PSICOPATOLOGÍA DE LA DIMENSIÓN DEPENDENCIA-INDEPENDENCIA

principle of ordering singularities. Historical sequence is enabled by an idea of temporal sequence, an 'as if' postulation of chronological points as in 'this point in time'. Points are by

definition, and by popular accord, single dimensional locators which exist in relation to other points. A line is a measure of two points (along which lies an infinitude of points). It is not possible to speak of an Islandtaim 'timeline'. Most importantly, it is not possible to speak of 'points in time'. It is not even possible to gloss 'this point in time' to mean now, either in a general or more delimited sense of now. In fact, it is not possible to say "now". The closest delimitation of "now" that can be said is 'today' (or, perhaps more precisely, 'this d a y ’). What is important about this is the impossibility of anything, anyone, any event existing at some putative 'point in t:me' in Islandtaim. Entities which may be placed in the framework of Islandtaim are not said to 'exist', or to 'have existed'; they either have happened, are happening, or are more likely than not to happen pretty soon. All of this is not to preclude Islander recognition of natural temporality, nor to ignore those natural changes which might be seen as natural sequences. But it is to lay the groundwork for examining natural rhythms in Islandtaim as non-sequential events.

There are a number of natural rhythms or cycles or progressions which are temporal facts. The movements of stars and the repetitions of seasonal cycles define years. The changes of waning and waxing moon define months. And there are diurnal cycles. Pre-colonial Islandtaim (which was not a named thing then, having arisen only to demarcate normal time from extraneous Christian and other clock-time) had names for diurnal phases, including 'pre-dawn', 'imminent dawn', dawn, morning, later morning, afternoon, later afternoon, early evening, among others. There were also 'moons' (months). There were names for the two seasons, named for the East Wind and the West Wind. As far as we know, nothing was numbered. That is, cyclic changes were not taken to demarcate boundaries of things which could be then mapped onto numerical sequence. (Certainly if things were ever mapped onto numerical sequence, the sequences would have been short, since the numbers before English were one, two, two-and-one, two-and-two.) The arrival of the

m i s s i o n a r i e s e n t a i l e d t h e a r r i v a l o f w e e k s , named ( a n d , h e n c e , o r d e r e d ) d a y s , number ed y e a r s b e g i n n i n g w i t h 1871 , and named m o n t h s ; i t a l s o e n t a i l e d t h e a r r i v a l o f t h e word " t i m e " , b o t h i n i t s p r o p e r E n g l i s h form and i n t h e t a i m o f t h e m i s s i o n a r i e s ' S o u t h Se a I s l a n d e r a i d e s and t r a i n e e s who s p o k e t h e p i d g i n E n g l i s h o f t h e S o u t h P a c i f i c m a r i t i m e i n d u s t r y . And t h e m i s s i o n a r i e s b r o u g h t c l o c k s , and t h e c a r d i n a l number s w h i c h c o u l d a c c o u n t f o r t w e n t y - f o u r h o u r s t o t h e d a y . ( i t may a l s o be t h a t c a l e n d r i c a l s e a s o n s a r r i v e d a l o n g w i t h t h e c a l e n d a r s , b u t t h e s e h a v e n e v e r b e e n a d o p t e d i n t o I s l a n d e r s p e e c h . )

What I want t o s u g g e s t i s t h a t t h e names o f n a t u r a l c y c l e s wer e names wh i ch r e c o g n i z e d t e m p o r a l i t y , b u t wh i c h d i d so by s i g n i f y i n g tempo and n o t ' t i m e ' . Each s e a s o n was h i s t o r i c a l i n s o f a r a s i t c o u l d be r e l a t e d t o some o t h e r e v e n t ( s ) ; i t was t e m p o r a l i n s o f a r a s i t f o l l o w e d t h e s e a s o n w h i c h i t was a f t e r . Each da y was d a y t i m e i n t o n i g h t t i m e i n t o d a y t i m e , w i t h d a y t i m e composed o f p h a s e s wh i c h were p r i m a r i l y names o f l i g h t - c o n t e n t ( p e r h a p s i n t h e same way t h a t f i r e s a r e t y p i f i e d by t h e i r c a s t l i g h t s i n t e r m s o f a m o u n t , c o l o u r , q u a l i t y , i n t e n s i t y ) . S e a s o n s and d a y s we re n e v e r h i s t o r i c a l e n t i t i e s . Each y e a r was n o t marked by b i r t h d a y s , f o r t h e r e was no way o f r e c k o n i n g one d a y f rom a n o t h e r . T h e r e we re no s i g n i f i c a n t a g e s , a k i n t o , s a y , age t w e n t y - o n e , f o r t h e r e was no way o f d i f f e r e n t i a t i n g one y e a r f rom a n o t h e r ( s a v e p l u s o r minus t w o - a n d - t w o y e a r s ago o r h e n c e ) . What t h e r e we re we re h a p p e n i n g s , n o t e w o r t h y d i f f e r e n c e s f r o m e x a m p l e s o f t h e n o r m a l g o i n g s - o n , o r n o v e l t h i n g s . Each r e m a r k a b l e e v e n t h a p p e n e d d u r i n g a da y d u r i n g a month d u r i n g a s e a s o n . But d a y s and m on th s and s e a s o n s a r e r e c o g n i t i o n s o f t e m p o s , and t empos a r e no more one t h i n g a f t e r a n o t h e r t h a n t h e y a r e one t h i n g b e f o r e a n o t h e r . I t was h i s t o r y wh i ch r e c o g n i z e d h a p p e n i n g s and c o n s t r u c t e d o f them t h e s u b s e q u e n c e o f I s l a n d t a i m .

Wrong Time

The preceding discussion is largely an interpretation of a distillation of my own understanding of Islandtaim. It is marked by two salient points of exegesis. The first is that Islandtaim is a no-thing, a formal designation of a style, a way of doing things, which, though it is called "— time" by its adherents, is in fact a demarcation of those things which do not happen in a time-frame. Islanders do occasionally specify exactly which time-frame an event is not happening in. They say, 'Islandtaim. Islandtaim. This isn't Aboriginal time!', or, 'We're doing that on Islandtaim, no kole taim.' The second point is that Islandtaim marks off a style of composing history according to what I have called subsequence, by which happenings are related historically to a single happening which they are after. In doing so, I am not proposing a calculus for deciding which happenings are former and which are latter. Formerly and latterly may be, in a logical calculus, related to one another in reverse (e.g. A. before B_ may be equal to _B after A). But in human affairs the reckoning of things in time has as much to do with how time happens as it does how things happen. Or, to borrow the words of Gregory Bateson (1977:147), "All descriptions are based on theories of how to make descriptions...And every description is based upon, and contains implicitly, a theory of how to describe."

What I want to do in this section is to examine some of the