Yolnu cosmology : an unchanging cosmos incorporating a rapidly changing world?

Abstract

This thesis is first and foremost a descriptive ethnography of the cosmology of the Yolnu people who live in the North East Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia. Supplementary to that description it explores the relationship between the Yolnu presupposition of changelessness, the rapidly changing world in which they live and their cosmology. The thesis is divided into four sections. The first briefly explores the theoretical frameworks to which it relates in terms of the literature on cosmology and world view, presupposition and the taken-for-granted, and extends into an introductory discussion of the Yolnu understandings of the area of thought frequently referred to in English as the spiritual, the metaphysical, or the supernatural. The second section examines human relationships, first from a diachronic perspective and secondly from a synchronic one. The third examines two conceptual areas which relate most closely to Western notions of cosmology in an examination of the Yolnu notions of space and time. Finally the various themes of the thesis are drawn together in two ways. First in an examination of their application in a myth-ritual complex called Banumbirr (the Morning Star) and last of all in an analysis of the ways in which the Morning Star complex, together with the perceptions of relationships, of space, of time and of the supernatural combine to present a corporate model of a cosmos which, while seen to be not changing is structured in such a way as to be able to incorporate change within changelessness. This is an examination of cosmology in a changing world, presuppositions of changelessness, and the present Yolnu responses to change. In examining these, it provides as a by-product, a foundation for the study of the effects of future change on cosmology and presuppositions, and a means by which these may be assessed.