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This chapter outlines how Ford, Barwick and Marett have collaborated to develop, implement, and critically evaluate a research project that integrates and remains true to both Indigenous and western academic knowledge systems. The context is the ceremonies of the Tyikim people from remote, rural and urban areas in the Wagait-Daly region of the Top End of Northern Territory, and in particular, the series of ceremonies that followed the death of Ford’s mother in 2007. We outline the processes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaboration that underpinned the performance and documentation of the ceremonies and, more specifically, how this process can be seen through the Indigenous knowledge framework mirrwana-wurrkama, developed by Ford based on her family’s traditional cycad nut processing practices. Australian Research Council DP0450131, DP1096897

This article covers issues around song language interpretation and documentation in relation to a djanba song in Murriny Patha language composed by Lawrence Kolumboort (djanba 11). Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant DP0450131

The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia was conceived at Gunyangara in Arnhem Land during the inaugural Indigenous Performance Symposium in August 2002. The symposium was funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and hosted by the Yothu Yindi Foundation (YYF) as part of the fourth Garma Festival of Traditional Culture. Indigenous communities have used recording technologies to circulate and support the inter-generational transmission of their performance traditions for several decades now. Many Indigenous performers now keep recordings of their forebears’ past performances and listen to them for inspiration before performing themselves. In recent years, community digital archives have been set up in various Australian Indigenous communities. Not only can recordings reinforce memory and facilitate the recovery of lost repertoire, they can also provide inspiration for creative extensions of tradition. This paper reports on the outcomes of pilot studies undertaken in 2005 to develop and trial appropriate procedures and methodologies, and establish infrastructure requirements for the project. Ultimately, the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia hopes to aid Indigenous communities in sustaining cultural survival by stimulating lifelong interest in performance traditions through its serial recording and documentation initiatives, and the collections that it will deposit in local repositories for perpetual community access. Australian Research Council, University of Sydney, Yothu Yindi Foundation, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

This paper reflects on a set of anxieties concerning the relationship between living traditions of song and dance and the body of audio recordings of these traditions that have been generated in the course of my research. To what extent can the recordings be considered representative of the performance tradition and what role do they play in my research methodology? What are the best ways to make these recordings available to the communities from which they emanated? It seems almost inevitable that we should use our recordings as a lens through which to view aspects of a musical culture, and that the imperfection of the lens should cause us concern. But how do our interlocutors regard the recordings? How are they framed within their culture? To what extent does an understanding of these matters free us from our anxieties? In this paper I will examine how people in the Daly region of North Australia locate sound recordings within their cosmology, and how they, and other Aboriginal people in northern Australia, use archival recordings as integral elements of their traditions as sources for new creativity, to assist in the recovery of forgotten songs, as educational resources and as the focal point of discussions with visiting researchers. I will also discuss ways in which these insights have affected the design of a local archive set up in 2002 in the Daly community of Belyuen. Australian Research Council; the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; Hong Kong University Grants Committee; Australian Academy of the Humanities; Australian E-Humanities Network; Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney; School of Society, Culture and Performance, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney

It is widely reported in Australia and elsewhere that songs are considered by culture bearers to be the “crown jewels” of endangered cultural heritages whose knowledge systems have hitherto been maintained without the aid of writing. It is precisely these specialised repertoires of our intangible cultural heritage that are most endangered, even in a comparatively healthy language. Only the older members of the community tend to have full command of the poetics of song, even in cases where the language continues to be spoken by younger people. Taking a number of case studies from Australian repertories of public song (wangga, yawulyu, lirrga, and junba), we explore some of the characteristics of song language and the need to extend language documentation to include musical and other dimensions of song performances. Productive engagements between researchers, performers and communities in documenting songs can lead to revitalisation of interest and their renewed circulation in contemporary media and contexts. Australian Research Council