Miwuyt marriage : social structural aspects of the bestowal of females in northeast Arnhem Land

Abstract

This work deals with certain aspects of the social organization of the Aborigines of northeast Arnhem Land, Northern Territory — the people Lloyd Warner (1930-31* 1937) called "Murngin.” It is not primarily directed at resolving any of the narrower issues of the 11 Mur ng in Controversy” (Leach 196lb:68j see esp. Barnes 1967)* though it does present material which can be used for this purpose — or, more precisely, which indicates that most of the controversy has revolved around questions which are more or less moot. Much of this material is novel, as regards both what has so far been written about northeast Arnhem Land in particular and what we know about prescriptive marriage systems in general, but neither is the presentation of exotic ethnography the major goal of this work.