ABSTRACT
The Dhan-gadi demonstrated a large degree of flexibility in acquiring new social and cultural forms, but this was extended to other spheres of social life. As a result, Dhan-gadi ceremonial life and marriage relations underwent a process of involution. The pattern of marriages over three generations reveals a pattern of involution which ultimately made the pre-existing system impossible to sustain. The political factors inherited through colonial domination, i.e. the disruption of inter-group relations, depopulation and the increasing immobilisation and isolation of such groups, ensured that a tendency towards involution was inevitable. The effects of these factors on the social life of the Dhan-gadi made the reproduction of marriage rules, premised on inter-group relations, increasingly difficult to sustain. The major factor in enabling the Dhan-gadi to exercise and maintain a degree of cultural autonomy was the absence of Aborigines Protection Board-appointed managers, whose role it was to monitor and control social life on the reserves.
