Via an exploration of Worora (Northern Kimberley, Australia) examples of social indexicality in the fields of ‘politeness’ and ‘avoidance/taboo’, this study demonstrates that the interaction of pragmatic (indexical) norms for contextualizing language and the local culture's ethno-metapragmatics defines the adequation of what Western ethno-metapragmatics comprehends in terms of 'directness' vs. 'indirectness'.