Maintaining cosmic unity: ideology and the reproduction of Yolngu clans

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is an investigation of apparently contradictory features of the relationship between cosmology and society over time, among the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land.1 I will be focusing on the system of clan designs: designs that are associated with social groups and which are a major component of Yolngu art and ceremonial objects and constructions. From a synchronic perspective the system of clan designs seems to be characterized by an overarching and systematic order, from a diachronic perspective it can appear chaotic. I will be concerned with the interpenetration of order and chaos or, to paraphrase Stanner (1963), with how cosmos and society are made correlative. I will argue that the contradiction between synchronic order and diachronic chaos is resolved when it is realized that the former is an imposed order created through political process but shaped by the constraints of a relatively autonomous system of cosmological relations.