Sustaining Women'sYawulyu/Awelye: Some Practitioners' and Learners' Perspectives

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 performancebased 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.

Sharing and storing digital cultural records in Central Australian Indigenous communities

“…Nothing, they can just look at it [not perform it]. That’s why I say to my family, “You’re going to have to learn your culture.” (Barwick et al, 2013: 201)…”

Turning the Colonial Tide: Working towards a Reconciled Ethnomusicology in Australia

“…The reasons for this include the realities of losing senior members of communities and with them the loss of song cultures, a lack of interest from younger generations, the need for individuals to move away from communities for education, health and employment opportunities, and family responsibilities (e.g. Barwick, Laughren, Turpin 2013;Campbell 2012;Mackinlay 2009;Magowan 2007). …”

“…Audio and visual recording of performances within communities is also a way for Indigenous people to document their social histories and 'create counter-narratives to colonisation through the performance of song as story and survival' (Mackinlay 2010: 106). Recordings by ethnomusicologists are in fact becoming part of the sharing of knowledge between generations of performers, and as teaching and learning resources in schools (see Barwick, Laughren, and Turpin 2013). The repatriation of sound recordings made by previous generations of ethnomusicologists has also been another way for ethnomusicologists to assist communities in preserving and sometimes reviving traditions (see Campbell 2012).…”

Computer-Assisted Expressions of the Perspectives of Refugee Children in Resettlement

“…For example, by dancing and singing in Aboriginal ceremonies young women enter into cultural forms of understanding and connections to Aboriginal cultural law (Barwick, Laughren & Turpin, 2013). By writing letters to public officials, children make the authority of their war-related experiences part of public discourse (Daiute, 2016).…”