together with sugar and tobacco. The introduction of steel tools, it is argued, radically disrupted the culture, since even rock axes were not fashioned by the Yir-Yoront, whose territory was short on suitable rock outcrops, and who had to get them through long-distance trade and exchange networks. Once nearby purchase became accessible, the facility had a revolutionizing ripple down effect of disruption on the earlier exchange system, breaking the monopoly of the elders. Older men avoided initially the missions, and thus the young men and women could obtain the much-sought axes there without having to wait on their male elders, obey the ritual traditions, but simply in exchange for their labour at the missions. "They don't work" In 1958 Lauriston Sharp argued that the Yir-Yoront were devoid of politics because they could only think of relationship in terms of kinship system. This was cited in turn by Marshall Sahlins in his Stone Age Economics who argued that while what we call institutional differentiation exists among them, they do not, as civilized people do, draw a clear line between work and play. The economist Robert L. Heilbroner took this to mean that the concept of work was absent from the most primitive societies, such as the Trobriand Islanders, the !Kung and, citing for this Sahlins' ostensible authority, also the Yir-Yoront, who, he asserted 'use the same word for work and play'. Barry Alpher showed that though their word 'woq' looks like a post-colonial borrowing from English 'work', it can be paralleled in other aboriginal languages cf. 'wuku' attested in the Djabugay language. For the Yir-Yoront, therefore, woq is applied to 'activity of any kind done for a boss and/or (for) pay.' Heilbroner's prominent claim was flawed from the start. Alternative names Koka-mungin KokoMandjoen, Koko-manjoen Kokomindjan KokoMindjin, Kokominjan, KokoMinjen Yir-yiront Source: Some words wart'. (bad) wart'uwər. (woman) Notes Citations Sources Aboriginal peoples of Queensland Far North Queensland