On 3 August, nearly a month after the beginning of the census count in this area, my field notes revealed the state of play to be as follows.

The CFO had just left to organise the count at H, leaving the Assistant CFO behind to continue supervising the work in the A/C area.

C3 had been done—in two stages; one household was still away, and was discovered later to have been counted at A as usual residents of a household there (see Case three); a few other individuals were still away at G. C4 had been done, but one house was empty, as people were at the funeral at A10. C5 had been done, but some people were away at the funeral at A10; others were visiting relatives at B. The residents of A3 and A4 had been counted at A because they were attending a funeral there, but were counted ‘as if’ they were at home. A6 had been done, but one household was absent at the A10 funeral. A5 had been done, although it was later discovered that some A5 people had been counted twice—as usual residents—at both A and A5.

Community A was, apparently, nearly done. There were still a few houses to do, but the CC who had done most of the work on her own was completely burnt out, and besides, as a schoolteacher, her normal employment was about to resume.

C1 had been established as empty—its residents had been counted as ‘usual residents’ in a house at A.

A1 was still to be done; it was geographically closer to F than to A, and the CFO intended to organise the count from F. In the event, A1 was nearly overlooked (see Chapter 8). A2’s residents were apparently still not home and were proving elusive. Some residents of A7, which had been empty when first visited, were still at the funeral at A10, while the whereabouts of others was unknown. All the residents of A8 were still at the A10 funeral. A girl’s funeral was now taking place in A9; there was a major funeral at A10; the usual residents of A11 were at funerals at A9 and A10; and A12 had not yet been visited. A CI who was resident at A but whose family belonged to C2 had been recruited to count C2, but so far had not produced anything and was proving elusive. C6, a large homeland, had not yet been visited.

The current workforce was: the C3 team, but their work was finished and the logistics of using them elsewhere were complicated by distance; the CC who had almost single-handedly counted A was burnt out; two CCs, who were finishing C and who were then going to do C6; and two other CCs, and one CI, all of whom were unavoidably involved at the funerals at A9 and A10, but who would probably become involved again once the funerals were over. The CI who was allegedly looking after C2 was an unknown quantity.

I recorded ‘this week’s new problems’ as: a suicide at A (leading to the closing of part of the community), the funeral at A9 and the Garma Festival, which was potentially another source of major population movement in the Yolngu-speaking region, and which also attracted substantial numbers of people from H.

Within the wider area of his responsibility, the CFO had not yet visited, let alone begun work at, any of the following settlements and their associated homeland communities: B, D, E, F and G. It was clear that he was not going to be able to devote much more time or energy to the A/C area.

After a couple of days of enforced inactivity, during which the Assistant CFO caught up on her paperwork, she and I visited the man who was regarded as the leader of the community at A12. He had a job that kept him at A during the week, and he was counted at A as a usual resident there. We learned from him that the other residents of A12—his two sons and their families—were on their way into A to shop, so we waited until they arrived and the Assistant CFO filled in their forms with them, counting them as usual residents of their two households at A12 rather than as ‘visitors’ to the house at A where they would be staying for the next day or so.

A couple of days later, the funeral at A10 finally wound up and the much shorter funeral at A9 also finished. One CC had remained at A10, but the other CC and the CI who had been at these funerals came back to A. Phase three was about to begin. Before I describe the events of this phase, I will touch on an issue hinted at in the preceding paragraph: in this context, who is a usual resident and who is a visitor?