With the funeral at A10 finally over, the Assistant CFO decided that we should do the count there before the CFO returned from H. We set off from A on 8 August, with the CC who had just come back from the funeral there, hoping to meet up with the second CC, who was still there. When we arrived there were still many ‘visitors’ in a total of 22 tents, as well as most of the ‘usual residents’ in five dwellings. As the Assistant CFO and the two CCs began work, it quickly became evident why counting people at a funeral is not only inappropriate but also inadvisable. At the house nearest to the airstrip there were three clusters of two, three and five tents (see Figure 4.1). The first cluster, of two tents, contained the household from A previously mentioned in Case Three. The ‘Person 1’ for this family decided, as we have seen, to count the household ‘as if’ they were back at A. The second cluster, of three tents, contained most of the family that we had missed at C4. Since they had definitely not been counted there, the tents were designated as a ‘temporary dwelling’ and the occupants were enumerated as ‘visitors’. The largest cluster, of five tents, contained mostly people who were from A (and the man from B1 mentioned in Case Four) and who had not yet returned there. It was assumed that they had not yet been counted and they were enumerated as ‘visitors’ to the dwelling (making this a 25-person household form).
Notes: 1) Household from A counted ‘as if’ at A; 2) visitors from C4, counted as a ‘temporary dwelling’; 3) visitors from A and B3, counted as visitors to adjoining A10 dwelling; 4) visitors from A8; 5) and 6) occupants said to have been counted at A, therefore not counted at A10; 7) status unknown.
The 18 occupants of three tents pitched near the school building turned out to be people from a single household at A8, the large nearby homeland that had been empty when we first visited it back in early July. The other residents of A8 had already left for home because, we were told, the personal effects of a person who had died elsewhere were about to arrive there, signalling the beginning of another funeral ceremony. The school tent-dwellers were about to return to A8, which had not yet been counted, but the Assistant CFO decided to play it safe and enumerate them there and then. She pondered whether they could be counted as ‘visitors’ in a ‘temporary dwelling’, or be counted ‘as if’ they were at home. In the end, they were counted as visitors.
The occupants of two other tent complexes (six tents in all) said they had been counted at A before coming to the funeral at A12. The Assistant CFO and the CCs, who were feeling a little overwhelmed at this point, were happy to take their word for it. There remained one tent cluster, the status of which I did not ascertain. They were either not counted or were counted as visitors to the nearby house.
In all, more than 90 people were counted at A12, the majority of them visitors. Somewhere between 20 and 40 were not counted, on the assumption that they had already been counted elsewhere. This was the most chaotic of the counts that I observed. No attempt was made to draw up a list of the dwellings and temporary tent dwellings (I made my own sketch map; see Figure 4.1). It was clear that the Assistant CFO and CCs were confused about who should and should not be counted. One CC thought only ‘locals’ should be counted, on the grounds that everyone who was there as a visitor should have been put ‘inside the form’ at their place of usual residence—that is, counted as if they were at home because of being at a place (the funeral) where they were unlikely to be counted. Strictly speaking, he was correct, because these were the instructions he had received in his training, and he was acting on the assumption that every CC and CI in the area had followed those instructions to the letter—which they had not. The situation was not, however, clear-cut because of the rolling nature of the count. There were in fact several kinds of ‘visitors’ present: those who had been counted elsewhere, either as residents or visitors; those whose home communities had already been counted in their absence and who might or might not have been put inside the form, depending on the proclivities of the CIs and CCs who had conducted the count there; and those whose communities had yet to be counted.
The count at A10 highlighted for me the full complexities of attempting a de facto count with principled exceptions (the instruction to count PTA as present if they were not likely to be counted elsewhere). Such an instruction, in the context of a rolling count and a population that evinces high mobility across a wide area, calls constantly for judgments to be made on the basis of insufficient information. An individual CI might be able to keep track of the people they have already counted, but they cannot know whether some of the people they have counted have or have not been counted elsewhere by other CIs. I will return to the PTA question in Chapter 7 (see also Appendix B).
The next day (9 August), the CFO returned to A, in order to pick up the Assistant CFO so that they could move on to start proceedings at Community E. We sat down to review progress and decide what should be done in their absence. The CFO was reasonably happy with the way the count was proceeding at H, having enlisted the services of a ‘floating’ CFO whose task was to act as a backup in areas where extra help was needed. The floating CFO was still at H and would stay there until the count was over.
The places that had still not been accounted for were: A1, A2, A7, A8, A11, C2 and C6. It had already been decided that A1 would be covered during the count of F and its associated homelands. It was decided that if I could find a willing CC or CI I would take them to do the count at A2. There were now said to be people back at A7, but they were possibly going on to A8, which was in full funeral mode. The latest local estimate for when this funeral would finish was 17 August, so it was decided to leave these two communities until the CFO and/or Assistant CFO returned to A. The CFO would, before he left, find the CCs who were supposed to be doing A11, C2 and C6 to check on progress.
In the event, the CFO could not find the CCs responsible for A11 and C2, and I also failed to locate them in the days that followed. One of them was the person I was hoping to take to A2. Nothing more happened in the A/C homelands count—with the exception of the count at C6—until 13 August, when I learned that the CI who had been instrumental in organising the girl’s funeral at A9 was now back at A. She willingly agreed to come with me to A2, which was located on her clan country, and we went the next day.
When we arrived, there was a young woman and some small children at one house, but otherwise the whole community was out hunting. Fortunately—and somewhat atypically—everyone had gone to the same place and it was not too far away, although getting there involved a somewhat hair-raising drive along the beach. The count proceeded in a relaxed and amiable manner, to the accompaniment of feasting on fish, crab, stingray and shellfish. All in all, there were about 30 ‘locals’ there and also a visiting family who stated positively that they had been counted at C by a named CC.
This count was an example of the IES working at its best. The CI, despite having been able to work only intermittently, was an efficient interviewer and understood the form well. She was well known to everyone present and her status as an owner of the land gave her a certain additional authority (as we were leaving, she saw a group of girls returning laden with fish, and was able to claim as of right a substantial proportion for herself). Doing the count at the hunting site was also a bonus: counts at homelands communities are frequently curtailed or hurried because people are anxious to go hunting, whereas this count could be fitted around the hunting activities of the group. The fact that the community members had returned, and that it was therefore worthwhile making the journey to count them, had been gleaned from people at A who were related to them. Finally, any non-local who had arrived to find that everyone had gone out hunting would not have known where to go to find them, or might have been hesitant to do so, whereas locating them was unproblematic for this CI.
At this point, it was time for me to return for a while to Darwin. I returned to A in the second half of September, for the fourth and final phase of the count.