Sustaining Indigenous Songs: Contemporary Warlpiri Ceremonial Life in Central Australia

by Georgia Curran

206 pp., illustrated, Berghahn Books, 2020,

ISBN: 9781789206074 (hbk), £99.00

Review by Myfany Turpin

University of Sydney

Sustaining Indigenous Songs (2020) is a recently published ethnography based on fieldwork in Yuendumu, a predominantly Warlpiri-speaking community in the Northern Territory. At least nine anthropological monographs have come out of Yuendumu in the last 50 years,¹ making for a rich diachronic study of social life in a central Australian community.

Unlike the other publications, Sustaining Indigenous Songs focuses on music. It is an ethnographic account of the place of Aboriginal ‘classical’ performance traditions in contemporary Warlpiri life.² Although there has been significant research on a number of classical traditions in Central Australia, Sustaining Indigenous Songs is the first published ethnography on these traditions since R. Moyle’s Balgo Music (1997), which was based on fieldwork in the early 1980s in Western Australia. Perhaps one of the reasons for the scant number of ethnomusicological studies in this region is because of the hesitancy around sharing sacred music (in the sense that these songs come from the Jukurrpa ‘Dreaming’ rather than individuals), but another reason is that much of this music is ‘being disappeared’.³

In the words of Warlpiri elder Otto Jungarrayi Simms, ‘Songs keep us safe—we are lost without them’ (p. x). Ironically the songs that keep Warlpiri safe are not themselves safe. Song keepers are passing away before the next generation can get a grip on them, and the contexts for learning them are now less frequent and learning is possibly even more challenging with large numbers of people now in attendance (p. 39). Sustaining Indigenous Songs focuses on the most dominant ceremonial genre in contemporary Warlpiri society (p. 143), a rite of passage known as kurdiji, ‘ceremony for making young men’ (p. 7). As song is fundamental to kurdiji, one can understand how Jungarrayi might imagine a sense of aimlessness should these songs disappear.

Sustaining Indigenous Songs is a step towards keeping Warlpiri songs safe. The author was enlisted as a PhD student to work on the Warlpiri Songlines Project in 2005, and tasked with documenting the classical Warlpiri singing practices or ‘high culture’ (p. 139) under the guidance of Warlpiri elders and academics with long-standing relationships with people at Yuendumu. Elders directed Curran what to record, when to turn on the tape recorder and when to stop; as well as who to work with, as songs are the property of particular family groups (p. 21). The book demonstrates the ‘intellectual substance of their songs’ (p. 8) through analysis of song texts and their relationship to Warlpiri philosophy. Building upon previous research across the central Australian region, Sustaining Indigenous Songs also considers continuity and change in ceremonial practices at Yuendumu.

The Introduction situates the reader in the three days leading up to the first kurdiji ceremony that the author participated in. Her fieldwork involved not only participation in everyday life but also recording, transcribing and translating songs with appointed Warlpiri people (p. 7). Chapter 1 describes the role of classical performance traditions in Indigenous Australia, their relationship to world-view, and the impact of historical factors on their status today. The previous chapter reveals that kurdiji had not been performed at Yuendumu for some five years due to family feuds (perhaps heightened by the move to settlement life in the mid-twentieth century). We learn too that a number of government-funded organisations in Yuendumu now provide financial and logistic support for these traditions, seeing this as a positive step to addressing social and health problems in the community. Chapter 2 focuses on the social history of the region, social organisation, daily life and social changes that occurred since the first permanent presence of non-Indigenous people in the Warlpiri region, which began with a pastoral lease in 1917 (p. 28). Chapter 3 outlines the various Warlpiri ceremonial genres, contexts for their performance and their relevance to modern life. The multi-modal nature of ceremonies – painting up, dancing, singing – is discussed and the notion of ‘song’ defined. There is a distinction between song ‘verses’ and song ‘items’ illustrated by way of three musical transcriptions, which are multiple items of the same verse (pp. 56–57). Although not explained in the text, it can be seen from the figures that ‘items’ have the same verse and melodic shape (‘melodic contour’, p. 55) but differ in the way these two elements combine and their degree of repetition.

Chapter 4 is the most significant in the book and focuses entirely on kurdiji, the ceremonial genre that has fared best at Yuendumu. The structure, choreography, roles performed by different kin and the meanings of the verses are considered. The verses evoke nostalgia through reference to places, while simultaneously connoting moral codes, religion and philosophy through refence to the actions of Dreaming ancestors. In Chapter 5 Curran argues that Warlpiri people’s analysis of the songs in real time guides what happens in ceremonial performance and, in turn, how ceremonial action is understood in relation to interpretations of their accompanying verses. It also considers how ceremonial practices such as kurdiji are ‘vital in passing on cultural values across generations … [through] incorporative performance practices’ (p. 122).

Despite the many changes in ceremonial and related social practices, such as how marriage partners established through ceremony now rarely eventuate (p. 140), the conclusion asserts that ‘No Warlpiri person questions the power of song to change the world’ (p. 139). Yet ability to sing and interpret ceremonial songs lies with an ever-shrinking pool of people. Whether today’s hummers (what one does when not entirely sure of the words) convert to singers remains to be seen. The Appendix presents an excellent tool to help achieve this. It is an accessible a record of verses from a 2007 performance kurdiji to which future generations can turn when the knowledgeable elders have gone. For each verse, there is the Warlpiri text, a free translation in English, exegesis and a list of the words and ‘song words’ (words not used in everyday speech) on which the verse is based, plus their meanings. In contrast to many other classical Indigenous ceremonies, here there are no verses whose words or meanings are unknown. This points to the breadth of ceremonial knowledge held by the late schoolteacher Jeannie Nungarrayi Egan and Thomas Jangala Rice, who transcribed and translated the songs with the author. It also points to the richness of the Warlpiri dictionary.⁴ Unfortunately the rhythm of each verse is not included, nor any accompanying actions or visuals; however, this is perhaps understandable given the multidisciplinary expertise required and the complexities of capturing this during large scale ceremonies. Documenting the multi-modal elements associated with individual verses and the kurdiji ceremony remains for future work.

Sustaining Indigenous Songs is an excellent read for anyone interested in classical Aboriginal performance traditions in contemporary times and will be of immediate use to Warlpiri people pursuing ceremonial education.

References

Burke, Paul. An Australian Indigenous Diaspora: Warlpiri Matriarchs and the Refashioning of Tradition. New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2018.

Dussart, Francois. Politics of Ritual in an Aboriginal Settlement: Kinship, Gender and the Currency of Knowledge. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.

Hinkson, Melinda. Remembering the Future: Warlpiri Life through the Prism of Drawing. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2014.

Hinkson, Melinda. See How We Roll: Enduring Exile between Desert and Urban Australia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021.

Jackson, Michael. Minima Ethnographica: Intersubjectivity and the Anthropological Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Laughren, Mary, comp. Warlpiri to English Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, in press.

Morris, Shireen, ed. A Rightful Place: A Road Map to Recognition. Carlton, Vic.: Black Inc., 2017.

Munn, Nancy. Warlbiri Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central Australian Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973.

Musharbash, Yasmine. Yuendumu Everyday: Intimacy, Immediacy and Mobility in a Remote Aboriginal Settlement. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008.

Saethre, Eirik. Illness is a Weapon: Indigenous Identity and Enduring Afflictions. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2013.

Schippers, Huib and Catherine Grant. Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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