Old males, largely ignored by the missionaries, were seeking to
regain some of their lost power and prestige.
This mild aggression proved hardly effective, but perhaps only because confidence
in any kind of magic on the mission was by this time at a low ebb.
For the
Yir Yoront
still in the bush, a time could be predicted when personal
deprivation and frustration in a confused culture would produce an overload of
anxiety. The mythical part of the totemic ancestors would disappear as a guarantee
of a present of which the future was supposed to be a stable continuation.