Names and Naming. Speaking Forms into Place.

As Heidegger argues for language (197la:192-l93): in order to explore the meaning and significance of Yolngu' names it is necessary to explain them more comprehensively than considering them as simple expressions of internal feelings and thoughts, as mere representations of reality, as vehicles by which people communicate, address each other, or in Levistraussian tenus, as a means by which people classify the world and order themselves within it (see Levi-Strauss 1966:161-190). If with Heidegger I suggest that 'language speaks' beyond expression and representation, my concern in this paper is to ethnographically explore what Yolngu names speak of, that is, what culturally shared images and notions they reveal while saying very little (Basso 1988:103).