'Women talking up big': Aboriginal women as cultural custodians, a South Australian example

In this chapter the author focuses on her own field experience in the Port Augusta/Flinders Ranges areas of South Australia. She overviews the nature and status of cultural information over which women of this region are custodians. The changing analysis of the status of women in traditional Aboriginal society, and particularly in relation to their traditional, land-related 'business', reflects shifting or developing notions of gender relations in academic circles as much as the reality of Aboriginal society. From the author's varied field work there are two themes of particular relevance to this chapter. Firstly, women's knowledge of mythology and ceremony relating to social relations and the land and, secondly, women's knowledge about contact experiences and family history. One of the notable products of assisting Aboriginal women with undertaking their own research and recording of cultural information is that these dilemmas can be resolved internally and with the minimum of external pressure.