Central Australian Songs: a history and reinterpretation of their distribution through the earliest...

Central Australian Songs: A History andReinterpretation of their Distribution through

the Earliest Recordings

Jason GibsonMuseum Victoria and Monash University

ABSTRACT

This paper contains a discussion of an unpublished essay by TGH Strehlow concerning the historic waxcylinder recordings of songs from Central Australia made by Walter Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillenin 1901. The manuscript, written by Strehlow in 1968, begins with an explanation of the historicalcontext of the song recordings, and the distribution of song and dance traditions across the Australianinland. Strehlow elucidates the content via information imparted to him by a number of Arrernte andLuritja men, who first heard these recordings over 50 years after they were made, in 1960. Theirexplanation of these songs reveals further information on the diffusion of song verses across vast regionsin Central Australia (including Warumungu, Anmatyerr, Arrernte, and Warlpiri country), and theincorporation of European words and themes within altharte (public) songs in which men sing anddance. I have expanded Strehlow’s information on Spencer’s recordings further with additional infor-mation from other ethno-historical sources and my own contemporary fieldwork. Combined, thisresearch deepens the anthropological understanding of some of the earliest ethnographic sound record-ings ever made in Australia.

Keywords Aboriginal Australians, TGH Strehlow, Walter Baldwin Spencer, ethnography, Arrernte,ethnographic sound recordings, trade routes.

INTRODUCTION

The wax cylinder sound recordings made by Walter Baldwin Spencer and Francis JamesGillen during their anthropological expedition to Central Australia in 1901 are of tremendousimportance in the history of Australian anthropology. Using an Edison phonograph to recordsong verses, social interactions, and examples of the Arrernte language spoken by peopleliving between the Stevenson Creek in South Australia and the Charlotte Waters TelegraphStation in the Northern Territory, they collected some of the earliest audio recordings ofAboriginal Australian speech. Along with a handful of films made during this same period,these records contain unique linguistic and musicological data. Despite their obvious interestto ethnographers, anthropologists, and linguists, the specific contents of these field recordings,including the ancestral beings referred to, or the specific traditional estates mentioned, haveremained largely unexamined. TGH Strehlow’s unpublished study of these recordings,Spencer 1901 Recordings: Introductory Comments (1968), does however bring this informa-tion to the fore and allows contemporary researchers to not only make critical connectionsbetween song traditions, sites, and individuals, but highlights the trade in songs and dancecompositions across the continent. This analysis thus concerns, not the lyrical or musicalcontent of the verses, but the cultural, social and economic dimensions of their creation anddistribution.

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Oceania, Vol. 85, Issue 2 (2015): 165–182DOI:10.1002/ocea.5084

© 2015 Oceania Publications

Spencer’s collection of cylinders, which were entrusted to the National Museum ofVictoria (now called Museum Victoria) in 1916, were subject to very minimal analysis byscholars until the ethnomusicologist Alice Marshall Moyle (1908–2005) began her importantwork on them in the 1950s and 1960s. Other than Strehlow’s detailed notes, Alice Moyle’s(1959) examination of the cylinders, which appeared in the Melbourne Museum’s Memoirs,is the only other substantive analysis of the recordings. Moyle’s research began by writing tothe Australian-born composer Percy Grainger in the USA in 1957, asking for his recollectionsregarding the whereabouts of Spencer’s 1901 wax cylinders.1 Grainger had provided musicalnotations for two of the recordings that Spencer had published in the appendix to AcrossAustralia (Spencer and Gillen 1912:502). Unfortunately, Spencer did not identify the indi-vidual songs, nor did he explain why it was these specific songs that were chosen fortranscription. The original notations kept at the Museum of Victoria Spencer collection revealsthat transcriptions provided by Grainger were in fact of the ‘Erkita’ and the ‘Tjitjingalla’songs, both recorded during Spencer and Gillen’s first recording session on a sand hill near theStevenson River on 22 March 1901.2

Over 20 years before Moyle had begun her research, Spencer’s widow, Lady ElizabethSpencer, also wrote to the Director of the National Museum of Victoria, Daniel Mahony,regarding the whereabouts of her husband’s phonograph recordings. Mahony replied thatalthough the cylinders had been kept at the museum during his 5 years as Director (between1930 and 1935), he was unaware of them ever being accessed.3 In 1956, Gillen’s duplicate setof cylinders was ‘rediscovered’ by Murray Barrett of the University of Adelaide and copied totape with help from the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Sydney (Baldwin 1979:292).Spencer’s 1901 recordings, as well as the cylinders Spencer produced in 1912 while inKatherine, Oenpelli, and Bathurst Island, were subsequently copied to tape in 1957 by theRoyal Melbourne Technical College.4 By 1958, Graham Lawton of the University of Adelaideand the Board for Anthropological Research had written to the Director of the NationalMuseum of Victoria suggesting that the tape copies from the Adelaide and Melbournecollections be compared.5

THE STREHLOW MANUSCRIPT

Interest in the Spencer cylinders peaked during the 1960s when Moyle, who was undoubtedlythe person most knowledgeable of Spencer’s cylinders at the museum, collaborated withdental anthropologist Murray James Barrett and geographer Graeme Lawton, both from theUniversity of Adelaide. The team of three worked diligently to have both Spencer’s cylindersin Melbourne, as well as Gillen’s duplicate collection in Adelaide transferred to tape. Theintention of the project was to not only have the recordings conserved to a more stable format,but also to see the recordings pressed to a commercially available vinyl Long Play (LP) vinylrecord. The LP would be accompanied with an information booklet, containing song tran-scriptions, written by TGH Strehlow, with musical notations by Moyle.6 In addition toStrehlow’s detailed paper on the songs, the planned booklet was also to contain an account ofMurray Barrett’s ‘playback’ of the recording to a group of Anmatyerr and Warlpiri men atYuendumu. Barrett had been particularly interested in obtaining additional informationregarding the song identified by Strehlow as originating from the Warlpiri area.7 The corre-spondence between Moyle, Strehlow, Barrett, and Lawton reveals that the collaborationstarted to deteriorate in late 1968 because of a disagreement between Strehlow and Lawton.According to Strehlow, Lawton had made ‘smart-aleck’ comments regarding the ‘academicresults’ of Strehlow’s second wife Kathleen. Kathleen had been studying geography underLawton, and the announcement of her results had caused him to enter a ‘state of gloom’ and‘deep fury’.8

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The acrimony increased as Lawton began to call for researchers, such as the experiencedphotographer Noel Wallace (with whom Strehlow was on good terms), to inform the Austra-lian Institute of Aboriginal Studies if they had ‘seen red-ochre ceremonies’ associated withmale initiation.9 Although Lawton was simply trying to ensure ethical research into restrictedceremonial matters Strehlow resented the suggestion of bureaucratic interference in thepersonal relationships that underpinned ethnographic work. Sensing an impending split in theSpencer Recordings project, Murray Barrett attempted to arbitrate, to no avail. Early in 1969,Strehlow demanded that Barrett and Lawton return their copies of his paper on the Spencerrecordings, and after 10 years of preparation and planning the collaboration ended.10

The year before Strehlow produced the manuscript discussed later, yet another interestedplayer had contacted him. The Curator of Anthropology at Museum Victoria, Alan West,asked Strehlow if he would assist in interpreting the Spencer audio-visual materials. Strehlowresponded positively by expressing a ‘willingness to assist in the interpretation of the Spencerfilms and recordings’.11 In addition, West, following the recommendation of linguist LuiseHercus, travelled to Port Augusta in South Australia where he met with the Wangkangurru/Lower Arrernte man Mick McLean Irinyili, in order to review the Spencer films and audiorecordings (see Fig. 1). West’s taped recording of his conversations with McLean, whoremembered seeing Spencer and Gillen during their visit to Peake Station in 1903, stands asa very rare and important document of an Arrernte interpretation of Spencer and Gillen’sfilms, photographs, and sound recordings.12 After hearing each of the recordings McLean wasable to identify and sing many of the original song verses as recorded by Spencer, and in manycases could go on to sing the relevant adjoining verses. Some of McLean’s insights gleanedduring the tape-recorded interview with Alan West have been included in the discussion thatfollows.

In his original notes, Strehlow records the information that was shared with him by agroup of senior Arrernte at the ‘Ajura festival’ on the Todd River, near the Amoonguna

Figure 1: Mick McLean photographed by Alan West at the Davenport Community, PortAugusta in 1968 (XP22999, Courtesy of Museum Victoria).

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settlement, in 1960 (Strehlow 1968:1). The recordings discussed had come from the collec-tions in both Adelaide and Melbourne and consist of seven verses of altharte (public men’ssongs with accompanying dance), which are mostly described by Spencer and Gillen as‘corroborees’ (Koch and Turpin 2008:167). The remaining recordings feature three examplesof Arrernte speech, two commemorative or ‘sacred’ verses, some verses in which womendanced and men sang, two different verses sung by Arrernte women and two ‘initiation songs’that Strehlow analyses at length at the end of his paper. Each of the Arrernte interlocutorspossessed an excellent knowledge of the various song traditions of the Arrernte region andthey also had the experience of Strehlow recording their own ceremonial traditions for anumber of years. Working with these men, TGH Strehlow compiled an extraordinary com-mentary that, unsurprisingly, given his deep knowledge of Arrernte culture and languages, isfar more comprehensive in anthropological detail than Spencer and Gillen could ever haveproduced. Strehlow’s field diary from this time reveals that he played the recordings to someof the men who had gathered for the Ajura event while his own tape recorder, which he wasusing to record ceremonial verses, was being repaired. On 30 September, Strehlow wrote inhis diary:

Since my supplies of films are at such a very low ebb till the next batch comes upby airmail – I hope! – tomorrow, I decided to play the dubbings of some old Spencerrecordings made in 1901 over to the men here in the camp. In the morning Injola(who came up with Toby Breaden and Bobby Mullai) identified 6 of these cuts[individual song recordings]; in the afternoon Rubuntja – who had come back toAjura with me when I came back with the day’s food supplies at midday – identified4 of the ltata [altharte] verses (and added one himself); and Injola, in the p.m., gaveme the L.S.A. [Lower Southern Arrernte] phrases for Spencer’s English sentences.13

Although much has been made of TGH Strehlow’s criticism of Spencer – emanatingfrom historical antagonisms between Strehlow’s father Carl, and Spencer, in the early 20thcentury – TGH Strehlow often utilised and cited Spencer and Gillen’s work. He was certainlycritical of Spencer and Gillen’s inability to communicate with their Arrernte interlocutors influent Arrernte, but acknowledged that their data were worthy of close analysis (Strehlow1947a:168). On a number of occasions he used their work to elicit conversation among themen he worked with, and in at least one case, used Gillen and Spencer’s photographs to locatea difficult to find sacred site.14 His favourable commentary on Gillen is also present in thismanuscript and in a number of other published and unpublished works (Strehlow 1968:2,1969a, 1969b:48).

We are fortunate that Strehlow took the time to review these songs with men from acrossthe Arrernte and Luritja speaking region (Tom Bagot Injola from the Lower Arrernte area, BobRubuntja from the Northern Arrernte region, Lockey Tjituma from the Luritja area, and BobbyMullai and Toby Breaden from the Southern Arrernte area) when he did. Bob Rubuntja’sknowledge is particularly evident in these notes. Rubuntja travelled widely as a youth with hisparents as they worked with the ‘early pioneers’ in Central Australia. They built fences anddams and helped the settlers establish their businesses and homes (Rubuntja and Green2002:21–2). When Bob grew old enough he began to work as a wagon and stagecoach driverat Burt Crossing, and he travelled to Barrow Creek, Tennant Creek and as far as NewcastleWaters (over 700 km to the north) for work. He also operated the mail run between BondSprings and Alice Springs; while later in life, he was responsible for the sheep, cattle, andgoats on the Burt Plain stations.

The commentary provided by Rubuntja and the other men gives particularly detailed andvaluable information that, in many cases, reveals each song verse’s association to known



traditional estates and mythologies. Moreover, their information reveals that Spencer andGillen recorded a number of songs, which unbeknownst to them, had originated far fromArrernte territory and lends further evidence to the diffusion of song and dance repertoiresacross the Central Australian region (McCarthy 1939:83–86; Mulvaney 1976; Strehlow1971:639–640). As is explained later, three of the altharte verses are said to have originatedin locations hundreds of kilometres from where they were recorded. Spencer had alsorecorded ‘Women’s Songs’, on 29 March 1901, that show the influence of loan words from theEnglish language, thus pointing to an intercultural milieu in Central Australia that is yet to beadequately understood.

Because of the antagonistic relationship that developed between Lawton and Strehlow,the vinyl LP and booklet never eventuated and Strehlow’s only published reference to hisresearch on the Spencer recordings is extremely brief (Strehlow 1964:55). Moyle’s interest inthe Spencer recordings persisted, and in 1978, Strehlow sent her a copy of his manuscript.Moyle, whose original description of the wax cylinders held at Museum Victoria was nowclose to 20 years old, took copious notes from Strehlow’s manuscript; discovering that he hadfound out a great deal about their content and significance. Although she had been grantedreading rights to the manuscript, she was forbidden by the Strehlows from publishing thefindings in any form. Consequently, the notes she took while reading this manuscript wereannotated with the heading ‘to be destroyed: not permitted to use’.15 One can only assume thatStrehlow intended to publish the material at a later date, but as he passed away that year, thisnever eventuated. The Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs now holds the originalmanuscript.

ANALYSIS OF THE RECORDINGS

The Spencer and Gillen wax cylinder collection and the various duplicate copies made are nowspread across various collections in Museum Victoria, the South Australian Museum, theRoyal Geographic Society of South Australia, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and the British Library Sound Archive. Omitted fromStrehlow’s discussion and all other commentaries on these recordings are an additional uniquenine cylinders kept within the British Library in London, which Moyle located on a researchvisit in 1978 to the British Institute of Recorded Sound, which has now been incorporated intothe British Library Sound Archive.16 Although these additional recordings are mentioned inboth Spencer’s unpublished journal and Gillen’s published Camp Jottings (1968), they seemto have been unknown to Strehlow and were not analysed by Moyle (1959) in her originalpaper for the Melbourne Museum. They have therefore, thus far, escaped analysis. They weretransferred to magnetic tape and later digitised at AIATSIS.

In what follows, I analyse each of the recorded songs as they were interpreted byStrehlow and his Arrernte informants, but I also draw upon Spencer and Gillen’s publishedand unpublished collection documentation, and I have added further information from my ownresearch and discussions with contemporary Aboriginal people.17 Omitted from discussionand analysis are the various recordings made of speech and interactions such as ‘Nativewomen quarrelling’, ‘sentences spoken by two Arrernte women’, ‘Arrernte language andnames of places’. These recordings, given that they contain excellent examples of the severelythreatened Lower Arrernte language, deserve their own separate linguistic analysis.18 Myresearch on these songs, and Strehlow’s work on them, has been made practicable as thecomplete Spencer wax cylinder recordings have, in recent years, been digitised in the contextof research collaboration between Museum Victoria, the South Australian Museum and theAustralian National University (see Gibson and Batty 2012). This grant also made my own

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fieldwork consultations with Arrernte and Anmatyerr people possible, and thus I have includedsome of the information shared with me by these individuals in the form of annotations shownlater.

ALTHARTE VERSES

‘Tjitjingalla’ or ‘Molonga’One of the first recordings made by Spencer and Gillen was of the ‘Tjitjingalla corroboree’.This performance was already well known to Gillen who had photographed it in the mid-1890s and realised that it was indeed the same performance, although with a different name,‘Molongo’, that WE Roth had recorded in Queensland in 1894. The Molongo/Tjitjingalla hassince become one of the most discussed instances of long-distance trade in intangible culturalmaterial in classical Aboriginal society (Gregory 1906; Hercus 1980; Kimber 1990; Mulvaney1976; Roth 1897). On 22 March 1901, on the Stevenson River, a single verse from a series ofceremonies that lasted up to a week, was committed to wax cylinder (Gillen et al. 2001:432).Spencer’s voice is heard at the beginning of the recording stating:

. . . never performed the same corroboree again. This corroboree, the Tjitjingallacorroboree, was first described by Dr. Roth in north central Queensland. Subse-quently was performed by the natives of Central Australia, the Arrernte tribe at AliceSprings.

Roth heard that this performance had been shared by the Wakaya people from the upperreaches of the Georgina River, into Ayerrerenge territory and then further south to the PittaPitta (near Boulia) people in outback Queensland (Elkin 1970:300–301). As an ethnographer,Roth was fascinated to hear that the dance had ‘originated from a point east or south-east ofDarwin’; some hundreds of kilometres from the Queensland desert country where he wasstationed. Two years later in 1898, Gillen wrote to Spencer, explaining that a ‘corroboree’almost identical to the one seen by Roth had appeared in Alice Springs. Gillen explained toSpencer that the dance, known as the Tjitjingalla altharte (corroboree) to the local Arrerntepeople, had been ‘brought down’ into the region by a ‘northern group’. The peregrination ofthe Tjitjingalla/Molongo was subsequently documented at various locations in Queensland,South Australia, the Northern Territory on to Western Australia and then back into Arrernteterritory via the telegraph line in the 1920s and 1930s (Elkin 1970; McCarthy 1939; Mulvaney1976). Anthropologist John Bradley also claims to have met elderlyYanyuwa and Garrwa menin the 1980s that had spent considerable time working as stockmen on the Barkly Tablelandsand remembered this song and dance (Bradley & Yanyuwa families In press). They called theperformance ‘Jijingala’ and explained that it had been ‘found’ (confirming Roth’s account) ineither Wakaya or the neighbouring Wambaya territory.19 According to these men, during thetime in which Aboriginal people from far flung areas were employed on cattle stations acrossthe Tablelands, men and women learned about ceremonies and public songs that they wouldnever have normally understood or had contact with.

Bob Rubuntja and Tom Bagot Injola informed Strehlow that this dance verse came froman altharte that came from the Tennant Creek area and travelled into Queensland and on toPort Augusta. Apparently, it made its way north again and finally found its way north toHorseshoe Bend and Maryvale Station in the 1920s where two of the other men, Bobby Mullaiand Toby Breaden, had first become acquainted with it. Bagot, however, claimed that he hadfirst heard the song at Peake Station, south of Oodnadatta, during the time of the Boer War(1899–1902). The text of the recorded verse was, according to Strehlow Tjantjirtjantjirla/



walamburbmarei;20 however, none of his informants knew the meaning of the verse words asit originated from far to the north and was sung in a foreign language (for later analysis of thetradition, see Hercus 1980; Kimber 1990). All three of his main informants did however knowthis song and dance as the altharte ‘molunga’.

‘Erkita Corroboree’ or Altharte AremayeThe ‘song of Erkita Corroboree’ was recorded on the same day as the Tjitjingalla verse andwas, according to Spencer, sung on the Stevenson River by a ‘member of’ the Ilpirra tribe’.What is immediately striking about this description is that an individual from the ‘Ilpirra’territory, which is many hundreds of kilometres to the north of the Stevenson, in the NorthernTerritory, would be present at this location at all. This is a clear indication of the largedistances being travelled by not only Aboriginal people living close to the Telegraph Line, buteven those from the far distant Tanami desert.

The identification of the singer as belonging to the Ilpirra tribe is worth considering ina little more detail. There is ample evidence in the Spencer and Gillen correspondence andpublications to suggest that their use of the term ‘Ilpirra’ is ambiguous. In fact, Gillen admittedthis to Spencer in 1903, writing that ‘the Ilpira and Unmatjira are really one tribe and at any ratethe Arunta always apply the term Ilpira to them’ (Gillen et al. 2001:434). Thus, although‘Ilpirra’[Arlpere] is now generally understood to refer to the Warlpiri, historically it was equallyapplied to Anmatyerr speakers (Koch, forthcoming). A number of publications have made thismisleading identification between Spencer and Gillen’s ‘Ilpirra’ and the Warlpiri (Gillen et al.2001:505; McConvell 1985:6; Meggitt 1962:168). Nevertheless, Bob Rubuntja confidentlyexplained to Strehlow that the verse was part of the altharte Aremaye, a type of large sandgoanna song series from a place in Warlpiri territory known as Puturlu (Mt. Theo) and althoughnot being able to provide a meaning, claimed the verse was: Tangaramba/Ibitalbita.

Both TGH and his father, Carl Strehlow, had previously noted connections between theArrernte population and the site of Puturlu, as one of their senior informants, NathanaelRauwiraka Pengarte, had visited the area as a young man. While travelling north into the landsof his Anmatyerr relatives he took part in altharte such as the arlewatyerre or sand goannadances of Puturlu (Strehlow 1997:8). Rauwiraka had also witnessed three other Anmatyerrdances, including the Altharte Arleyepmw (emu dance) from an estate close to the present dayLaramba community, the altharte ‘Jaurininba’ (which Strehlow glosses as ‘women’s sticks’),and the Altharte Antenhe (possum dance) (Strehlow 1971:644). Rubuntja recalled taking partin a performance of the Altharte Aremaye at Middle Park, on the Alice Springs TelegraphStation Reserve, and many years ago and again in 2012, his grandson, Mervyn Rubuntja,similarly suggested to me that Spencer and Gillen’s photographs of the associated danceperformance looked like a Warlpiri altharte that had been performed at Yuendumu and atMiddle Park in Alice Springs.21

Ilyarnpa corroboree or the Altharte Atnyemayte of ArlwekarrThe same ‘Ilpirra’ man then proceeded to sing a verse, which Spencer describes as the‘Ilyarnpa corroboree’, although those writing up the descriptions of these tapes in the 1960smisheard Spencer and labelled it the ‘ilyargfa corroboree’. Spencer and Gillen witnessed thedance associated with this song when they arrived in Alice Springs a month later and took anumber of photographs (Gillen et al. 2001:432; Spencer and Gillen 1912:350). Upon firsthearing the recording Bob Rubuntja confidently attributed the verse to an Altharte Atnyemayte(witchetty grub dance) from the Anmatyerr estate of Arlekwarr (‘Lukara’ in Strehlow’sspelling) to the east of Stirling Station. Rubuntja also claimed to be able to identify thesinger as a person from Arlekwarr and of the Pwerrerl subsection, although he could notrecall the man’s name. He did however recall that the man’s younger brother was named

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Arlpalywerrnge (meaning the juvenile small pink/red witchetty grub from a Acaciakempeana) (Green 2010:182). Spencer and Gillen (1912:332) encountered a man with thisname when they arrived at Barrow Creek on this expedition (although they spelled itUlpailiurkna) and TGH Strehlow too met a different man with this name (spelled Ilbaljurknga)when he visited Stirling Station in 1932.22 Rubuntja remembered witnessing the AltharteAtnyemayte being staged by Anmatyerr people at Stirling Station in the past.

Although I was unaware of its connections to the nearby estate Arlekwarr at the time,I played this verse to senior Anmatyerr elder the late Clem Peltharr (c. 1926–2012) at StirlingStation in 2010. Clem, personally belonging to the Alhalker estate (to the southeast ofArlekwarr) had spent most of his life living and working on many of the cattle stationsbetween Woodgreen, Utopia, Long Range (Arnmanapwenty) and Stirling. Clem immediatelyrecognised the verse and claimed that it was a song composed by someone ‘angkweye-aneme’(a long time ago) – unlike the sacred verses that commemorate totemic ancestors, which areconsidered to have been authored by ancestors in a long distant past and thus passed down intheir exact form from generation to generation (see Koch and Turpin 2008). Altharte verses,however, like this one, according to Clem, were definitely manmade. Furthermore, Clemadded, a person had dreamt the composition of this song and its associated dance.

He dreamt that one now. And he got up and sung’em then. Then he make thataltharte and a big mob been come up, and be with their dance. They sing ’em thesame [as this recording] and all the women come up there and sing’em as well. Thenthey put on that altharte now for dancing! So they can dance it now. . . . When thatfella’s dreaming, when he’s asleep. Then he gets up and he starts to sing ’em. Andother people come in, come in. [They ask] ‘What’s that that you have been dreamingtoday?’And he tells them, ‘Might be this one.’ When is he dreaming? Might be anytime at all. Not only nighttime. This is not a ‘dreaming’, not a ‘business dreaming’[song associated with an ancestral story]. This is just only when a man’s having a laydown. Ankwang, sleep and then he dreamt it then. [People would then say] ‘Ohsome bloke been singing this song today.’And then he would sing out. Then anothermob would come in, come in. And it might be after sundown. And all the peoplecome in come in sing ’em. [. . .] This [song is for the] Anmatyerr area, this onenow.23

Clem’s comments on the source of this verse as ‘made’ by an individual composeris intriguing. The idea of the individual obtaining the song via a dream however is moreakin to the notion of ‘receiving’ or ‘finding’ a song from ancestral spirits as manyethnomusicologists have noted (Clunies Ross, Donaldson & Wild 1987; Koch and Turpin2008). Clem’s comments are also interesting in light of research findings by Géza Róheimfrom his time at Hermannsburg and on Tempe Downs station in 1929. Róheim made note ofa particular altharte that appears to be very similar to the one recorded by Spencer threedecades earlier. In his ‘Psychoanalysis of Primitive Cultural Types’ (1932), Róheim providesa detailed account of the various types of non-sacred ceremonies described to him by menfrom the Burt Plain area (to the north of Alice Springs). Among the performances discussedis one pertaining to a ‘tnyimatja’ [atnyemayte] or witchetty grub) emanating from a placecalled ‘Alukara’ (Arlekwarr). Róheim (1932) comments that while the ‘animal name and thelocalization agree with what we find in the totemic ceremony, the essential difference is thatthese songs are not based on myths’. In support of Clem’s version of the origins of the song,Róheim was also told that the song was based ‘on the dream of a single individual’ (Róheim1932:61–2).



‘Kurnmara corroboree’ or Altharte UrlampeAnother altharte verse was committed to wax cylinder at Charlotte Waters on the 28 March.This verse however referred to a site far closer to Charlotte Waters. Spencer’s voice can beheard introducing the song as the ‘song of the Kurnmara corroboree’. This song and dancerepertoire was well known to Gillen who had photographed it in the mid-1890s for theHorn Scientific Expedition volume on anthropology (Spencer and Horn 1896). According toStrehlow’s Lower Arrernte informant, Tom Bagot Injola, this was a verse associated with whathe termed an Altharte Urlampe (rain dance), which was performed at lower Finke River rainsites, such as Wiljunba, to the northeast of Charlotte Waters. Tom Bagot Injola’s rendition ofthe verse was noted by Strehlow as Lbulitulita/ranalanama/Larakatnatakaranalanama, whichhe further reported was made up out of the words Ilba uletuleta renalanama and Lirakatnataka renalanama.24 Strehlow then rendered this into English as:

‘It cuts the sandhills into shredded pieces – It sweeps them down into the river bed’.The verse describes how a high flood, overflowing the sandhill banks of the river,cuts the bordering dunes into pieces and sweeps them into the middle of the riverbed(Strehlow 1968:5).

Spencer’s title for the song and its associated dance, ‘Kurnmara’ or Karnmarr, is a LowerArrernte word referring to a huge mythological Water Serpent known as kwelaye in otherArrernte speaking areas, and is here implicated in the coming of rain (Breen 2008). The dancewas filmed and photographed a few days later, and a number of decorated boards, whichadorned the performer’s heads were collected and sent to the Melbourne Museum (Gillen1968:18; see also Plate VIII, Fig. 1 in Spencer and Horn 1896).

‘Unintha’ or Altharte Artetye AnngaThe remaining altharte verses recorded by Spencer included some in which women dance andmen sing, and others in which women sing (and presumably dance, although this was notclarified by Spencer). The ‘Unintha’ dance was filmed and photographed at Charlotte Waterson 6 April. The photographs depict 13 women and girls dancing in a line, with a group of mensquatting in the foreground beating time, presumably while singing the men’s song verses thatwere recorded by Spencer on the same day (see Fig. 2). Spencer did not record the contentsor significance of this verse, but Róheim, 30 years later, described a type of dance with asimilar name, ‘Ununtu’ (Róheim 1932:58). According to Róheim the ‘Ununthu’ was a style ofperformance, which he observed in the Luritja speaking region that would similarly featurewomen dancing while men sang.

Upon viewing the film of this dance with a group of Arrernte women in 2010, they allagreed that the dance style of the women was almost exactly the same as that used incontemporary ceremonies. The only difference was that the painting of designs on their legswas stopped in the 1960s. Senior Arrernte ceremonial leader, Aggie Abbott thought thatthe term ‘Unintha’ may have referred to a site east of Kulgera called Ananthe, where peoplewould meet up for ceremonies.25 Strehlow however commented that ‘Unintha’ is most likely‘Utnanta’ and thus refers to the utnathet, the flower of the mulga tree (Acacia aneura). Insupport of this interpretation, Tom Bagot Injola claimed that the song recorded by Spencerderived from a Lower Arrernte mulga seed dance, Althart Artetye Annge that was once sungin the Hamilton Creek Bore area in South Australia. While Bagot was unclear about themeanings of the song, he advised that they consisted of two lines, the latter of which repeated| Takyringala ngkapajankamu ||: Ntjirtnjei njirtnjamalireirrintjenei :|| and contained the text‘Takarangala angkapaijangkama; Ntjirtnjjantjirnjama alirerintjina’. Strehlow, again, positeda possible English translation as ‘From the roots [the mulga shoots] are sprouting up – The

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clustering seed pods are shedding their seeds’ (Strehlow 1968:7). The relationship between thetext and Strehlow’s free translation remains unclear, as the words in the verse have not beenidentified.

TENNANT CREEK ALTHARTE

In addition to the altharte verses sung by men, Spencer also recorded two verses sung bytwo Arrernte women at Charlotte Waters on 29 March. Bob Rubuntja was the only man whohad heard either of these verses, and explained to Strehlow that they had come from a‘Tennant’s Creek altharte’ that ‘belonged’ to the Warumungu (Strehlow 1968:2–3). Thefemale singers recorded by Spencer sang Maljatatjeire/tambirrkula, but Rubuntja was unableto provide any meaning for this text. Rubuntja was the only man among Strehlow’s infor-mants who had travelled as far north as Tennant Creek, and although he was familiar withthese verses, which he rendered as Jinkeilanangeilunbela/karawurbanti, he had no explana-tion or translation for them. Nevertheless, Rubuntja ‘confidently maintained’ that the songsreferred to the Tennant’s Creek Waterhole, or rather, to the old Tennant Creek TelegraphStation, and he also recalled a companion verse to this song that was not recorded bySpencer. This additional verse, he remembered, referred to the old Tennant Creek Post Officebuilding, which in the song was referred to as ‘kapmanta’, a borrowing of the English word‘government’. The single verse was sung by Rubuntja and written down by Strehlow as‘Kapmantabirintjunaraakapmantawulkawukara’ without translation. ‘Kapmanta’, notedStrehlow, was a term used universally in the Central Australian languages for all govern-mental and administrative centres such as police stations, post offices, and telegraph stations(Strehlow 1968:3) (Fig. 3).

COMMEMORATIVE VERSES

In contrast to the altharte verses that were composed by individuals for public performance,traded between groups and featured content that referred to contemporary life, Spencer and

Figure 2: ‘Unintha’ dance, Charlotte Waters, 1901 (XP9364, courtesy of Museum Victoria).



Gillen also recorded a small number of verses of what Strehlow refers to as ‘sacred’ or‘commemorative’ songs, associated with ancestral beings (Strehlow 1971:349). The 1901 waxcylinder recordings also contain two song verses pertaining to important totemic sites in theLower Arrernte area. The first of these recordings, which Spencer introduces as the ‘songrelating to the tradition of the Great Snake of Okilcha [Akeltye]’, belonged to a site known asAkeltye (McKenzie’s waterhole on the Coglin Creek) close to the Charlotte Waters TelegraphStation. The ceremony associated with this verse was the subject of the first ethnographic filmfootage ever taken among Australian Aboriginal people on 3 April 1901. The actual verserecorded by Spencer, according to Tom Bagot, features the akapurntenge (the Lower Arrernteword for the brown falcon) (Breen 2008), that had ‘caught sight of two ancestral carpetsnakes’ (ahinenhe or woma snake; Aspidites ramsayi) who had travelled to Akeltye from theneighbouring Wangkangurru territory (Strehlow 1968:7–8).

Close analysis of Spencer’s journal entries from this time reveals the identities of thesingers on this recording. Most remarkably, the song commemorating the snake ancestorfeatures the voice of Jim Kite Alyelkelhayeke (Erlikilyika) Penangke, the Lower Arrernte manwho travelled with Spencer and Gillen from Charlotte Waters to the Gulf of Carpentaria actingas an assistant, and at times, interpreter (pictured in Fig. 4). Kite later became well regardedas a seminal Aboriginal artist renowned for his unique clay sculptures, carvings, and illustra-tions (Gibson 2014; Mulvaney 2001). Spencer wrote cryptically in his journal that this song

Figure 3: Map of relevant places and language groups referred to in text.

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was the ‘property’ of ‘Jim’, ‘a snake-man named Erli-killi-kurra’, and the verses were sunginto the phonograph with help from another man named ‘Finke Harry’ or ‘Mulpumunika’ (thisman was photographed by Gillen, see Fig. 5).26 When Mick Mclean heard this recording in1968, he knew it well. McLean not only explained that this verse was in fact one of five thatmade up the entire song of Akeltye, but went on to sing the entire set for Alan West’s taperecorder. Mick McLean agreed with Tom Bagot that the song concerned a hawk-man namedAngarnte (which McLean referred to as Akitye Akapurntenge), who was digging at a water-hole called Akeltye very close to the Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station. Although McLeandid not identify either Kite or Mulpumunika as the singers on this recording, he did, however,spot Mulpumunika in one of the films made by Spencer of a Red Kangaroo ceremony atCharlotte Waters a few days later.27

The other commemorative verse recorded by Spencer at Charlotte Waters was the ‘sacredsong of the Rain Totem’. Again, Strehlow’s Lower Arrernte informant Tom Bagot providedmore detailed information by explaining that this verse belonged to the Rain Song of Irreye,a site situated close to the floodplains of the lower Finke River and southeast of the CharlotteWaters Telegraph Station (Ellis 1964:228). Bagot translated the verse as ‘Hard drops of raincome pelting down’ and supposed that the singer on this recording could possibly have beena man from Irreye named Alec Ingkatjota. Bagot also suggested that the ‘accompanying noisesmade by the singers imitate the sounds made by ducks when settling on lagoons, or rising fromthem’; whereas Spencer claimed that the birdcall noises imitated those of ‘plovers’.28 Unawarethat this verse directly related to the site of Irreye, Spencer, and Gillen failed to understand thatthey had also collected objects, and filmed a ceremony pertaining to this site.29

INITIATION SONGS

The remaining two cylinders discussed here contain verses from songs that were sung duringmale initiation rites. The fact that Spencer and Gillen were permitted to record these signifi-

Figure 4: Jim Kite in the Spencer and Gillen expedition camp at the Tennant CreekTelegraph Station in 1901. A Warumungu youth sits to his left (XP15087, courtesy of

Museum Victoria).



cant verses, Strehlow writes, can be attributed to the fact that Gillen was ‘universally honouredby the Central Australian tribes from Tennant Creek down to Oodnadatta for the courageousstand which he had taken in the eighteen-nineties to stop the outrages against the aboriginalfolk [. . .].’ (Strehlow 1968:2). Although Strehlow discusses the content of these verses in greatdetail with his informants, I have omitted this material from this paper: Arrernte andAnmatyerr men with whom I consulted advised that the contents of these verses should remainunpublished given their continued contemporary usage. Most of the men I spoke with didhowever encourage me to discuss how the use of certain songs in particular areas hadapparently changed over the past century.

One of the first recordings made at the Stevenson River was a verse from the initiationsong used in the Southern Arrernte area, or what Spencer called the ‘song sung by the oldmen at the initiation of the young men in the Southern Arrernte tribe’. Four of Strehlow’sinformants (Injola, Toby Breaden, Mullai, and Lockey Tjituma) who were familiar with thesouthern reaches of Arrernte territory unanimously identified this verse as belonging toan Antakirinya song that was sung during the circumcision of young men. These verses,according to Strehlow, were regarded as ‘the most secret and sacred acts among the men’sceremonies’ in the Western Desert area, to Antakirinya, Yankunytjatjara, and Pitjantjatjaraspeakers. These verses ‘could not be sung in the hearing of the women and children on pain

Figure 5: Gillen’s photograph of ‘Moolpoomoornicka’ or ‘Mulpumunika’ at Charlotte Watersc. 1890s (AP1190, courtesy of the South Australian Museum).

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of death; and even the men were permitted to sing it only while circumcision was beingperformed’ (Strehlow 1968:15). The reactions of the Western Desert men who heard thisSpencer recording in 1960 confirmed Strehlow’s view. Lockey Tjituma, whose parents hadbeen Yankunytjatjara, was

. . . fiercely indignant that this song had been recorded by Spencer and Gillen: he feltsure that as a result some women would have heard this recording. He insisted thatthe original singer should have been killed on the spot for divulging this verse. TobyBreaden agreed that the recording of this verse had constituted an act of sacrilege inSpencer’s days, and that it would still be an offence punishable by death to sing thisverse today except on a proper initiation ground. All those men present who hadthemselves been circumcised to the singing of this verse were unanimous in statingthat it was a ‘thoroughly bad and hateful verse’, which should never be sung exceptduring the actual operation (Strehlow 1968:17).

To the Northern and Western Arrernte men reviewing the recordings with Strehlow theverse was of little concern. Upon hearing it for the first time, they ‘merely sniggered [. . .]thinking that it sounded funny’ (Strehlow 1968:17). These Arrernte men were however veryfamiliar with the other initiation verse recorded by Spencer further north at Charlotte Watersa week later. This verse, which Spencer announced as ‘one of the initiatory songs of theArrernte tribe’, was the circumcision verse used throughout the Central, Eastern, Northern,and Western Arrernte region. Their reaction to a circumcision verse was very different. Unlikefor the Antakirinya, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, circumcision verses carried far lessimportance for the Arrernte, and in Strehlow’s words, did not carry the same ‘exaggeratedimportance’ (Strehlow 1968:18). Despite the clear differences between the Arrernte andWestern Desert people’s attitudes to these rituals and their associated songs, those men withlinks to the Antakirinya and Yankunytjatjara maintained that it was the Western Desertlanguage verses that had been universally sung ‘from Alice Springs to Port Augusta’. Strehlowquotes one of these men (it is unclear who) claiming that ‘only the sea had stopped it fromgoing still further south’ (Strehlow 1968:16). As the Spencer recordings document an entirelydifferent verse used by the Arrernte speakers at Charlotte Waters, it is clear that the WesternDesert language song had only been more widely distributed in recent times. Spencer’srecording demonstrates that the Arrernte verses were still being sung at Charlotte Waters in1901.

Spencer’s recordings have therefore inadvertently allowed for an historical descriptionof the changing nature of initiation practices in the southern Arandic area between 1901 and1960. As Antakirinya, Yankunytjatjara and other non-Arandic speaking people began toencroach upon the Lower Arrernte territory at the turn of the century, their initiation practiceshad also begun to replace older Arrernte ones (Naessan 2010; Strehlow 1907:490, 1947b:70).In the area between Oodnadatta and the Finke (Apatula) community now, Arrernte is rarelyspoken, and most of the Aboriginal population find their linguistic and cultural continuity withthe non-Arandic groups to the west. Indeed, when I consulted with senior men from Finke in2008 regarding sites in the Lower Arrernte estate of Akarre in the Simpson Desert, other thanBrownie Doolan Perrurle, all senior men present spoke Yankunytjatjara (Knight 1996; Nanoet al. 2008).

CONCLUSION

Spencer and Gillen may not have known exactly what it was that they were recording, butthanks to their efforts, we now have a remarkable record of Central Australian Aboriginal



cultural life during a time of rapid social, economic, and lingual change and interactions.These song recordings document a dynamic and intercultural environment in frontier CentralAustralia that remains only partially understood. Even those songs associated with initiationwere evidently undergoing territorial transformation amidst a changing social landscape. Thisreinterpretation of some of the earliest recordings thus provides further evidence for Sutton’s(1987:90–91) argument that Aboriginal musical culture, being socially constituted, may ofteninvolve replacement, modification, and invention.

The inclusion of English loan words too (as in the Tennant Creek verses) exemplifies theextent to which new settler influences had begun to make their mark at the end of the 19thcentury. The movement of Aboriginal labourers up and down the Overland Telegraph Line hadseemingly also increased the movement of public song and dance compositions with them.The significance of the inclusion of the concept of ‘government’ is more than a document ofa new loanword into classical Aboriginal society. The composer’s use of this term indicates anawareness of the pervasive influence of the ‘government’, even in remote regions of thecontinent, less than 40 years after John McDouall Stuart’s first exploration of the region. Themovement of Aboriginal labourers was an extremely important historical chapter in thesocio-economic restructuring of Aboriginal societies, a process that did not, as the songs show,undermine the cosmological integrity and efficacy of sacred, as well as, public songs. Rather,extremely important creative adjustments (indeed expansions) in both poetic and socio-economic forms were being undertaken at this point in time. As Strehlow described:

[. . .] this north–south road was not only a highway taken by camel strings. It wasused by drovers taking large mobs of cattle and horses from the large cattle andhorse-breeding properties of the interior to the Oodnadatta railhead. [. . .] The cameldrivers, the drovers, the mail men, and the white travellers all required a consider-able aboriginal labour force to keep them moving [. . .] When drovers and travellersstopped overnight at stations and watering points, their aboriginal workers used tosit up till late at night exchanging items of news from areas which they had comefrom or visited. They greatly enjoyed singing verses from the non-sacred songsassociated with the indigenous folk dances now generally called ‘corroborees’.These corroborees and their songs, unlike the sacred acts, could be spread by theseaboriginal travellers from place to place and from area to area (Strehlow 1968:1–2).

Altharte were never really taken seriously by Spencer and Gillen and even Alan West,when reviewing their collection with Mick McLean in 1968, disregarded them in favour ofanalysis of the secret-sacred material.30 Gillen later commented that he had little memory ofthe altharte performances that he had witnessed and advised Spencer not to ‘attach muchimportance’ to them (Gillen et al. 2001:432). Later anthropologists like Olive Pink in the1930s made tantalising observations regarding the popularity of secular songs, including somethat concerned introduced animals like the rabbit, the horse and a song for the bullock, but shetoo never spent much time on them.31 This is surprising, seeing that some of the older men sheworked with despaired that the younger men had been taking ‘up Tennants [Creek] corro-borees’ instead of learning their own personal, sacred traditions.32

Spencer’s recordings were, for a long time, considered beyond significant analysisbecause of the paucity of detailed information associated with them; however, the importantbridging work carried out by Strehlow in the 1960s has enabled an important reassessment andreinterpretation. We now know more about the context in which these recordings were madeand have been able to piece together their pertinence to the history of trade, cultural exchange,language transmission, and the intercultural history of colonisation in Central Australia. Wecan now plot the known origins of these songs, some being far from the site where Spencer

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recorded them. These recordings also tell us that in some cases, it was individual singers, notjust the song and dance performances that apparently travelled. While much has been madeof the trade in the Tjitjingalla/Molongo repertoire (Hercus 1980; Kimber 1990; Mulvaney1976), as an example of the extensive trade in public performances across large tracts of theAustralian continent, these recordings imply that there was a great deal more going on. Theyreveal the spread and popularity of multiple altharte from north to south during a time of rapidcultural change and adaptation. Thanks to Spencer’s opportunistic recordings and TGHStrehlow’s crucial work on them, a more thorough picture of song and dance distributionacross central Australia can now be told.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Graeme Shaughnessy for bringing the Strehlow manuscript to my attentionand the Strehlow Research Centre Board for granting permission to publish extracts from it.Mary Morris, Philip Batty, and Rob McWilliams at Museum Victoria should also be thankedfor sharing their knowledge of the Spencer Collection and the Museum’s Indigenous Collec-tions Archive. Fieldwork and research was undertaken with assistance from an AustralianResearch Council funded linkage project (LP0989398); and Museum Victoria’s HumanitiesDepartment. Ute Eickelkamp gave invaluable advice on an earlier version of this paper; andJohn Bradley and Myfany Turpin added extremely important insights. Numerous Arrernteand Anmatyerr people helped me work through these recordings including Aggie AbbottPwerrerl/Angale, Bessie Liddle Angale, Rena Davis Angale, Patricia Drover/Webb Kemarre,Myra Gorey Kngwarraye, Malcolm Heffernan Pengart, Duncan Lynch Peltharre, ClemPeltharr, Paddy Willis Kemarr, Brownie Doolan, Shaun Angeles, Mark Inkamala, and MervynRubuntja.

NOTES

1. MS3501 Series 1, Folder 3, Item 30. Moyle to Lawton 09/10/57. Alice Moyle Collection at the AIATSISLibrary Canberra.

2. XM6258, Percy Grainger transcriptions, annotated by Spencer. Spencer Collection at Museum Victoria,Melbourne.

3. See Museum Victoria’s Indigenous Collections Archive Files Box no. 47. TGH Strehlow had visited theMelbourne Museum in the mid-1930s and was shown through the ethnographic collection by AS Kenyon, butis unlikely to have been shown Spencer’s wax cylinders (see Kathleen Strehlow to Mrs Schmidt, AssistantCurator in Anthropology, National Museum of Victoria 22 July 1974. Melbourne Museum Indigenous Collec-tions Archive Files Folder entitled ‘Exhibits – sacred objects on display’, Box 28).

4. Brazenor to Burton 8 August 1957. Museum Victoria Indigenous Collections Archive Files, Spencer Record-ings File 1, Box 48.

5. Lawton to Brazenor, 2 May 1958. Museum Victoria Indigenous Collections Archive Files folder titled ‘spencerrecordings’, Box 48.

6. Strehlow’s ‘Office Diary’ Book 31 (1968). See pages.135-137, 143, 147, 148–52. See also a letter from Moyleto Barrett on 8 January 1968, in the Moyle/Strehlow Correspondence file, Strehlow Research Centre.

7. See MSS 305.89915 S745A, Series 3, Folder 2 at the Barr Smith Library. Barrett recorded his conversation withMussolini Tjapaltjarri, Darby Tjampitjinpa, Tim Tjapangarti, Tommy Granites Tjapangarti, Old NadaJapangarti, Old Billy Japangarti, Djimdja Tjungari, and Minyera Peter Jupurula at Yuendumu on 20 May 1967,but their recollections never made it to print.

8. Strehlow’s ‘Office Diary’, Book 3 (1968:135).9. Strehlow’s ‘Office Diary’, Book 31 (1968:137).10. Strehlow’s ‘Office Diary’, Book 31 (1969:148–52).11. Letter from West to Strehlow 31/10/1967. Museum Victoria Indigenous Collections Archive Files, Box 50

folder titled ‘University of Adelaide’ (1932–1977).12. Interview with Mick McLean by Alan West on 06/08/1968. Transcript produced by Jason Gibson from original

audiotapes, items XAV1 and XAV2 at Museum Victoria and as WEST_A01 at the Australian Institute ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

13. Strehlow, Book 26, 1960:9.14. Strehlow’s ‘Field Diary’, Book 25 (1950:77). Further examples of Strehlow discussing the Spencer and Gillen

material with Arrernte men can be found in Strehlow’s ‘Field Diary’ 17 (1953:28a, 85, 95).



15. MS3501, Series 13, Item 12. Alice Moyle Collection at AIATSIS.16. MS3501, Series 2, Item 41. Alice Moyle’s ‘Baldwin Spencer’s South Australian recordings of Aboriginal music

(1901)’. Paper read at ASRA Conference, Adelaide 1990.17. Strehlow’s unique and difficult to replicate diacritics have been removed and contemporary Eastern and Central

Arrernte orthographic spellings of Arandic words have been inserted in square brackets where they first appearin the text. One line of song text, deemed to contain subject matter considered highly restricted to Arrernte men,has been removed at the request of the Arrernte representatives on the Strehlow Research Centre Board.

18. Gavan Breen at the Institute for Aboriginal Development in Alice Springs has transcribed much of the material.19. Pers. Comm. John Bradley 20/10/2014.20. Strehlow’s diacritics have not been retained in these verse transcriptions.21. Pers. Comm. Mervyn Rubuntja, 28 March 2012 at the Institute for Aboriginal Development, Alice Springs,

during consultations regarding the Spencer and Gillen collections.22. Strehlow, Book I: Field Diary (1) 1932, 109–113.23. Recording of interview with Clem Peltharr by Jason Gibson on the 22/10/2010, at Illewerr (Wilora/Stirling)

community. See recording ‘221010 altharte.wav’.24. I would render this in standard Arrernte orthography as arlpe ulethe-ulethe arrernerl-aneme, lhereke atnerteke

arrernerl-aneme.25. Discussion with Aggie Abbott Pwerrerl/Angale, Bessie Liddle Angale, Rena Davis Angale, Patrcia Drover/

Webb Kemarre, Myra Gorey Kngwarraye and Mary Flynn Kemarre on the 21 October 2010, Greatorex Rd,Alice Springs.

26. Spencer’s notebook, Pitt Rivers Museum – Oxford University, Box 6, Item 3a. Spencer’s ‘rough journal’ datedfrom 19 March to 17 April 1901.

27. Interview with Mick McLean by Alan West on 06/08/1968.28. Strehlow, Spencer 1901 Recordings, 9.29. Two photographs XP8894 and XP8894 in the Museum Victoria collection are captioned by Spencer as

‘Quatcha of Irria’ (Kwatye of Irreye) and Gillen wrote that they ‘got records of Quabara Quatcha of Irria’ onfilm and collected one of the objects used in this ceremony (X009747, Museum Victoria).

30. Interview with Mick McLean by Alan West on 06/08/1968. Alan can be heard discussing the Tjitjingallaaltharte: ‘It’s a performance at which the women could also be present. . . . We don’t need to say any moretherefore about that one.’

31. AIATSIS, Olive Pink Papers MS 2368, item A3 223, 247–8.32. See Olive Pink Papers MS2368 at AIATSIS, IA(c)15, 3.

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