Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T15:50:38.662Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conceptualizing Noongar Song

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Clint Bracknell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As of 2011, an estimated 669,900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accounted for 3 per cent of Australia's total population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015). Of that population, over 30,000 people from a uniquely large urban/rural area in the southwest of Western Australia—including the author of this article—identify as Noongar (also spelled Nyungar). This makes Noongar one of the largest Aboriginal cultural groups in Australia (SWALSC 2009; see figure 1); and yet, the Noongar language is critically endangered, with just 369 speakers acknowledged in the 2011 Australian census (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015). Noongar language is not unique in this regard; the most recent National Indigenous Languages Survey indicates that only “around 120” of more than two hundred Aboriginal languages are still spoken and that “about 13 can be considered strong” (Marmion, Obata, and Troy 2014:xii). Music traditions, often strongly tied to language, are disappearing too: approximately 98 per cent of Aboriginal musical traditions have been lost since colonization (Corn 2012:240). As is the case with most of Aboriginal Australia, traditional Noongar music is primarily vocal, featuring lyrics in the Noongar language. This implies an inextricable link between Noongar language and Noongar song traditions, a co-dependency that is critical for the vitality of both.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 49 , 2017 , pp. 92 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 By The International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Alpher, Barry 1991 Yir-Yoront Lexicon: Sketch and Dictionary of an Australian Language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, Francis 1836 “Manners and Habits of the Aborigines of Australia.” Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (12 November): 797.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2015 Census. http://www.abs.gov.au/census (accessed 6 April 2015).Google Scholar
Barwick, Linda 1999 Preliminary Report on Song and Language in the Goldfields Region. Kalgoorlie: Goldfields Land Council.Google Scholar
2006 “A Musicologist's Wishlist: Some Issues, Practices and Practicalities in Musical Aspects of Language Documentation Volume 3.” In Language Documentation and Description, ed. Peter Austin, 53–62. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project.Google Scholar
Bates, Daisy 1904–12 Papers of Daisy Bates in the Southwest MS 365. Perth: J.S. Battye Library of Western Australian History.Google Scholar
1910 “Native Shepherding: An Experience of the Perth Carnival.” Western Mail (12 February): 45.Google Scholar
1985 The Native Tribes of Western Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia.Google Scholar
Bennell v State of Western Australia 2006 Federal Court of Australia 1243. http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=252 (accessed 20 August 2016).Google Scholar
Bracknell, Clint 2014 “Wal-Walang-al Ngardanginy: Hunting the Songs (of the Australian Southwest).” Australian Aboriginal Studies 1:3–15.Google Scholar
2015 “'Say You're a Nyungarmusicologist': Indigenous Research on Endangered Music.” Musicology Australia 37/2:199–217.Google Scholar
2016 “Singing Back to the Archive.” Westerly 60/2:92–104.Google Scholar
von Brandenstein, Carl Georg 1967–70 VON-BRANDENSTEIN_C04, Sound Recordings Collected by Carl Von Brandenstein. Canberra: AIATSIS Audiovisual Archive.Google Scholar
1988 Noongar Anew. Canberra: Pacific Linguists.Google Scholar
von Brandenstein, Carl Georg, and Thomas, Anthony 1974 Taruru: Aboriginal Song Poetry from the Pilbara. Adelaide: Rigby.Google Scholar
Brown, Hazel 2002 Word List. Perth: Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project.Google Scholar
Brown, Robert, David Moore, Tom Vallance, and Groves, Eric 2001 Nature's Investigator : The Diary of Robert Brown in Australia, 1801–1805. Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study.Google Scholar
Browner, Tara 2000 “Making and Singing Pow-Wow Songs: Text, Form, and the Significance of Culture-Based Analysis.” Ethnomusicology 44/2:214–33.Google Scholar
Bussell, Alfred 1937 “South West Legends: How Wooditch Won His Bride.” The West Australian (25 September): 5.Google Scholar
Calvert, Albert 1894 The Aborigines of Western Australia. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent.Google Scholar
Clark, Ian D., Mühlhäusler, Peter, and Amery, Rob 1996 “Language Contacts and Pidgin English in Victoria.” In Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, ed. Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler and Darrell T Tryon, 53–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corn, Aaron 2012 “Now and in the Future: The Role of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia in Sustaining Indigenous Music and Dance Traditions.” MUSICultures 39/1:231–50.Google Scholar
Corn, Aaron, and Gumbula, Joseph Neparrnga 2007 “Budutthun Ratja Wiyinymirri: Formal Flexibility in the Yolngu Manikay Tradition and the Challenge of Recording a Complete Repertoire.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:116–27.Google Scholar
Crystal, David 2000 Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dench, Alan 1994 “Noongar.” In Macquarie Aboriginal Words, ed. Nicholas Thieberger and William McGregor, 173–92. Sydney: The Macquarie Library.Google Scholar
Donaldson, Tamsin 1979 “Translating Oral Literature: Aboriginal Song Texts.” Aboriginal History 3:62–83.Google Scholar
1990 “Patakirraparaaypuwan in Western New South Wales.” In Language and History: Essays in Honour of Luise A. Hercus, ed. Peter Austin and Luise Hercus, 21–27. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Donaldson, Tamsin, Gummow, Margaret, and Wild, Stephen 1998 “Southeastern Australia.” In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 9: Australia and the Pacific Islands: Part 3 Peoples of Oceania and Their Music: The Music and Dance of Australia, ed. Adrienne Kaeppler and J. W Love, 465–69. London: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Douglas, Wilfred 1968 The Aboriginal Languages of the South- West of Australia. Canberra: ALAS.Google Scholar
Ellis, Catherine, and Barwick, Linda 1987 “Musical Syntax and the Problem of Meaning in a Central Australian Songline.” Musicology Australia 10/1:41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas 1995 A Grammar of Kayardild: With Historical-Comparative Notes on Tangkic. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feld, Steven and Fox, Aaron A. 1994 “Music and Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 23:25–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gammage, Bill 2012 The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Martin 2003 “Nebinyan's Songs: An Aboriginal Whaler of the South West.” Aboriginal History 27/1:11–20.Google Scholar
Glowczewski, Barbara 1999 “Dynamic Cosmologies and Aboriginal Heritage.” Anthropology Today 15:3–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, Roy 1934 “Aboriginal Poets as Historians.” Mankind 1:243–46.Google Scholar
Green, Neville, and Mulvaney, John 1992 Eds. Commandment of Solitude: The Journals of Collet Barker 1828–1831. Carlton: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Grey, George 1840 A Vocabulary of the Dialects of South-Western Australia. London: T. and W. Boone.Google Scholar
1841 Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North- West and Western Australia: During the Years 1837, 38, and 39. London: T. and W Boone.Google Scholar
Gummow, Margaret 1992 “Aboriginal Songs From the Bundjalung and Gidabal Areas of South-Eastern Australia.” PhD dissertation, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Hammond, Jesse 1933 Winjan's People: The Story of the South-West Australian Aborigines. Perth: Imperial Printing.Google Scholar
Haebich, Anna 2000 Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800–2000. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.Google Scholar
Haebich, Anna, and Morrison, Jim 2014 From Karaoke to Noongaroke: A Healing Combination of Past and Present. Griffith Review 44:1–8.Google Scholar
Hassell, Ethel 1936 “Notes on the Ethnology of the Wheelman Tribe of Southwestern Australia.” Anthropos 31/5–6:679–711.Google Scholar
Jebb, Mary Anne, and Marmion, Doug 2015 “Singing the Train: A Nyamal Song is Heard Again.” In The Music of Endangered Languages: FEL XIX—NOLA, ed. Nicholas Ostler and Brenda Lintinger, 122–27. Hungerford: Foundation for Endangered Languages.Google Scholar
King, Phillip Parker 1827 Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia: Performed Between the Years 1818 and 182. Vol. II. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Keogh, Ray 1990 “Nurlu Songs of the West Kimberleys.” PhD dissertation, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Koch, Grace 2008 “Music and Land Rights: Archival Recordings as Documentation for Australian Aboriginal Land Claims.” Fontes Artis Musicae 55/1:155–64.Google Scholar
Koch, Grace, and Turpin, Myfany 2008 “The Language of Central Australian Aboriginal Songs.” Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science Series 4/298:167–83.Google Scholar
Laurisden, Jan 1983 Musical Scales in Australian Aboriginal Songs: Structure and Social Implications. PhD dissertation, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Laves, Gerhardt 1931 The Laves Papers: Text in Kurin. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).Google Scholar
List, George 1963 “The Boundaries of Speech and Song.” Ethnomusicology 7/1:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyon, Robert Menli 1833 “A Glance at the Manners and Language of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Western Australia with a Short Vocabulary.” Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (30 March): 52.Google Scholar
Macfaull, Charles 1833a “The Western Australian Journal.” Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (19 October): 166.Google Scholar
1833b “Anecdotes of the King George's Sound Natives.” Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (17 August) : 130.Google Scholar
Mackinlay, Elizabeth 2005 “Memories in the Landscape: The Role of Performance in Naming, Knowing, and Claiming Yanyuwa Country.” Journal of Australian Studies 29/86:83–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marett, Allan 1991 “Wangga Songs of Northwest Australia: Reflections on the Performance of Aboriginal Music at the Symposium of the International Musicological Society ‘88.” Musicology Australia 14:37–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marett, Allan, and Barwick, Linda 2007 “Musical and Linguistic Perspectives on Aboriginal Song.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:1–5.Google Scholar
Marmion, Doug, Obata, Kazuko, and Troy, Jakelin 2014 Community, Identity, Wellbeing: The Report of the Second National Indigenous Languages Survey. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).Google Scholar
Millett, Edward 1872 An Australian Parsonage, or, the Settler and the Savage in Western Australia. London: Edward Stanford.Google Scholar
Moisala, Pirkko 1995 “Cognitive Study of Music as Culture: Basic Premises for ‘Cognitive Ethnomusicology.'” Journal of New Music Research 24/1:8–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, George Fletcher 1833 “From a Correspondent.” The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (1 June): 87.Google Scholar
1835 “Excursion to the Northward.” The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (2 May): 486–87.Google Scholar
1842 A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use Amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia. London: William S. Orr and Co.Google Scholar
Moyle, Alice 1974 “North Australian Music: A Taxonomic Approach to the Study of Aboriginal Song Performances.” PhD dissertation, Monash University.Google Scholar
Nind, Isaac Scott 1831 “Description of the Natives of King George's Sound (Swan River Colony) and Adjoining Country.” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 1:21–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, Geoffrey N. 1984 “The Evolution of Verbs of Singing in Pama-Nyungan.” In Problems and Solutions: Occasional Essays in Musicology Presented to Alice M Moyle, ed. Jamie C. Kassler and Jill Stubington, 382–84. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger.Google Scholar
Pilling, Arnold 1958 “Law and Feud in an Aboriginal Society of North Australia.” PhD dissertation, University of California-Berkeley.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Amanda 1994 “Tiwi Music: An Examination of Yoi and Kuruwala.” PhD dissertation, Australian National University Canberra.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Henry 1982 The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. Ringwood: Pelican Books.Google Scholar
Rose, Deborah Bird 1996 Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness. Canberra: Australian Heritage Comission.Google Scholar
Scott, Kim, and Brown, Hazel 2005 Kayang and Me. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Press.Google Scholar
Scott, Kim, and Woods, Iris 2011 Mamang. Crawley: University of Western Australia Publishing.Google Scholar
Stubington, Jill 1979 “North Australian Aboriginal Music.” In Australian Aboriginal Music, ed. Jennifer Isaacs, 7–19. Sydney: Aboriginal Artists Agency.Google Scholar
2007 Singing the Land: The Power of Performance in Aboriginal Life. Strawberry Hills: Currency House.Google Scholar
von Sturmer, John 1987 “Aboriginal Singing and Notions of Power.” In Songs of Aboriginal Australia (Oceania Monograph 32), ed. Margaret Clunies Ross, Tamsin Donaldson, and Stephen Wild, 63–76. Sydney: University of Sydney.Google Scholar
SWALSC 2009 South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council. http://www.noongar.org.au (accessed 20 August 2016).Google Scholar
Thieberger, Nicholas 1986 THIE-YOUNG_01, Ngatju Project, Language Elicitation and Songs, WA. Canberra: AIATSIS Audiovisual Archive.Google Scholar
Tindale, Norman 1966–68 TINDALE_N07, Site Information, Songs, Cultural Discussions from South-West WA. Canberra: AIATSIS Audiovisual Archive.Google Scholar
Treloyn, Sally 2006 “Songs That Pull: Composition/Performance through Musical Analysis.” Context: Journal of Music Research 31:151–64.Google Scholar
Walsh, Michael 2007 “Australian Aboriginal Song Language: So Many Questions, So Little To Work With.” Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:128–44.Google Scholar
White, Isobel 1980 “The Birth and Death of a Ceremony.” Aboriginal History 4/1:33–42.Google Scholar
Whitehurst, Rose 1992 Noongar Dictionary: Noongar to English and English to Noongar. Bunbury: Noongar Language and Cultural Centre.Google Scholar
Will, Udo 2004 “Oral Memory in Australian Song Performance and the Parry-Kirk Debate: A Cognitive Ethnomusicological Perspective.” In Music-Archaeological Sources: Finds, Oral Transmission, Written Evidence: Papers from the 3rd Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archeology, 9–16 June 2002, ed. Ellen Hickmann and Ricardo Eichmann, 161–79. Rahden/Westf., Germany: VML Verlag Marie Leidorf.Google Scholar