capacity is reflected in the framing of this paper and our accounts of ceremony. Pursuing this type of exchange also generates a tension between exoticism and exchange within the complex dynamics of reconciliation. Managing this tension through ceremony will, we suggest, require careful stewardship by Mawul Rom organisers. If the dynamics evoked by Deger can be promoted, Mawul Rom is likely to make a significant contribution to adaptive reconciliation work between settler and Indigenous Australians.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank the Mawul Rom Association. Approval for the publication of the material in this article was granted through the directors of the Mawul Rom Association on 11 January 2007.

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NOTES

(1.) We refer to initiatives explicitly aimed at the project of reconciliation and cross-cultural exchange. Obviously, in the context of tourism, there are various occasions during which non-Indigenous Australians and other outsiders are invited to Aboriginal Country. The annual Garma Festival organised by Yolngu people in north-east Arnhem Land might be seen as one example.

(2.) We adopt the term clan nation and other terminology from the Mawul Rom Association. The addition of 'nation' to 'clan' might require closer examination (Bauman 2006), but as participants we were little informed about the distribution of rights and (ceremonial) authority across different clans or the local politics of the Mawul Rom Project.

(3.) Our focus in this paper is on the presence and experience of non-Indigenous Australians in Mawul Rom. We do not wish to downplay the experiences of Indigenous participants from elsewhere in Australia, but, in keeping with taking our view as participants as the starting point, we concentrate on the non-Indigenous experience.

(4.) The connotation of the term Rom is flexible and varies greatly according to context. 'Law' is the best way to gloss it here (Tamisari 2005:51 including note 11, p.58).

(5.) Gondarra's choice of language likely reflects his longstanding involvement with Christianity, but we are not adequately placed to analyse or comment upon these connections. Magowan (2004) has provided analysis of links between Christianity and Aboriginal Law on Elcho Island.

(6.) An earlier record of a Rom ceremony was provided to Bern& (1951:162-4) by Gunwinggu people to the west of the Liverpool River region.

(7.) McIntosh (2000) discussed links with Macassans.

(8.) Now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).

(9.) The outcomes of this type of reconciliation have been criticised in a study by Altman and Hunter (2003).

(10.) The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are restrictions upon us: we have agreed that we will not reveal the full details of the ceremony and that any material we publish will be vetted by the Mawul Rom association.

Morgan Brigg

The University of Queensland

Anke Tonnaer

University of Aarhus, Denmark, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Dr Morgan Brigg, Research/Teaching Fellow, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland.


Dr Anke Tonnaer, Department of Anthropology and Ethnography, University of Aarhus, Denmark, and Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.