Yama Karra Paay? When is it Going to Rain? The Regrowth and Renewal of Old Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri Songs to Empower the Cultural Identity of Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri People of New South Wales Today

Abstract

Songs of the Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri people were recorded and stored in archives, locked away from our communities for decades. With the surge of cultural revitalization activity across New South Wales in Australia, the repatriation and analysis of Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri songs comes with perfect timing. The archived songs are enriching the revitalization process and our song knowledge is being actively passed on through our old people on the recordings. The songs were taken from us as if they were sleeping far away in the clouds, but now Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri people are making that cloud rain.

Notes

1 Refer to the Glossary at the end of this article for this and other terms.

2 Wangaypuwan is a dialect of Ngiyampaa, therefore I use these names interchangeably.

3 Wirradhurri is a another spelling and pronunciation for the language name Wiradjuri.

4 An obvious difference between Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa cognates is that Ngiyampaa will drop the final consonant; for example, yabang in Wiradjuri will be yaba in Ngiyampaa. In this example, Babiinbal in Wiradjuri becomes Babiimba in Ngiyampaa.

5 For full translation, see the later Cultural Discussion section.

6 In the Ngiyampaa recordings, songs do not often have names, instead they are referred to by the key part of the story that the song is about.

7 See the Glossary.

8 I am not a fluent speaker of Ngiyampaa, only a partial speaker learning the language as the language is in the process of revitalization. I have learned some Ngiyampaa from my elders and I have immersed myself in the sound files of fluent Ngiyampaa speakers and have developed an intuition for what sounds right in the language. This has been called ‘radical trust’ by Raymond Kelly in his method of listening to sound files of his own Aboriginal languages (Kelly 2015).

9 This word has variations in spelling and pronunciation in neighbouring languages such as the Gamilaraay and Wiradjuri.

10 Corroboree was originally from the Sydney language (Troy 1993) as ‘garabara’ but is now used across NSW to represent traditional Aboriginal song and dance as public performances, and therefore I capitalize it as a proper noun.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jesse Hodgetts

Jesse Hodgetts is a Ngiyampaa and Wiradjuri man and was born and raised on Darkinyung country. Jesse is a singer and educator and is a member of the academic team at the Wollotuka Institute for the University of Newcastle, teaching and researching in the areas of Aboriginal education, language and song. He is exploring historic cultural songs and how they can inform Aboriginal song, language and cultural revitalization in NSW today. E-mail: [email protected]