Sustaining Tiwi Song Practice through Kulama

Abstract

Tiwi traditional song practice is defined by the improvisation of occasion-specific song within an intricate linguistic and musical framework. Historically the Kulama ceremony (part of a graded system of ritual instruction) was the main locus of song learning and performance by both men and women. The Tiwi language and way of life have undergone massive changes in the last sixty years. With a rapidly dwindling number of old Tiwi men and women who have any knowledge of the old language or the skills of song composition and performance, Kulama ceremonies are falling out of practice and new Kulama songs are no longer being composed. In an attempt to keep these skills alive, elders are using repatriated ethnographic recordings as a teaching tool; not only to preserve the cultural and spiritual knowledge held in the old song texts, but also as linguistic and melodic source material for new ways of composing.

Notes

¹ For more on this, see Goodale (1971) and Gsell (1955).

² Priests’ opposition to Kulama and to Tiwi burial rituals is reported by my Tiwi consultants who themselves witnessed it and in Goodale (1971), Hart, Pilling, and Goodale (1988).

³ This process of receiving song words from non-humans also happens in the Wangga songs of the Daly and Belyuen regions, see Marett (2000). For Junba in the Kimberley, see Keogh (1989) and Treloyn (2006).

⁴ This performance presents the lines in the following order: a,b,a,b,c,c,a,b,a,d,d,d,e,e,e,e,f,f,g,f,g,f,g.

⁵ Shown in Figure 6 using accent marks.

⁶ This was an informal meeting on 5 March 2010 and I did not record Stephanie. She died a few months later. I have permission to include her name here.

⁷ As she sang just four lines, with no repetitions, I have numbered them accordingly.

⁸ Space does not allow me to provide the full performance transcription of the 1954 recording here. It can be found in metrical form in Osborne (1989) The audio is on AIATSIS recording Mountford 02,916.

⁹ This is a group of women in their fifties and sixties who are regarded with special esteem due to the cultural knowledge they hold in their role as singers.

¹⁰ One should note, however, that the Tiwi women’s group’s experience differs in that the Mission was established much earlier in their community (1913), with resulting removal from Tiwi culture and language beginning a generation earlier.

¹¹ For information on the Ngarukuruwala—we sing songs collaboration, see www.ngarukuruwala.org.

¹² Mrs Tipiloura’s leading role in this dance has had the extra outcome of re-affirming her place as a leading cultural elder and mentor, while connecting with Tiwi youth via the new arrangement.

¹³ The Tiwi women have used other melodies to create Tiwi songs in this way, rather than singing the original versions as covers or with Tiwi translations.

¹⁴ Advice from the Australasian Performing Rights Association is that the women are safe from litigation regarding the influence of the melody on their Nyingawi song.

¹⁵ The language (apart from the Kulama text, which is in Old Tiwi and the Nyingawis’ language) is what is called Modern Tiwi, a mid-way form of Tiwi that was spoken until about thirty years ago, but that has now been replaced by New Tiwi. The focus of this paper does not allow for a fuller discussion of the Tiwi language situation.

¹⁶ Note that the third line of text in the recorded performance (used for the transcription comparing melodic contours) differs slightly from the written text given to me by Mrs. Puruntatameri.

¹⁷ A discussion of the radical change of the Tiwi language over the last century is beyond the scope of this article but can be found in Lee (1987, 1988).

¹⁸ The third night of Kulama is the time for ayipa songs. This is the ‘show night’ when one’s best performances would come out to impress what would be a larger audience.

¹⁹ I do not have a recording or the Tiwi text of this song, but the English summary is interesting and sufficient for the purpose of making this point.

²⁰ Opinions voiced at public meeting Nguiu, March 2010.

²¹ The deaths of four elderly culture women in 2010/2011, including my primary consultant and the woman to whom even the men turned for advice on songwords, has had a devastating effect on the morale of the elders in the context of Kulama song culture.

²² I was involved in the repatriation of a large amount of recorded Tiwi song material to the Tiwi community from the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra in 2009 and 2010.

²³ As these would always include particular country, dreaming and ancestor names, set phrases can be learned by rote or slotted into an otherwise new composition.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Genevieve Campbell

Genevieve Campbell has worked for twenty years as a professional French horn player. In 2007 she instigated Ngarukuruwala—We Sing Songs, a collaborative music project between a group of Tiwi strong women and jazz musicians from Sydney. Her professional interest in Tiwi music in the context of contemporary performance and the desire to be part of the rediscovery and preservation of old Tiwi songs led to her current PhD candidature at the University of Sydney. Email: [email protected]