Ch. 1. Introduction -- Ch. 2. Coming into Being and Going out of Being -- Ch. 3. People as Kin and Affines -- Ch. 4. Personal Names and Nicknames -- Ch. 5. Places and Countries -- Ch. 6. Lardil Ethnozoology and Ethnobotany -- Ch. 7. Demiin Ethnozoology and Ethnobotany -- Ch. 8. Marlda Kangka Ethnozoology and Ethnobotany -- Ch. 9. Subsections and Totemic Classification -- Ch. 10. Thuwathu the Rainbow Serpent -- Ch. 11. Markirii Sickness and the Rainbow Serpent -- Ch. 12. Dreamtime and Iconography -- Epilogue: Some Final Thoughts on Mythology, Land, and Kinship
Summary
Study of the Lardil classification of space, people, plants, animals, totemic beings and the Rainbow Serpent; understandings of conception, birth and death - constitution of paternity and maternity; relation to place and economic rights; initiation - language acquisition, circumcision and subincision; kinship system and terminology - subsections; personal names -role of nicknames; social space and the relationship to land; folk taxonomy / ethnotaxonomy - ethnozoology and ethnobotany; totemic classification; analysis of myth and ritual - Rainbow Serpent (relation to elements of weather and flood); concepts of transgression and taboo - body and sickness; role of dreams and its relation to the Dreamtime and its iconography - dance and graphic elements
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-262) and index
