Documenting the Dreaming: Designs and Songs of the Present, in the Past, for the Future.

This paper is based on fieldwork carried out in 1981–82 with the Warlpiri women in Willowra, Northern Territory. The basis of discussion is the documentation of women's ceremonies and the return of the data many years later to this community. My role as an ethnographer in the past, and the potential outcomes of the reintroduction of ethnographic data, indicates there is much of value in the documentation of Indigenous cultural and intellectual heritage. Documenting religious ceremonies reveals a variety of values: that of the ethnographer in the documentation of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property; the intrinsic value of these material renditions to the tradition-bearers themselves; and the value of these contributions in applied community contexts. In regard to the community benefits of research and documentation, the paper addresses archival documentation for revitalisation of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]