What is the Australian National Maritime Museum Ilma collection?

ABSTRACT

The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) in their Darling Harbour warehouse store just over one thousand Ilma. The Ilma are performance symbols of Bardi law and custom, which tell stories of the lands and seas of the Dampier Peninsula, King Sound and surrounding islands of Western Australia. Ilma performances are public and meant for all to see. The ANMM in 2007 resourced detailed documentation of the collection. In 2018 the collection still does not appear on the online catalogue and remains unavailable for public view. While recent efforts have been put into the collection there are important questions to be raised about the responsibility of museums to collections that have contested meanings and serve multiple purposes.

KEYWORDS:

• Ilma
• Bardi
• performance
• theatre
• Australian National Maritime Museum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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3. Christopher Douglas Metcalfe, Bardi public corroborees, culture heroes, and narratives, 1970, AIATSIS, METCALFE_C01.

4. Ray Keogh, Groups recording Bardi ‘ilma’ songs and performing ‘Nyinydyi Nyinydyi’ and ‘Marinydyirnydyi’ corroborees, 1983, AIATSIS, KEOGH.R01.CN; Ray Keogh, Nurlu songs and associated information, 1983, AIATSIS, KEOGH_R01; Ray Keogh, Report on fieldwork in Broome, Jan. to June 1983, Sydney, 1983, AIATIS, PMS 3931; Ray Keogh, Field journal, Broome 1983, Broome, WA, 1983, AIATSIS, MS 1943; Ray Keogh, Headgear from Western Australia 1984, AIATSIS, KEOGH.R03.CS; Ray Keogh, ‘The Two Men: An Aboriginal Song Cycle from the Kimberleys’, B Mus Hons Thesis, University of Sydney, 1981; SA Treloyn, ‘Songs That Pull: Jadmi Junba from the Kimberley Region of Northwest Australia’, PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2006.

5. Bessie Ejai and Claire Bowern, Ilma, AIATSIS, BOWERN-EJAI_01; Gedda Aklif, Bardi language elicitation, songs and stories, sound cassette (90 min), 1994, AIATSIS, AKLIF_G04.

6. Donna Carstens, ‘Bardi Country and Culture: The Unspoken Language of Ilma’, Signals, vol. 112, 2015, pp. 60–1.

7. Mary Macha, personal communication, 8 April 2008.

8. Dept of Communication and the Arts, ‘Bardi Dancers’, arts.gov.au, available at <https://www.arts.gov.au/what-we-do/indigenous-arts-and-languages/festival-pacific-arts/australiandelegation-festival-pacific-arts-2016/bardi-dancers>, accessed 1 August 2018.

9. Jeremy Eccles and Barbara Spencer, ‘Took Indigenous Culture to World’, Sydney Morning Herald, Obituary, 2013; Jeremy Eccles, ‘Lance Bennett 1938–2013’, Aboriginal Art Directory, available at <https://news.aboriginalartdirectory.com/2013/03/lance-bennett-19382013.php>, accessed 26 May 2018.

10. Hetti Perkins and Mami Kataoka, ‘Revelations and Revolutions: Hetti Perkins in Conversation with Mami Kataoka’, Art Monthly Australia, no. 305, 2018, pp. 31–5.

11. Alistair McAlpine, Bagman to Swagman: Tales of Broome, the North-West and Other Australian Adventures, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1999; Alistair McAlpine, ‘Aboriginal Thinking’, World of Interiors, vol. 22, no. 8, 2002, p. 128.

12. McAlpine, Bagman to Swagman.

13. Ray Keogh, Groups recording Bardi ‘ilma’ songs and performing ‘Nyinydyi Nyinydyi’ and ‘Marinydyirnydyi’ corroborees.

14. Paul Dwyer, personal email communication, 26 March 2009.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dominique Sweeney

Dominique Sweeney lectures in acting at Charles Sturt University. He is a performer, creator and film-maker specialising in documenting performance practice. The research focuses on contemporary traditional Aboriginal theatre and the use of mask.