The Sources of Confusion over Social and Territorial Organisation in Western Victoria

This chapter looks at the present-day confusion surrounding the relationship between territorial and social organisation in the western Victoria region, and assesses the impact of this confusion on the anthropological modelling of social and territorial changes over time. This chapter also discusses the possible causes and consequences of misrecognition in the written and oral records in relation to the original Aboriginal land tenure in western Victoria. Simply put, the issue that arises is that some contemporary sources suggest that there is matrilineal descent at the local level in the original western Victorian Aboriginal societies. However, there is no credible evidence