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Frequently Asked Questions
How many Yol\u
are there?
How many Yol\u
languages are there?
What are Yol\u
moieties?
How does Yol\u
kinship map on to Yol\u land?
What are the key Yol\u kinship terms?
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Q.
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How many Yol\u are there? |
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A.
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About 5000, mostly in the old mission centres of
Milingimbi, Ramangining, Galiwin'ku, Gapuwiyak and Yirrkala, but many
also in homeland centres on traditional land in northeast Arnhemland.
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Q.
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How many Yol\u languages are there? |
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A.
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More then 40. Some languages are very similar to
each other, but they are different languages because they belong to
different people, land, totems, histories and ancestral songs. Yol\u divide languages into general categories
according to their structure, and these categories are named according
to the word which in English would be translated 'this' or 'here'.
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Q.
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What are Yol\u moieties? |
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A.
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In the Yol\u world, there are two moieties, Dhuwa and
Yirritja. Everyone and every useful thing - lands, songs, animals,
plants, totems, waters, ceremonies - is either dhuwa or yirritja. Dhuwa
must marry yirritja, and yirritja must marry dhuwa. Everyone is the
same moiety and the same group as their father and as their land,
language and totems. So everyone has a mother who is from another
group, and another moiety. This relation between the mother and child
is called yothu-yindi, and can be found everywhere in the world, not
only between people, but between groups of people, and pieces of land,
totems etc.
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Q.
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How does Yol\u kinship map on to Yol\u land?
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A.
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Yol\u must always
marry into a clan group of the opposite moiety (dhuwa if you are
yirritja, yirritja if you are dhuwa). Yol\u
clan groups have long standing marriage relations, so that, for
example, the men of one group will often marry the women of another. If
for example, the Djambarrpuy\u men marry Gupapuy\u wives, there will be successive
generations of Djambarrpuy\u children who
call everything Gupapuy\u 'mother'. For
them, Gupapuy\u land, language, songs,
totems, etc will all be called mother. The group into which the Gupapuy\u men marry (eg Garrawurra) will be the
mother of the Gupapuy\u, and the m^ri (mother's mother) of the Djambarrpuy\u. In this sense, Yol\u kinship links people across moieties, and
across the land, by mapping out links (called yothu-yindi) between
mother-child pairs, in long chains: mother, mother's mother, mother's
mother's mother, mother's mother's mother's mother etc. These links
work in a circular fashion: a woman's mother's mother's mother is her
waku - the same as her own son or daughter. Her mother's mother's
mother's mother is her yapa - her 'sister'. As these relations form a
network drawing in all Yol\u clan groups,
this is mapped on to the land holdings of these peoples so that any
piece of land - if it is not your own received through your father's
line - will generally be expected to be your mother, or your m^ri, or your waku, or gutharra (waku's waku) or
yapa.
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Q.
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What are the key
Yol\u kinship terms? |
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A.
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• b^pa - father |
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• \^][i -
mother, (& waku's waku's daughter)
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• \apipi -
mother's brother
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• m^ri -
mother's mother and her brother
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• waku - |
woman's son or daughter, man's sister's son or
daughter,
(& mother's mother's mother and her brother)
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• gutharra -
waku's waku
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• w^wa - older
brother (& father's father's father's father)
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• yapa - older
sister (& father's father's father's father's sister)
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• yukuyuku -
younger sibling
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