Aggression in Daily Life

The description that follows derives from a series of annotated excerpts from my journals. I present these to give the reader a sense of how commonly aggressive acts reverberate in the day-to-day life of the settlement. These excerpts are taken from a six-week period, beginning on March 15, 1988, the first day of my last visit to Mangrove. My choice of this period is arbitrary; I believe it represents the rhythm of aggression at Mangrove as well as any other. I include here mention of all the aggressive events that I recorded but do not include all comments made about them for reasons of space. Following some of the journal entries, I make general statements of pattern. Some of these focus on gender differences and similarities. This reflects my theoretical interest in the intersection of gender and aggression (e.g., Burbank 1992a ) and serves as prolegomenal material for the argument of this book. These generalizations are based on analyses of the 793 cases that I have abstracted from the fight stories, 656 of which occurred during my stays at Mangrove.^[5]

March 20, 1988
I said not much fighting here these days. [Woman A] said, no, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

For the first ten days of my last visit to Mangrove, the kinds of aggressive acts I describe in these pages did not come to my attention. I do not usually think of the people at Mangrove in aggressive poses. My memory pictures often center around households, groups of people sitting around a fragrant breakfast fire, the meal long since eaten. Now people talk, sometimes walking from one group to another, bringing and receiving news. A woman sits nursing her baby. Another sits with a toddler in her lap. Older women stitch on the pandanus leaf baskets they will later sell; men fix trident fishing spear heads to the wooden shafts they have previously straightened over hot coals. People of both sexes gather around blankets placed in the shade for a game of cards.

Older children bring younger ones into the circle of adult care as the school bell or the attractions of the nearby beach and bush lure them from the family's hearth. A group of older women, their procession headed by a group of trotting dogs, departs for a day of fishing or an excursion to gather handicraft materials.

At morning teatime, when workers break from their tasks and children from the schoolroom, everyone seems to gather at the shop. Men stand together in front of the council hall. Women make their morning purchases in the store. Money, cigarettes, and food are asked for and given; my ears are filled with the sounds of conversation and laughter. Women visit their children in the shade of the school buildings, bringing snacks of chips, oranges, and soft drinks, departing when the school day resumes. The morning's purchases are taken home in preparation for the midday meal. Women wash and hang clothes. Men and women work around their houses, sweeping porches and raking the surrounding sand clean.

Afternoons are often hot; this is the quiet time of day. Husbands and wives rest in companionable silence, two or three adolescent boys sit listening to taped music, young women delouse each other's hair, an old woman sleeps in the shade. Dogs loll in the dirt and cawing black crows investigate the trash barrels that line the roads of the community. A young couple walks up the red dirt road; a mother takes her ailing child to the clinic. As the day cools, men and women may again be seen leaving the village for the sea. A man stands quietly on one leg in the shallow water, fish spear poised for a strike. Women cast their lines into the deeper channel, then reel in their twisting catch. Laughing groups of adolescent girls walk along the village roads. Older schoolboys practice forward and backward flips, their landings softened by the ubiquitous sand dunes. A married couple arrives in the camp of another, bringing a bag filled with flying fox and the shotgun borrowed for the hunt.

Night falls, and people again gather around fires, to eat, to talk, and to play cards. Children continue to run, play, and shout until they fall asleep. By 10:00 or 11:00 P.M. most adults have joined them, and all is quiet.

But these memories do not represent all of life on the settlement. Periodically, if only briefly, aggressive acts are interspersed in the daily routine. On average, according to my calculations, slightly more than one aggressive event occurred at the settlement every other day. Generally, these are short-lived occurrences. An aggressive event might occupy several minutes in a day otherwise filled with the less spectacular

but seemingly more benign business of family and community living. These events varied in severity, ranging from verbal to armed attacks.^[6] They were not, therefore, always as dramatic as the following:

March 25, 1998
[Woman S]: Last night [a young man] was in a "fight" with [a boy from another settlement]. This morning or last night. [The young man] had a galiwanga [a machete-like knife] and hit the boy while he was sleeping. This morning he had a rifle and was just shooting it at a house. [His father] was trying to stop him. Everybody was "hiding."

[Woman M]: This morning was in village…when saw everybody running. That was [the young man] shooting. He and [boy from another settlement] had a fight. [The young man] went into a house where the boy was sleeping. The boy might be only 12 or 13. He doesn't know how to fight. His jaw and face are all swollen.

Men are the preponderant users of the most dangerous weapons employed at Mangrove: guns, spears, and knives. Ninety-seven percent of this use was performed by men (z = 9.02, p < .0001).^[7] However, some male weapon use may be less harmful in intent, as well as in effect, than it first appears. For example, in only a few cases was it reported that a man was really trying to shoot somebody. Note how the young man in this case shot at a house, not at a person. In all of the 793 cases, only two people (both male) were injured by gunfire, neither seriously. Similarly, when men take up spears, more often than not, no one is injured. In play, children dodge the grass spears thrown by their playmates (see Goodale 1971; McKnight 1986; Tonkinson 1978). Dodging is a skill that probably reduces the number of adult spear injuries, and aggressors are undoubtedly aware of this skill. Men, however, have been the murderers in this community. Usually their victims have been other men; I recorded seven cases of male death. To my knowledge, two women have also been murdered on or near the settlement. None of these incidents have taken place during my visits to Mangrove.

March 31, 1988
Meeting today to elect representative for the Aboriginal Commission.… [Woman A] said yesterday when there was a meeting there was an "argument."

April 1, 1988
[Woman A]: [A woman's husband] asked her for some money and she wouldn't give it, so he cursed all the beach from the jetty right up to [Sandy Creek]. [People calling the ceremony used in the curse] "gagu" [mother's mother], "abuji" [father's mother] or "mother" can take it off. He put it to the ceremony.

"Cursing" is a supernatural form of attack that may be used by men and women, young and old. About 5 percent of the aggression that occurred during my visits to Mangrove took this form. The use of this aggressive technique is described in chapter 6.

April 5, 1998
[Woman A]: Yesterday [her daughter-in-law] caught some fish. She and [her husband, speaker's son] were cooking it and telling each other story and they forgot to give any to [speaker] and then she saw it just bones. They said sorry, and she said, tomorrow I'm going to catch a fish and eat it myself. I can't give any to you and I won't be sorry. And her mouth had a bad taste because she didn't eat any meat.

Almost one-fourth of the aggression I was aware of during my stays at Mangrove was verbal. Of all such aggression, 61 percent of verbal aggression (z = -4.2, p < .0001) and 75 percent of verbal restraining (z = -3.71, p = .0002) were performed by women. Men also attack verbally, but their aggressive interactions are more often characterized by physical acts.^[8]

April 5, 1988
[Woman A]: The other morning [a young woman] was coming up to the clinic when [another young woman] started saying things about her and [a man]. She [the second woman] was "jealous." [The first woman] said no, he is my full relation, I wouldn't do that. And then they had a fight.…[The first woman] got a knife and a stick and her aunties [two names] got stick and they went to that house. And they said to [the second woman] wake up, somebody is here to fight with you. But [the first woman] didn't use that knife. [The second woman] was standing by the house and [the first woman] swung at her with a stick, but hit a part of the house and then [the second woman] picked up a little baby that was standing beside her and that baby saved her [because her opponent wouldn't risk hurting a child].

Women's aggression is not limited to its verbal manifestations. Of the 174 fights—that is, interactions that involved at least a threat of physical violence—that occurred during my visits, women were aggressors or victims in at least 72 percent. Women's weapons are usually sticks—weapons that can do great injury but not with the ease of men's weapons. Women's use of sticks accounts for 72 percent of the total (z = -4.05, p < .0001). Men and women use rocks and tin cans as weapons to a similar extent (z = .58, p = .5637). They also act much like each other with respect to the use of unarmed physical aggression (z = -.36, p = .7127) and the physical restraining of others (z =

.65, p = .5150). I discuss women's physical aggression in chapters 5 and 6.

April 7, 1988
[Woman A]: Last night they stole a truck. [A young man] ran off with [a teenage girl].^[9] They were looking for them and when they found them [a man] hit [the young man] with a boomerang. Then after [the young man] went to the billabong [pond] and then he took the power house truck. He was "skidding it" up by the office and then running it by [a woman's] house. It woke [speaker].…They didn't stop until they ran into [a man's] house. [Speaker's daughter's mother-in-law] saw [speaker] at the hospital and said I'm going to take [our mutual grandchild]. Maybe there will be a fight where you live because of that boy taking the girl.

April 8, 1988
[Woman A]: [The girl's father] cursed the shop to [a ceremony]. But [another man] said it could be burned [purified with smoke from burning leaves and thus safe for use]. [The girl's father] calls [the ceremony] "mother," he can put it because he is Mandharija [moiety name], he couldn't if he were Mandhayung [moiety name] because it would be his. But maybe they haven't burned it yet because they want to know which boys took the ignition switch/key? out of the hospital truck. It's a bit "hard."

[Woman W]: [The girl's father] cursed the shop because [his daughter] had been running off with [the young man]. After work yesterday, [speaker] went looking for [the teenage girl]. [Woman C] also told me [the girl's mother and the mother's sister] were looking for her. They found her. Her mother gave her a "hiding." This for running off with boy. [Woman W's daughter] commented that they should send her to [another settlement] because she and [the young man] were running off too much. [Woman W] said our "uncle" smoked [purified] the shop.

This series of events illustrates several characteristics of aggression at Mangrove that will be discussed in the chapters that follow. Among other things it suggests how "making trouble," like illicit dating (Burbank 1987a , 1988), can lead to "trouble" that is, "a hiding." It also illustrates how people at Mangrove frequently deflect aggression away from human targets (Burbank 1985). The young man who took the power house truck and "skidded" it on the roads of the community did not attack, as he might have, the man who had struck him with a boomerang. This may reflect his perception of the man's right to punish him. He nevertheless expressed his anger through an aggressive display of driving. As the man whose house was run into was in no other way involved in the event, I assume the final collision was accidental, or at

least not revengeful. While both men and women perform these "displays," as I call them, men are more likely to do so (z = 6.14, p < .0001). Displays account for about 13 percent of the cases that occurred at Mangrove during my visits.

Perhaps most important, this series of events illustrates how aggressive acts are often embedded in relationships (see Cook 1992, 1993). It is no accident that the misbehavior of an adolescent girl and her young partner precipitated aggression on the part of her mother and father. Nor was it inappropriate for them to be assisted by the mother's sister and the speaker, who is a clan sister of the adolescent's father. These events also illustrate that, at times, aggression at Mangrove can be understood as a socialization technique. Aggression that might be so characterized accounts for about 11 percent of 656 acts that occurred while I was at Mangrove. Women were the attackers in at least 50 percent of these; both young men and young women were their targets. I discuss this topic further in chapter 3 (see also Burbank 1988, in press). The first event, recorded on April 18, 1988, provides additional examples of "family" involvement in aggressive interactions.

April 18, 1988
[Woman A]: There was a fight last night. We couldn't sleep. Those girls. "Jealous" for [a young man]. [A young unmarried woman was at speaker's house.] [A second young unmarried woman] came up to her there and said, "I'm not calling you gagu [mother's mother], I'm calling you troublemaker." When she was coming back [from a visit] [the second young woman] was at the area of the shop and they had a fight there—wrestling. [The man they were fighting over] kicked [the second woman] right in the forehead for making trouble and [her brother] got after [the second woman] with a stick. He beat her with it for "making trouble." She went and hid in [speaker's] house. Then [the brother] went to [their mother] and pushed her and was dragging her by the hair, but everybody called out and told him not to do that to his mother.

About 5:00 P.M. I observed [the first woman's mother] marching along the bottom road from the single women's house toward [the mother of the second woman's] house. [Another woman] followed a few minutes later, went in same direction. [Woman S] said she had just gotten back from [another settlement]. Came because [her daughter] had been in a fight. She had been "argument" with [second woman's mother]. Girls were fighting over [the man]. [First woman] is "bruised." She didn't go to work today. [She went out and saw the second woman.] "What for you been come on?" "I'm just going for a walk with this little boy," replied [the second woman]. Then later when [the first woman] was going back, [the second woman] was up by the shop, hiding. Then she

started swearing at her and they had a fight. They were swinging each other. [The second woman's mother's sister] was fighting with [the second woman's mother]. VKB: What for? A: Stopping her, she wanted to fight.

[Woman A]: [The first woman's mother] was "talking," "growling" on the road yesterday. She went into that house where [the second woman] and "those girls" were. She was growling at them. When I am here don't fight with my daughter. She has a weak chest.…I could make that video (that you are watching) gurdu gurdu [sacred and thus unusable]. They were all just quiet, they didn't answer back. If she had wanted to [hit that girl] she would have taken a stick. Maybe she felt sorry that [the second woman] got a hiding from two men [the man they fought over and her brother].

This case also illustrates how aggression may be used to counter or stop aggression, a topic that is discussed in chapters 3 and 4.

April 18, 1988
[Woman A]: Shop was cursed today early by [other settlement] mob. Q: What for? A: "When they drunk they can cursem easy." Burned by about 10:30–11:00 A.M.

The perceived connections between aggression and alcohol are discussed in chapter 3. It should be noted that the "mob" who cursed Mangrove's shop may not have been present at the time. Today with shortwave radio and radio telephone, people elsewhere can curse things at Mangrove and then notify the settlement of their actions.

April 20, 1988
Early break for schoolchildren this A.M. Not clear why. Lots of children playing under [elevated] school [building]. Noise [of children's play and conversation] turns to one that indicates something is happening. Suddenly young boy [teenager] appears, hurls rock at children under school. Fortunately hits pillar as thrown with full force and could really hurt (even kill) a child. Children scream and scatter. A few minutes later [Woman R] says some of the young boys might get spear or rifle. Meeting about petrol [sniffing] going on. [Police aid] talks as does [another man] who says, according to [Woman M], that petrol is bad for the mind. [Woman M, and Woman C]: Boy who threw rock at children also threw rock at his father [name]; he is [name]. He was one of the main sniffers before, he was unconscious from sniffing once. And in the hospital. He stole a container full of petrol and is sharing it with all his friends. One of the sniffers is [one of the speaker's brother's sons].

[Woman S]: One of the sniffers was [one of her brother's sons]. [Her brother] was chasing him and [his mother] gave him a hiding with nulla nulla [woman's fighting stick]. Then they took all his long pants, jeans and locked them in a

room. He has only short pants and singlet and because he is not used to it he is staying inside.

Inhalation of petrol is an activity largely pursued by adolescent boys and girls. Two adolescent girls once told me that it "makes you mad; screaming and laughing" (Burbank 1988:130). Many adults decry the acts of theft and vandalism that often accompany sniffing. They also express concern about the damage that petrol can do to their children's health. (For recent discussions of petrol sniffing in Aboriginal communities, see Brady 1985, 1991). The connections that Aboriginal people perceive between sniffing and aggression are discussed in chapter 3.

April 20, 1988
[Woman M]: Last night she was lying down [at her sister's] because she had a sore rib cage when [her brother's daughter, a young married woman with children] came in to see her aunties. Told [speaker] she was going to fight two girls from [another settlement]. She was very, very angry, because those girls came to her house, knocking on the door, when she was asleep, wanting to fight with her. She didn't know those girls. It was for her husband. So [speaker] got up and went with her. She was only one and they were two, but she knocked over both of them. Then [speaker] slapped her on the behind and told her to stop and "forgive" them.

[Woman S]: Because [married woman] knocked down those two girls from [another settlement] they cursed the shop.… They put it to their father [woman's father] who just died. [A man] burned the shop early. That man is his full uncle. They wanted to leave it for one week, but [the man who cleared it] said there are old people and children here [who need to get food from the shop]. When [a woman] gets back she will give those girls a hiding for putting her uncle [using her deceased uncle's name in a curse].

As this case illustrates, people's reactions to fights can vary. I do not know if this young woman "forgave" her two challengers as her father's sister suggested. Her opponents certainly did not appear to forgive when they cursed the shop. I discuss the emotional aftermath of fighting in chapter 4.

April 22, 1988
[Woman W]: [A man] was throwing stones at [a woman's] house. VKB: What for? A: You know, when they playing card and someone win and take ten dollars [out of the pot]. [Another man] was stopping because "uncle" [is responsible for nephew's behavior]. [Speaker] was also talking to him, telling him not to throw rocks.

April 25, 1988
[Woman M]: Today [a woman] was growling at [teenage girl] mob. While

Slade [high school] mob was in Darwin they went to halfway house kind of place where [woman's teenage son] was. He was to have been released this week, father had even gone to Darwin to get. He was [teenage girl]'s boyfriend and went with her to sleep with her at Bagot [Aboriginal reserve in Darwin]. [His mother] was "really angry" because now he will not be released.

April 26, 1988
[Woman A]: [A man] went after his wife with a rifle. She was at [a neighbor's] eating when she saw him coming. Maybe they had been fighting, [speaker] didn't know. [A married couple] told her to run, so she did. He was after her and he shot the rifle. Good thing she was hiding behind a tree. [Speaker] thinks police will come for this. Didn't know why he did this except: "He is a murderer, he always killing [striking] wife, he can't keep wife," and "He is really jealous." Not like his brothers [enumerates four men's names], they treat wives proper way. [Man] was married before to [woman] but he was always killing her and she left him. Then he went to [another settlement] and got this one.

[Woman W]: She saw [man who shot at wife] going to get some bullets and she saw all the sisters, i.e., [the attacker's sisters] walking [watching what their brother was doing]. She wondered what was going on. The other day he was going to throw a shovel spear [spear with a metal blade] at his wife, but [speaker] told him not to throw it and he didn't.

[Woman M]: Talking about [man's] attack on wife with rifle. "He is a really bad one." VKB: Why do you think he is like that? A: [No response]. He used to always do like that with his first wife [name]. So she left him and when I saw him with his new wife, I felt really sorry for that girl.

These statements underline an important contextual aspect of Mangrove—the number of people willing and able to protect women and men from the worst consequences of aggressive action, a point I shall return to in chapters 4 and 6. Nevertheless, the effects of aggression are not the same for all people at Mangrove. Overall, women are injured significantly more often than men (z = -4.68, p < .0001). Men die almost four times more often then do women, but this is a nonsignificant difference. Women are injured slightly more than twice as often as men in aggressive interactions between men and women (z = 4.94, p < .0001). Injury inflicted in same-sex altercations is not, however, negligible. Statistical associations of gender and injury suggest that about 43 percent of the injury received by women is inflicted by other women; they suggest that of the total injuries inflicted on men, approximately 55 percent are inflicted by other men (Burbank 1992a ).

April 28, 1998
[Woman A and daughter-in-law]. They are going to have a meeting about [the

man who died yesterday].… That man was young and well. He was talking and drinking tea with his sons and then he just died. [Woman A] was thinking about how somebody young like that could die all of a sudden.… Maybe somebody was sneaking around and shot him.… Or maybe he went outside at night and somebody got him then.… [Both speakers] predict that there will be a fight at the meeting. [Senior man] been talk "We gonna find out who murdered him." They get shovel spear and rifle.… Maybe at the meeting they are going to say to one man, "You been murdering him," and his son and brother are going to get spear and take partner.

[Woman W and husband]: [Speakers] were talking at the meeting, telling everybody not to throw spear, not to fight. But now [male speaker] said no meeting because too much fighting. But they are thinking about who killed him, because he wasn't sick and old. [A man] threw a spear. It almost hit [a teenage boy], by accident. [A young man] shot a rifle. Everybody was coming to the meeting with shovel spear.

In chapters 4 and 6, I discuss links between physical and supernatural aggression.

Counting only the people who normally reside at Mangrove, these events involved as attackers, victims, or those who assist or intervene in aggressive interactions at least forty different individuals, ranging in age from 15 to 66. The average age of these participants was about 36. (I do not know and therefore do not include in this calculation the age of the young woman whose husband shot at her.)

A similar picture of widespread participation in aggressive interactions is presented by an analysis of the total number of cases that I collected. One hundred fifty-six of the women and 164 of the men had participated at least once in an aggressive event, whether as aggressor, victim, or in some attendant role. It must be observed that according to my residence survey of 1988, Mangrove was home to 178 women and 156 men.^[10] The fact that the number of men in these cases is greater than the number that resided on the settlement in that year reflects the changing nature of the settlement's population. People die and come to maturity, of course. They also sometimes move from one settlement to another.

Although almost every adult at Mangrove appears to have participated in an aggressive interaction in some guise, there are, not surprisingly, individual differences in frequency and kind of participation. For example, an examination of fights occurring in 1977 and 1978 gives the distribution shown in table 1. Aboriginal statements addressing the sources of this variation are presented in chapter 3.

Similarly, an analysis of men's and women's roles in aggressive

events suggests some variation along gender lines. A most notable difference between men and women is found in the roles of those who "initiate" aggression and those who are its "targets." Men perform 57 percent of all "initiates" roles; women perform 43 percent (z = 3.39, p < .0007). Men take the role of target in only 39 percent of the total; women, in 61 percent (z = -4.19, p < .0001). The implications of this gender difference are addressed in chapter 6.