Aboriginal sorcery and healing, and the alchemy of aboriginal policy making

David F. Martin*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Sorcery and healing provide ways by which Wik people of Aurukun, western Cape York Peninsula, attempt through magical means to impact on individual behaviour and on the ordering of social relations. Aurukun has been the subject of intense scrutiny over recent decades because of its dramatically disintegrating social fabric. It exemplifies the kind of remote Aboriginal community about which social and political commentators have had much to say, and at which a whole raft of policies have been directed by governments aiming to transform them. This article uses the trope of magic in moving from a consideration of the magical and spiritual bases of Wik healing, sorcery, and certain forms of masculine power, to an examination of some of the underlying ‘magical’ assumptions in the writings of prominent proponents of market mechanisms in Aboriginal affairs. Just as the medieval alchemists, ignorant of the true properties of matter, sought to use magical means to transmute base metals to gold, so too do these proponents, as ignorant of the true nature of their substrate as any alchemist, seek to transmute Aboriginal people from the base nature of communalism and social dysfunction to the gold of autonomous economic actors.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)75-128
    Number of pages54
    JournalJournal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia
    Volume33
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2008

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