Reflections on a meeting: Structure, language, and the polity in a small-scale society

In May 1981, a critical meeting took place at Papunya, an Aboriginal community in Australia’s Northern Territory. The participants included members of the Aboriginal Village Council of Papunya and Pintupi Aborigines from the surrounding outstation communities. These groups had disputed the use of a truck that had been granted by the government to the outstations but funded legally through the administrative mechanism of the Papunya Council (incorporated as Lyappa Congress). Miffed by Papunya control of resources vital to their autonomy, the Pin tu pi, among themselves, had discussed intensively their desire to have their funding separated from Papunya administration.