Peoples political struggles can take place within the terms of their own culture. Such struggles do not necessarily appear as "political" where that term has a pre-defined Western sense. Are we to be expected to accept that Australia's First Peoples are not engaged in a struggle for their political freedom?

Another important term of reference which senior men anticipated being able to call upon, and which was seriously challenged, can be readily identified is their right to assign particular people to country on the basis of their own well established process. This well established process can be thought of as a political process working within Wirnkara ("Dreaming") systems of signification.

Within Wirnkara systems of signification, the whole of life - the whole cosmos - is interpreted. Life in all its forms - including human/Being - is signified. Within Warumungu Ways, this system of signification is characterised by complementary opposition of Wurlurru-Kingilli (a sort of 'yin-yang') cosmos.

There are systems of order at work which allow indigenous authorities to say that "This particular life is assigned to these particular rights and obligations (as part of a interdependent division of labour) in regard to cosmic maintenance, life governance and land management. " Note that in doing this, that particular life will be signified in the Wurlurru-Kingilli complementary opposition.

As a result, he will be part of social galaxy of others, some of whom will be within his side of the 'moiety' (and thus relate to him and country in specific ways) while others will be in the complementary opposite side of the moiety and will relate to him and country (and others and their country) in equally specific but different ways. His role in respect to country is not an individual one which excludes all others. Quite the opposite. Collective interdependence not individual independence characterises this Way.

Such decisions are made taking into account a wide range of factors. It is not a mechanical process of the kind which modern anthropologists expected to find following Darwin. Positioning men in relation to country is something which lies at the core of First Peoples Ways.

As the demographic base collapses under colonisation however, parcels of Wirnkara are reassigned amongst the survivors. The senior men are faced with an extreme problem (not of their making) which tests their abilities to maintain balance - while retaining the core values of their Ways - to the maximum.

They do as they have always done. Calling on a globalising logic, they have assessed the most urgent areas requiring new life to carry the responsibilities for country, looked around for the most suitable candidate and, according, assigned that person (as signified by Wirnkara "Dreaming" terms) to that country (as signified by Wirnkara "Dreaming" terms).

This all should cause no problems. The process is 'traditional' (operating in a different context provided by colonisation) and should satisfy those guardians of imperialism who insist that only 'traditional' considerations should be relevant when non-indigenous people provide a limited degree of recognition to First Peoples.

How very telling, then, that in a contested situation it is not acceptable for First Peoples to enjoy the right to operate on such a high level when to comes to matters of land tenure.

The surmise of what takes place when the real practices of First Peoples do not align with the approved modern state model (as judged by either in the Aboriginal Land Rights Act or in modern Australian anthropology orthodoxy or in the media ) is that a particular man who has been assigned to country by indigenous authorities is a "ring-in". "It's a try-on yer Honour - don't let them get away with it or they'll be laying claim to the whole country next."

Modern anthropologists, educated in state universities which honour Darwin (even while being built on country expropriated from First Peoples and being funded by wealth from the same sources) insist that there has to be some form of 'descent' - meaningful in Western social and biological terms - according to their Western cultural masters.

Subjection, they say, never rests. The definition of 'traditional Aboriginal owner' of land had specified in advance who was to be granted the limited recognition. They had to be a member of a 'local descent group'.

The hands of the senior men had been tied in advance, without reference to their Ways of doing things and despite the clear anthropological evidence to the contrary which, in the Warumungu instance, had existed since the field work of Spencer and Gillen in 1901.

It may be appropriate here to introduce a key part of the message which senior Warumungu men attempted to communicate in 1901. It is of profound importance. It is an act of extreme false conscious for First Peoples lives to be separated (either at the conceptual or practical level) from their living countries.

Their lives are generated by living countries. Through their practices, they have a crucial role to play in the means by which life reproduces itself in an orthodox manner. Unlike the illusions which underwrite the modern nation-state (that Gentlemen, assisted by reason, can govern life), life governs itself.

Working through the 'ceremonial' and associated practices of First Peoples, messages flow through First Peoples so that they are akin to a meta-neural nervous system for a cosmic ecosystem. The emphasis therefore has to be on ensuring proper alignment of the cluster of metaphors (which provide the codes for lifes messages to flow) with the whole of creation itself.

We know that cluster of metaphors as "Dreaming".

Instead of attempting to dominate life, First Peoples provide the greater part of their Being with the means by which it may govern and reproduce itself. They are a part of life, not apart from life.

Hence the over-riding importance of ensuring that the greater Being (which could be called their eternal soul) is provided with what it needs to function properly.

Warumungu/Alyawarra 'systems of land tenure' operate with the same type of freedom which Western minds reserve for a slice of life regarded as 'political'. This is exactly the type of freedom - political freedom - which the Anglo-Australian state insists must be denied to them.

While the considerations which senior lawmen make are highly constrained by all manner of limits, these limits are similar to those of a musical instrument and a musical tradition. They are free, however, to make 'music' which is to be judged as well-formed according to their own cultural masters.

And, despite the odds imposed on the ground and at the conceptual levels by those who call on metaphors of farming and dominion over life, they do.

Participation in 'Aboriginal land claims' is part of their effort to return order to cosmos - sanity to their lives - and to restore the political freedoms required for a full and well-tempered life to be lived according to eternal life designs.

The state proclaims "You shall be related by descent!" "You shall restrict your claims to vacant Crown land!" "You shall not introduce your system of metaphysics into official representations!" "You shall be passive 'claimants' in the mill of a Anglo-Australian dominated land claim process!"

"Related by Wirnkara" seemed to be a better description of Warumungu/Alyawarra Ways. But it was sensed by those opposing Warumungu/Alayawarra interests that, once First Peoples are free of the conceptual prisonhouses which have been constructed for them, their 'claims' could extent to far more than land left vacant after a century long land grab in the Northern Territory.