Paper short abstract:

In recent decades Warlpiri initiation ceremonies have expanded significantly. In this paper I will discuss how demographic changes are influencing the roles of participants and in turn the organistion of these rituals.

Paper long abstract:

In a 2000 paper Nicolas Peterson shows that wider regional sociality in the Central Desert of Australia is being constructed through the expansion of initiation ceremonies. Peterson concludes that the reasons for the focus on initiation ceremonies in more recent decades are that "they are neither bound to locality nor to specialised knowledge under the control of senior men" and that they "give prominence to younger men in their thirties as the organisers and key participants" (Peterson 2000: 213). Nowadays, young men no longer go through a secondary phase of initiation rites called Kankarlu which in the past prohibited them from marriage until the age of around thirty. As a result men are having children at a much younger age and may only be as young as thirty when they have to perform the rites for their sons to become young men.

In this paper I will describe the organisation of the initiation ceremonies that I saw being performed in Yuendumu over the summers of 2006 and 2007. I will discuss the emphasis on the active roles of the younger generations through organisation around generation moieties (yulpurru and rdiliwarnu) rather than the owner and manager roles (kirda and kurdungurlu) which are the basis for the site specific ceremonies. I will show that the change in the age demographic in Yuendumu over the last few decades is influencing the organisation of initiation ceremonies such that the active roles of the younger generation of participants are being emphasised more than ever.