著者

上橋 菜穂子

出版者

川村学園女子大学

雑誌

川村学園女子大学研究紀要 (ISSN:09186050)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.13, no.1, pp.205-221, 2002

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It is often stated that the Aboriginal society consists of the Elders system. Actually, in the Aboriginal society, the Elders were at the leading position in both politics and religion. The Elders also had the authority of punishing a person who broke "the Law", which covers all of their society as the standard. But the destruction of the Aboriginal society by colonialization changed their social system completely. The white men became the social authority and also hold all of the legal authority. That is why the Elders had lost the authority to lead the Aboriginal society. But after 1970s, in the stream of the Aboriginal culture revival, the Aboriginal policy made a great change from protection and discrimination policy or assimilation policy to self-management policy by which the Aborigines take part in politics autonomously. When this policy became the mainstream, the role of the Elders, who had traditional culture knowledge and were the traditional authority, achieved a new understanding. In this paper I paid an attention to the activity of "the commission of Elders" which was started by the county government leading Western Australia in 1995. And with this change of the Elders role, I sought to bring attention to the social change and the condition of the Aboriginal society that followed.