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Abstract
In 2010 the authors visited various Central Australian communities, including Willowra, Tennant Creek, Alekarenge, Barrow Creek and Ti Tree, to interview some of our research collaborators past and present about how they saw the present and future of their yawulyu/awelye traditions. Yawulyu (in Warlpiri and Warumungu) and Awelye (in Kaytetye and other Arandic languages) are cognate names for women's country-based rituals, including songs, dancing, ritual objects and knowledge surrounding particular country and Dreaming stories. In the course of our research we spoke to women from different communities, different age groups, different language groups, and different clans, seeking to open discussion about past and contemporary practices of learning, performing and teaching this performance-based knowledge, to help us understand what the practitioners saw as the most fruitful ways of sustaining the traditions, as well as what difficulties they saw in their way. In this article we present statements from many of the women interviewed, highlighting the key issues that emerged and discussing the importance of recordings and other documentation of performances for the future sustainability of the various yawulyu/awelye traditions discussed.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank all of their friends in Central Australia who helped with this research. Barwick and Turpin's work described here was carried out as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage Project ‘Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures’ (LP0989243; lead institution Griffith University), while Laughren's participation was funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project ‘Warlpiri Songlines’ (LP0560567; lead institution Australian National University).
Notes
1 This research was funded by the 2009 Australian Research Council Linkage Project ‘Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: Towards an Ecology of Musical Diversity’.
2 We checked all statements reproduced here with the interviewees, and their families if appropriate. The body of data collected also forms the basis of the 2012 report (Barwick and Turpin Citation2012).
3 We had also planned to work in Barrow Creek but due to a death in the community were unable to do so.
4 For information on the history of this community and its women through their own eyes, see Vaarzon-Morel (Citation1995).
5 For details of the DVD, see Laughren et al. (Citation2010).
6 ML = Mary Laughren.
7 The station was established in the 1930s, but began to be developed more extensively after 1946 (see Vaarzon-Morel Citation1995).
8 Kathy is referring to the unveiling of the memorial plaque at Jarrajarra (north of Wirliyajarrayi, west of Alekarenge) in 2008, built in remembrance of those killed in the 1928 Coniston massacre. See the Kaititj/Warlpiri traditional land claim hearing and television film about the Coniston killings (Plasto Citation1982). Figure shows the yawulyu performance on this occasion, with the performers led by Kathy.
9 In contrast, this is not a context for Arandic awelye ceremonies.
10 Laughren and Curran's research was funded by Australian Research Council Linkage Grant ‘Warlpiri Songlines’ (LP0560567). DVD production costs were funded from Natural Resource Management Board N.T. Indigenous Ecological Knowledge Program (Central Land Council) and the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Arcadia Trust.
11 Dianne Stokes Nampin talking to Linda Barwick, Tennant Creek (Nyinkka Nyunyu), 17 July 2010, T100717a. Video recording by Myfany Turpin. Transcribed by Linda Barwick. All of our 2010 recordings were made as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project ‘Sustainable futures for music cultures’ (LP0989243).
12 There is a much larger body of men's songs that are restricted and not suitable for public occasions.
13 Nappanangka's daughter Carol Fitz-Slade Nakkamarra, a friend of Barwick for many years, sat in on the interview and made occasional comments.
14 As mentioned in the interview and discussed further below.
15 Bunny signs herself thus. Her skin (subsection) name is Napurrurla (Warlpiri), equivalent to Narrurlu (Warumungu).
16 This interview (T100715a) was recorded on 15 July 2010 by Myfany Turpin, with conversation led by Barwick with Kathleen Fitz Nappanangka, Bunny Naburula and Carol Fitz-Slade Nakkamarra. It was conducted mainly in English (sometimes Aboriginal English) with a few segments in Warumungu.
17 Dussart (Citation2000) gives a detailed account of the handover of ceremonial authority from one woman to another in the Warlpiri community of Yuendumu in the 1980s.
18 The owner/manager relationship (kirda/kurdungurlu) in Warlpiri, as previously discussed in relation to Wirliyajarrayi, is referred to as mangayi or kampaju in Warumungu, while managers are purlungalkki or kurtungurlu.
19 The annual Women's Law and Culture Meetings are sponsored by the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council and the Central and Northern Land Councils.
20 Rosemary Narrurlu Plummer talking to Linda Barwick, Tennant Creek, 16 July 2010 (T100716a). Video recording by Myfany Turpin. Transcribed by Linda Barwick.
21 In fact, this song is track nine on the CD; and track four is ‘Tarrarantarrarara’, one of the song texts entirely in mungamunga language. Evidently Narrurlu accidentally reversed the track numbers in our discussion. The selection of the Kalanjirri song was later confirmed both with Mrs Fitz Nappanangka and Rosemary Plummer Narrurlu herself.
23 According to the Warlpiri-English dictionary, the English translation of WUYUWUYU-YIRRA-RNI (V) is ‘press down on, massage, pummel, rub, rub down’ (Laughren and Warlpiri Lexicography Group Citation2005); in relation to spinifex resin, the translation would be ‘rolling between one's hands’, ‘bending and straightening it’.
24Freedom Road was shortlisted for the 2010 NT Indigenous Music Awards shortly before the untimely death of the band leader and composer B. Murphy.
25 Maureen is one of the poets featured in McDonnell (Citation2010).
26 Molly O'Keefe played a major role in Aboriginal Land Commission (1980) and Plasto (Citation1982).
27 Interview with Maureen O'Keeffe and Mona Haywood by Myfany Turpin, Jarrajarra road near Alekarenge, 18 July 2010 (T100718c). Video recording by Linda Barwick. Transcribed by Myfany Turpin.
28 The onus on the learner is also observed by Hale (Citation1984).
29 Prior to this event, the last festival at Alekarenge featuring ceremony was probably the 1978 Purlapa Wiri, which Laughren attended in her capacity as linguist for the NT Education Department.
30 Interview with Alison Ross by Myfany Turpin, Arnerre outstation, 21 June 2010. Recorded and transcribed by Myfany Turpin.
31 Funded by the Australian Research Council, DP1092887, ‘Singing the Dreaming’.
32 The importance of camping out on country with elders to learn awelye and the difficult logistics involved was also highlighted by Kaytetye school teacher Alison Ross (Ross, personal communication 2008).
33 A number of documentation projects in central Australia are discussed in Turpin (Citation2011).
34 For example, Myfany Turpin has documented 75 songs of the awelye repertory from Antarrengeny, of which 57 are published in Turpin and Ross (2013).
35 Interview with Aileen Perrwerl by Myfany Turpin, Ti-Tree, 21 July 2010 (T100721a). Recorded and transcribed by Myfany Turpin. Translated by April Campbell.
36 Interview with April Campbell by Myfany Turpin, Ti-Tree, 20 July 2010 (T100720a). Audio recording by Linda Barwick. Transcribed by Myfany Turpin.
37 Clarrie plays a vital role in traditional culture and features on the DVD by Lisa Watts, April Campbell, Clarrie Kemarre, and Myfany Turpin, Mer Rrkwer-Akert (Citation2009) (two video discs, forty-nine minutes, Charles Darwin University Central Australian Research Network).
38Awely Rrkwer-akert is one of two DVDs in Mer Rrkwer-akert (2009) produced by Lisa Watts, April Campbell, Clarrie Kemarre, and Myfany Turpin.
39 In July 2011, April, Aileen, Clarrie and some fifteen other Anmatyerr custodians teamed up with the Central Land Council, Batchelor Institute and researchers Myfany Turpin and Jenny Green (University of Melbourne) for a fieldtrip to document the places, Dreamings and awelye of April's own country, Ngenty (DVD forthcoming).
40 See < http://artbacknt.com.au/dancesite.html>; accessed 28 October 2013.
41 The Arrernte term awelye usually refers to a healing ceremonial genre; and while some people refer to public women's ceremonies by this name, others use the term arrartenh-artenhe. To avoid misunderstanding, we use the term ‘women’s ceremonies' to refer to Arrernte public women's ceremonies akin to yawulyu/awelye.
42 Agnes is probably referring to a time in the late 1970s. Interview with Agnes Abbott by Myfany Turpin, Akeyularre, 16 March 2010. Recorded and transcribed by Myfany Turpin. Translated by MK Turner. (T100316a)
43 Interview with Agnes Abbot and L Cavenagh by MK Turner. Recorded by Jenny Green, 1993. Transcribed by Jenny Green and Myfany Turpin. Translated by MK Turner. (JG_020306)
44 Performances include the Yeperenye festival (2000), DanceSite (2010), Law and Culture meetings and various openings, such as the Central Land Council office in 2009.
45 As mentioned, women also have interests in their mother's and their mother's mother's clan country and songs, but their primary ceremonial relationship is to the yawulyu/awelye of their father's clan country.
46 Historical documentation of yawulyu/awelye performances, such as those discussed by Berndt, Dussart and Glowczewski, shows that in the past performances consisted of many more song texts than are typically performed today (see Glowczewski Citation1991; Dussart Citation2000; Berndt Citation1950).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Linda Barwick
Linda Barwick is Professor and Associate Dean (Research) at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, and past Director of the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC). She has undertaken musicological fieldwork in Italy, Australia and the Philippines, and has published widely on Australian Indigenous Music, Italian traditional music, and ethnographic e-humanities. She has a particular interest in working with communities to provide local access to research, and in collaboration with linguist colleagues and song composers has produced richly documented multimedia publications and archival deposits of various Indigenous song traditions. Recent publications include the monograph co-authored with Allan Marett and Lysbeth Ford For the Sake of a Song: Wangga Songmen and Their Repertories (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2013), and the co-edited volume Italy in Australia's Musical Landscape (ed. Linda Barwick & Marcello Sorce Keller. Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2012). Email: [email protected]
Mary Laughren
Mary Laughren is a linguist who received her doctorate from the University of Nice, France. Laughren has collaborated with anthropologists, musicologists, linguists and Warlpiri people to systematically document traditional Warlpiri songs. She is affiliated with The University of Queensland as an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies. Email: [email protected]
Myfany Turpin
Myfany Turpin has spent more than 15 years researching Aboriginal languages and songs of central Australia. She has compiled a dictionary of the Kaytetye (pronounced KAY-ditch) language, a learner's guide, a CD of their traditional women's songs as well as numerous scholarly articles on song-poetry. She is currently a post-doctoral Fellow at The University of Queensland, where she is researching the relationship between language and music in Central Australian singing traditions. Email: [email protected]