Ngariwanajirri, The Tiwi Strong Kids Song: Using repatriated song recordings in a contemporary music...

Vol. 442012

2012 YEARBOOK FOR

TRADITIONAL MUSICVolume 44

SALWA EL-SHAWAN CASTELO-BRANCOBEvERLEY DIAMOND

C. K. SZEGOGuest Editors

DON NILESGeneral Editor

SYDNEY HUTCHINSONBook Reviews

BYRON DUECKAudio Reviews

LISA URKEvICHFilm/video Reviews

BARBARA ALGEWebsite Reviews

Published by theInternatIonal CounCIl for tradItIonal MusIC

under the auspices of theunIted natIons eduCatIonal, sCIentIfIC and Cultural organIzatIon

(unesCo)

Yearbook for Traditional Music 44 (2012)

NgariwaNajirri, The Tiwi “STrong KidS Song”: USing repaTriaTed Song recordingS in a

conTemporary mUSic projecT

by Genevieve Campbell

A population of approximately 2,500 Tiwi people resides on Bathurst and Melville Islands, collectively known as the Tiwi Islands, lying at the confluence of the Timor and Arafura Seas, about eighty kilometres north of Darwin, northern Australia. Song has long been central to Tiwi society, as a marker of kinship, an oral social record, and the means through which men and women achieve status through cul-tural initiation.1 Tiwi song practice relies on the skills of the singer to compose in improvisatory performance events, using complex linguistic and poetic procedures to create rhythmically, metrically, and grammatically correct lines of song text. These procedures can only be understood by those who know what is called Old Tiwi, a language that has fallen out of spoken use entirely, having been replaced a generation ago by Modern Tiwi. The oldest songmen and songwomen still com-pose using Old Tiwi song words, but they cannot pass on these skills in a language that is no longer spoken. With the traditional way of composing songs that form the basis of ceremony in jeopardy, the Tiwi Strong2 Women’s group began composing songs in Modern Tiwi in order to keep the practice of singing alive and to preserve the historical and cultural knowledge that, in the past, was held in song. With fur-ther changes to the language in the last twenty years (Lee 1988), even Modern Tiwi is now spoken proficiently only by those over forty, and the women’s new ver-sions of songs are increasingly seen as the traditional version appropriate for use at funerals and other ceremonial occasions. Although I am not a linguist, the ramifica-tions of language shift on the song practice are so profound that the language situ-ation has become an important part of my research. We can identify three distinct stages of Tiwi language: what are now called Yungunki ‘Old’, Yuwunki ‘Modern’, and Apiniapi (half-and-half) ‘New’ Tiwi. The fairly rapid change in the language is documented in the literature, both in linguistic study and personal accounts of researchers (Lee 1993; Osborne 1974; Pilling 1970). In the 1960s, both Old and Modern Tiwi were somewhat overlapping, while the language of ceremony and song was still firmly Old Tiwi. Data from the 1980s (Lee 1987) suggest that only people over thirty or so spoke Modern Tiwi, and the women’s Modern Tiwi songs were entering the culture (figure 1). It seems it is only those people—the youngest now in their sixties—who have a thorough knowledge of Modern Tiwi, as New

1. While initiation is not the subject of this paper, it is important to note that prior to European influence in Tiwi society, it was one’s ability to compose song in a ceremonial context that marked one’s full attainment of adulthood. Today this initiation process is being undertaken by a very small number of men and women, and has become more about cultural maintenance than social structures. 2. The term “strong” is given to women who have a certain degree of knowledge of culture, language, and song.

2 2012 YeArbook for TrAdiTionAl MusiC

Tiwi has emerged as the primary spoken language of the current generation.3 What is threatening the tradition of Tiwi song practice is that New Tiwi does not fit the old song metre. A further simplification from Modern Tiwi, its structure is simply too different from the old language. It also does not include certain ceremony-associated words that are required in ceremonial song.

The Old Tiwi word mulunjupa means at once ‘language’ and ‘culture’, the two being intrinsically co-dependent. With language fundamental to song, and song fundamental to the traditional knowledge that is at the heart of the societal and ceremonial framework, the loss of language has the potential to have a marked effect on the Tiwi community. In this paper I will begin to explain how the elders are embracing new ways of thinking about song traditions and how the return of ethnographic song recordings from the past century has been a part of that. I will also discuss a new children’s song project that is aimed at curbing the loss of Tiwi song culture by combining elements of old and new song language, as well as old songs, in the context of contemporary music.

ngarukuruwala We sing songs is a musical collaboration that the Strong Women and I formed in 2007, made up of elders from the Tiwi Islands and jazz musicians from Sydney, Australia.4 Through rehearsal, workshop, and public per-formance, our core aim has been to invigorate and share Tiwi song culture both within the community and beyond by creating new music based on old Tiwi songs. With the Strong Women’s group at its heart, the collaboration hopes to help in the

3. This is a complex and still-changing situation, with variations of lexicon and grammar amongst speakers, and my appraisal should not be taken as the final word. 4. For more information about the Ngarukuruwala Project, see http://www.ngarukuruwala.org.

1960s 1980s 2012old Tiwi understood by those

over 30understood by those

over 50(mostly) understood by

those over 70spoken by those over 40 spoken by those over

60spoken by no one

used for ceremony used for ceremony dwindling use at ceremony

modern Tiwi understood by all understood by all over school age

understood by those over 50

spoken by all spoken by those over 30 (with changes)

spoken by those over 60 (with changes)

used for songs

new Tiwi [not applicable] emerging from changes made to Modern Tiwi

understood by all

spoken by youth spoken by all under 50not used for ceremonybeginning to be used for

“modern” songsFigure 1. Language shift.

cAMPBeLL nGAriWAnAjirri, The TIWI STrONg kIDS SONg 3

preservation and maintenance of Tiwi song practice in the context of new music projects. Fuelled by my interest in the old songs’ provenance and by the elders’ determination to re-open the conversation about song practice in the community, a group of Tiwi Strong Women decided to reclaim recordings made on the islands by various researchers from 1912 through to the 1980s, archived at the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in canberra, Australia. In November 2009, eleven Tiwi men and women travelled with me to canberra to enable the group to conduct a preliminary audition of the material to enable the lifting of cultural restrictions and request repatriation. While at first these record-ings were valued mainly as curiosities, providing interesting points of conversation about singers and social history, and providing powerful opportunities to connect with the ancestors, we very quickly realized the important role the recordings could have in terms of social cohesion, community pride, and cultural maintenance. At a meeting of the Strong Women’s group held in early 2010 to discuss uses for the old recordings, senior woman Leonie Tipiloura observed: “If all the old songs are lost, then we don’t remember who we are. When I pass away, there is no one to sing my song” (pers. comm., 10 March 2010). Her statement succinctly reflects the central place song has in Tiwi culture and society.

In April 2010 I attended a funeral in Nguiu,5 Bathurst Island. eustace Tipiloura—a senior songman, and one of only eight men and women left who are considered qualified to sing at ceremony—was the only person with the knowledge of the songs essential for the many yoi ‘dreaming’6 and kinship dances that must be performed in order to bury the deceased respectfully. I asked why there are so few people left who can sing at ceremony and funerals these days; I wondered why young men were not learning the old songs from him. he explained that in Tiwi song culture it’s not just a matter of passing on songs, it is a matter of learning how to compose one’s own. While there are many songs (relating to country, kinship, skin groups, and dreamings) that are passed on from one generation to the next with relatively stable text, the composition of new songs is central to the culture of Tiwi singing. With the language having changed so much in the last generation, the improvisatory practice that constitutes the basis of traditional Tiwi song practice is on the brink of massive loss and change. The way in which songs are composed and how they are used is changing markedly.

Although in Tiwi song culture there is no attempt to create obfuscation due to their secret, sacred or gender-restricted nature, Tiwi singers do create poetry with polysemy, metaphor, and evocation, rather than literal meanings. For example, a song recorded by charles Percy Mountford in 1954, which may appear to be sim-ply about a boat actually pertains, by reference to the boiler room within that boat,

5. The largest town on the islands, Nguiu underwent an official name change to Wurrumiyanga in 2010. Most Tiwi people still call it Nguiu. All of the literature I cite in this paper refers to Nguiu. For the sake of clarity, therefore, I will also use Nguiu. 6. All Tiwi people identify with one or more of about thirty dreamings named for animals or geographical features particular to the country areas. These are referred to by Tiwi people as their “dreaming,” accepting the widely used Western term that implies connection with the deep past, ancestors, and country.


to the fire or smoking stage of yilaniya, a specific part of the pukumani (mortuary) ceremony. Another song marks the departure of the deceased and names that per-son’s ancestral country within the context of a canoe journey.7 A sense of belonging and security is shared by a group of people affiliated with a specific site (coun-try place). This is reinforced through recognition of sacred and meaningful places named in songs. Similarly, amongst close members of a kinship or country group, there would be understanding at a deep level of certain poetic metaphors and allu-sions within a song text. Osborne points out that

the Tiwi vocabulary includes a wealth of synonyms, and it is the exploitation of these resources which permits the development of a distinctive poetic diction … In any set of synonyms, one word … by virtue of its common usage in the everyday language, becomes the ordinary prose member of the set, while others … because they are less frequently used, acquire a literary or poetic character. (Osborne 1989:310)

Many song texts include names of the singer or the kin of the deceased, or refer to them using allusions that only people of the singer’s clan would recognize. As well as adding import to the song through inclusion of the actual names, these allusions serve to evoke a sense of ancestry and mark connections between the singer, the audience, and the song subject, whether an individual, a place, or a narrative. This is a trait found in other Aboriginal song genres. “Naming evokes a multiplicity of social and ancestral themes which determine the identity of the performer and their connections to others through the ancestors” (Magowan 2007:125). The Tiwi song repertory differs however in that, in the absence of secret song texts, gender restric-tions, or the exact preservation of song texts via inheritance, it is the individual’s retelling of a story or re-setting of ancestral and country place names that keeps that knowledge in the communal psyche. This is why exposing their grandchildren to the practice of song composition is so important to the elders.

The Tiwi do not have a corpus of sacred or secret songs, nor words that must only be sung rather than spoken, but there is certainly sense of the language used in song as being poetic. charles Osborne wrote of song language: “It differs from spoken Tiwi8 very considerably in lexis, as many old words and incorporated forms which have died out in speech have been retained in song. however, it is unlikely that it differs from ordinary spoken Tiwi in syntax and morphology” (Osborne 1974:3). The rich use of symbolism imbues song texts with a richness of meaning and an elegance of language that is “higher” than everyday spoken Tiwi, and it is this richness that the elders are concerned is being lost.

Jane goodale writes of “special or ‘literary’ words not used in daily conversa-tion” being used for songs (1971:290) and states: “My informants often said to me that they could not translate certain of the songs because they did not know the meaning of some of the words” (ibid.: 291). I have been told the same thing by my

7. AIATSIS Archive file C01-002916. There are many other examples of allusion such as this amongst Tiwi songs. A fuller description can be found in Osborne (1989). 8. With the word “Tiwi,” Osborne refers to the language spoken at the time of his fieldwork, some way along the transition from Old Tiwi to Modern Tiwi, but not necessarily labelled as such at the time.


Tiwi colleagues and find, like Goodale, that rather than being a secret or sacred language, it is the literary or artistic level of usage that sets the language of songs apart from speech. The fact that goodale found this in 1971 points to the likelihood that the language of song has long been different from the spoken language. Many times elders have told me that composers are “clever” in the way they use “proper,” “clever,” or “hard” words to produce song poetry (pers. comm., 2010–11).

Learning to sing

In the past (roughly up until the 1950s; see Mountford 1958), the annual kulama ceremony was the main vehicle for collective expression and affirmation of cultural identity, social connection, and mutual responsibility.9Although less regular and smaller in scale since the 1950s, kulama ceremonies are still regarded (primarily by older people) as essential for the well-being of the community. Songs composed for kulama serve functions such as the bestowal of names, mourning for recently deceased loved ones, the airing of grievances, and the announcement of current affairs. kulama was also central to the Tiwi initiation process. The literature on Tiwi ceremony concurs that, rather than through physical initiation practices, the progression into adulthood for young men and women was marked by their begin-ning to sing their own songs (goodale 1970; hart 1930; Mountford 1958; Osborne 1989). The path to full initiation for Tiwi youth included, along with instruction in kinship systems and basic skills for life, a comprehensive bestowal of the linguis-tic, musical, and intellectual skills needed to compose the songs required for regu-lar kulama and pukumani (mortuary) ceremonies10 that were central to Tiwi social and spiritual life. Tiwi people lived in a richly and inclusively artistic atmosphere. everybody was encouraged to sing, and most song was improvised in performance events; the ability to compose song poetry ad-lib being the marker of the fully initi-ated. kulama has not ceased entirely and has been mentioned in the most recent literature on the subject (goodale 1988; grau 1983; Morris 2001; Osborne 1989; Venbrux 1995). It relies heavily, however, on increasingly older and fewer men (and older women to whom the men are turning for help in maintaining knowledge of song techniques). The ceremony has not been held at Pirlangimpi or Milikapiti (Melville Island) since sometime in the late 1990s, the reason given to me being that the last old men who could sing have passed away.11 After some years12 without a ceremony, kulama was performed by four men at Nguiu in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

9. There are differing and contradictory opinions in the literature as to the function of the kulama ceremony (see hart, Pilling, and goodale 1988; goodale 1970; grau 1983; Osborne 1989). The functions I list here are based on an appraisal of this literature and on the opin-ions of my Tiwi consultants. 10. Both the kulama and the pukumani ceremonies have changed over the last century in terms of length, attendance, and the separation of ritual stages, a discussion of which is beyond the scope of this article. 11. There is a possibility that a group of men will travel to Pirlangimpi in 2012 to hold kulama with Justin Puruntatameri, an elder aged 89, to give him the opportunity to perform what may well be his last kulama. 12. No one could tell me how many years, but at least ten, as the most recent recordings in


Songs composed at kulama form an oral, living, public record. regina kantilla explained to me:

The songs are about people. We hear stories. We put the story into songs. events, celebrations, funerals, so that singing and dancing about everything is how we main-tain our culture. We don’t write things down like you mob. Our songs are our history books. (pers. comm., 10 March 2009)

Almost every aspect of the Tiwi community—mythological, historical and social—is referred to in song. Tiwi song is therefore primarily new and contempo-rary. There is not a large corpus of songs that is passed on, and those that have been (by virtue of having become highly regarded favourites due to the story therein or the status of the original composer), while comprising text elements that remain stable, show clearly the creative individualism of each new custodian in varia-tions of performance style and text. Whether recorded at mortuary rituals, funerals, kulama ceremonies, or in pre-arranged recording sessions or performances, the vast majority of the songs recorded over the last century are improvised composi-tions, contemporaneous with a performance event. As we can see from a selected list of song subjects found in ethnographic field recordings (figure 2),13 the subject matter is often topical, describing occurrences or items new to the community and matters of interest to the audience. Many song subjects have two functions. While superficially about mundane items, such as tractors or ships or houses, they are in fact symbolic of dreamings, country sites, ritual stages, or kinship status.

Facing the prospect of historical records being lost as there are fewer and fewer who can understand the words in the old songs, my Tiwi colleagues and I have been transcribing and translating into english and New Tiwi as many of the old song texts as possible. In the Tiwi context, language change is not simply a matter of a new lexicon, grammar, or pronunciation. The old songs hold the social history.

the local literacy centre are dated. 13. recorded by Baldwin Spencer in 1912, charles Percy hart in 1928, charles Mountford in 1954, charles Osborne in 1975, and myself in 2010–11. The 1912 list is the complete list of songs recorded by Spencer, and the crocodile song is the only kinship/dreaming marking song amongst those. Many other dreaming, kinship, and country-naming songs are com-posed and were recorded by Mountford and others, but for the purposes of the point I am making in this paper, only the song subjects showing current events are listed.

1912 1928 1954 1975 2010–11building housesboatpushing a sawship waits for

tidefloursteamshiptrain

man o’ war shiptractorgramophone

telephoneaeroplanecyclonecard gamesgoing to Darwinarmy tentspolicemanroyal visit

man on the moon

visiting navy band

cyclone TracyBing crosbybulldozer

well-being centre opening

staff farewellgoing to canberramission centenaryfootball finalnew houses

Figure 2. Selection of song subjects about current events amongst the archive recordings.


With the loss of the old language, the community is suffering the loss of histori-cal record and cultural lore. Many old words naming places, bush foods, hunting instruments, and methods, as well as precisely explaining states of mind and mark-ing kin relationships and ancestors’ identities, are being lost.

The art of Tiwi song composition is primarily one of extemporizing within the framework of a prerequisite knowledge of language and poetic technique. Much as a jazz musician improvises within the framework of patterns of rhythm, motif, and established chord progressions, the Tiwi singer draws upon all the rules he or she has learned through many years of experiential training to create metrically correct lines of song that fit a set melodic and rhythmic pattern. In the past, young men and women watched and listened, learning from elders the melodies of each song type and the various poetic devices from which to build their own compositions until they were ready to sing themselves (goodale 1970; hart, et al. 1988). The age at which this was achieved ranged from about twenty up until about the age of thirty or even older as the ceremonial vehicles for instruction fell out of practice with the impact of the catholic Mission (goodale 1970; Mountford 1958; Venbrux 1995).14 With the massive change to the language over the past thirty or forty years there is no one under the age of fifty who knows the old language well enough to under-stand the words, let alone compose with them. Instruction in composition is also not happening because even the elders in their seventies do not know the language well enough to teach the complex process—they can only perform from their own repertoire.

I now turn to a song that illustrates how the language has changed in the context of song composition. One of the songs recorded by Baldwin Spencer on Bathurst Island in 1912 is “Train.” A train is an unlikely song subject for a composer living on an island north of Darwin in 1912. There was of course no train on the island, and only a goods train in Darwin. Oral history tells us that Tungutalum (the singer) had travelled to Darwin in 1911 and had probably seen the goods train there, and on his return sang this song in the ayipa stage of the kulama ceremony, a time for putting on public record the important or interesting news of the day. I use this song as an example of language change as it continues to be sung today, albeit in modi-fied form, and because the 1912 recording was sampled in the new song that is the subject of the second part of this article. A feature of Old Tiwi syntax, that makes it so different from the language spoken in the community today is noun incorpora-tion (Osborne 1974), or the way the noun is embedded within the structure of the verb rather than being a separate word. This is seen in figure 3 where yontye (onji in current spelling)—the noun referring to “engine”—is surrounded by the verb and its prefixes and suffixes. Noun incorporation creates a language that has many morphemes joined together to form long words that include the verb, noun, time of day, tense, and pronoun. For example, line one of the 1912 Train song (composed and performed by Tungutalum) comprises just one word, a verb made up of fifteen defining syllables. The principal rule of the vast majority of Tiwi songs’ structure is that text lines must be made up of metrical units of five syllables each, with the

14. A fuller discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.


final unit made up of four syllables.15 A word containing fifteen syllables works well for Tiwi song composition because it can provide either three units of five syllables for a non-line-final position or two units of five syllables and one final unit of four syllables for a line-final position (by removing one syllable). The skill of the singer is to be able to choose words or parts of words that will fit the metre while retaining meaning and musical grace. In the sung form of the 1912 song, wu is removed and the untranslatable two-syllable segment ngala is added to create the correct metre, the singer having inserted two meaningless syllables in order to create a complete unit of five syllables, Petuntyingala. Sometime in the 1970s, the text of the Train song was altered (also shown in figure 3)16 with phonetic and/or morphemic changes occurring in the first and second metrical unit. The extent to which these changes are the result of change in pronunciation and/or the exchange from one singer to another is not known. The loss of the n from the second syllable of unit one is a change that has occurred in spoken Tiwi. The second unit of the 1970 song has a couple of possible explanations, but neither can be confirmed. Ya is either an addition to complete the metric unit or a transitive verb root suffix to the first word meaning “look at.” Marri- is a connective marker meaning “with.” Marriji is the rainbow serpent and might be a symbolic reference to the winding movement of the train. The Train song is still sung using the words from the 1970s

15. All songs composed at kulama and pukumani ceremonies follow this metrical pattern. While lullabies and love songs depart from it, they constitute a small percentage of the recorded songs. Osborne found that of the 1309 lines of song text he studied, only thirteen showed metrical irregularity (1989:131). 16. The 1970s and 2011 texts were given by my consultants. The spelling used in Modern Tiwi and New Tiwi texts is the current orthography, a j having replaced ty in Osborne’s tran-scription done in 1975. The changes in the first two vowels of the first word are, similarly, spelling changes that reflect the slight modification of phonetics.

1912 Train song (old Tiwi) (osborne 1989)(spoken)Pe- tu- [wu]ntyi- yontye- rranungun- atyirr- amiThey feminine continuous shell jolting reciprocal move to

(free translation)Petu[wu]ntyiyontyerranungunatyirramiThe carriages jolt along one after the other

(sung)Petuntyi(ngala) yontyerranungun atyirrami

1970s Train song (modern Tiwi)Putajingala yamarritipiyi ajirrami[2011 singers do not know the meaning of these words]

2011 new Tiwingarra trayini ngamputaThat train moving along

Figure 3. The Train Song.


version today, although they are no longer understood by either singer or audience, as Barry Puruntatameri explains:

I do that [song]. I learned as a young boy. It’s not spoken language. This is some-thing that my great-great-uncle he sat by himself in the bush there. he made up those words about the train and it became a real Tiwi song today. People singing that song. he chose those words himself. The young boys, they wouldn’t know the word mean-ing of it, but they know the sound. You can’t turn it into english. It’s just the words. (pers. comm., 15 October 2009)

An important song for a particular family, it is now sung with a set text (the one composed in the 1970s) learned by rote because it can’t be re-composed in the traditional way using New Tiwi. The song’s meaning has become more a symbolic than a physical description; the onomatopoeic effect of the now meaningless words becoming especially important.17

We can see from the New Tiwi spoken version of this phrase that the language is very different. There seem to be no Tiwi words to describe parts of a train. The word yontye, which in this song refers to the engine or carriage,18 is used in another song recorded in 1912 to describe a saw. In Tiwi it means “shellfish” or “some-thing hard,” and is used in these song texts to describe any hard metal object. Whereas in 1912 the singer used his own language to create a description of a non-Tiwi object, today people use loanwords. Of course, when my consultants gave me this line in 2011, they were not composing a song and so they did not attempt to make it poetic at all, but the structural difference in the words is clear. Indeed it was deemed impossible to sing the words of the sentence given to me in the cur-rent spoken language (New Tiwi). The problem for the future of the song tradition is that the language spoken today incorporates numerous english loanwords and a simplified grammatical and morphemic system. This means that the grammatical units are already broken up into separate words that do not lend themselves well to the system of metrical divisions required for the old song form. Basically, the words of New Tiwi do not fit into the metrical structure required for kulama com-position. Figure 4 shows how some common words have changed in terms of the number of syllables.

The mismatch of New Tiwi with ceremonial song composition has created an impasse in Tiwi song practice. elders are uneasy about young people singing incor-rectly19 and feel it essential that, if they are going to take over the important respon-sibility of song custodianship, they should be using the correct language. eustace Tipiloura put it this way:

17. Those younger than about fifty years of age with whom I spoke had the opinion that the words are merely the sound of the train. 18. My consultants’ opinions vary as to whether this is the engine inside the train or the body of the train itself. 19. In particular it is considered dangerous to sing incorrectly at kulama, with sickness or harm coming to the singer (Justin Puruntatameri, pers. comm., Pirlangimpi, 29 February 2012).


Those old songs use hard words—proper words. You can’t just throw in any words, the young fellas’ language. They don’t fit. That’s not right for respect you know? (pers. comm., 20 April 2010)

Keeping traditions alive: old music in new ways

The word “tradition” has a number of connotations, most implying the continua-tion of something from the past, with subsequent qualitative comparisons between old and new as well as perceptions of authenticity versus development and mod-ernization (Becker 1986; Moyle 1993). current Tiwi singers reiterate the distinc-tion between “traditional” songs and “modern” songs. My Tiwi consultants explain to me that a song that has a melody conforming to a specific song function in the kulama or pukumani ceremony is “traditional,” whether composed some time beyond anyone’s memory or only recently. A song that uses a melody not con-nected to ceremonial function is “modern,” whether it was composed by a Tiwi person or is found in the non-Tiwi music media. Both traditional and modern songs are owned by country-affiliated kinship groups. The mark of a traditional song is the connection in the text to country, ancestors, or dreaming. In rehearsal we came across a song that had the chord structure and melody of a modern Western popular-music song, yet was referred to as traditional. When I asked why this was, I was told that the story and the accompanying dance were traditional, referring to dreamings and sung as support for dreaming dances. even though the contempo-rary version is quite different musically from its old form, its cultural reference to the (non-Western) Tiwi song from whence it came renders it part of the traditional repertory. It seems then that the chain of composition, the inherent meaning, and the purpose of a song, are what gives it its classification, even when the music is changed quite radically.

The meaning of a song and its symbolic importance to the dreaming with which it is associated is not affected by musical or performance variations. It is more important to tell the story of the song, than to keep the words exactly the same every time or to keep the music the same. When the Strong Women’s group classify a certain song as traditional, they don’t necessarily mean it is a ceremonial song or that the melody is Tiwi. Any one element of connection through the song to the past and the ancestors (and by implication the passing down of knowledge) is sufficient to render it traditional.

About twenty or so years ago, the women’s group started composing in what they call modern style (featuring guitar accompaniment and Western harmonies

Figure 4. contrasting syllable lengths for some words in Old and New Tiwi.

english Old Tiwi New Tiwiroad jarrumoka

(also means direction or pathway)rot

teacher kapi wunuwaluwa (one who gives words)

tija

(fresh) water kukuni warra


that they learned in the days of the catholic Mission on the island) using Modern Tiwi (figure 5). They did this so that children would learn stories, place names, and associations within a song that used a language and a musical style to which they could relate. There are many such songs in their repertoire that include Old Tiwi text, which no one can translate, but that everybody still sings. even in the context of non-Tiwi musical styles, the women strongly maintain the Tiwi prac-tice of improvisation of text and extemporization of melody, and always sing “in language,”20 which is now a blend of Modern and New Tiwi. The songs these women have composed serve a number of functions in the community that are non-ceremonial: school repertoire to teach children, Tiwi versions of catholic hymns being sung at church, professional performances with the Ngarukuruwala group, community events such as building openings and football games. In the last few years they have also composed songs to be sung at mortuary rituals, such as the pukumani, as well as within the catholic funeral mass. These so-called “healing songs” have become an important part of the mortuary ritual proceedings and the text of such songs includes country, place, and ancestral names to mark the kinship and dreamings of the deceased in much the same way as the traditional songs of pukumani did in the past. I want to make clear though that in no way are the wom-en’s songs replacing the “traditional” songs performed at funeral and pukumani. These are essential to ceremony, and elder songmen and women are relied upon to sing the required songs in the old way.

20. A widely used term indicating the community’s native language.

Figure 5. The Strong Women’s group recording session. Nguiu, 13 August 2010 (photo: genevieve campbell).


repatriating ethnographic recordings: old recordings leading to a new song

The Strong kids Song project developed in the context of my work with the elder songmen and women auditioning, documenting, and learning from the large amount of ethnographic song material repatriated from the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in canberra.

Recordings of songs holding immense musical, social, and cultural significance were heard for the first time by the elders. Voices of ancestors were rediscovered, along with songs describing dreaming stories, ceremonies, and historical events, as well as elements of performance practice and song poetry that had long since passed out of use. A few of the old men have recently told me that they have been studying the old recordings to pick up words to use for their own songs (eustace Tipiloura, Stephen Paul kantilla, and Wally kerinaiua, pers. comm., 2011).

The information being collected to complete metadata for the recordings from AIATSIS comes directly from elders. knowledge of country, kinship systems, cer-emony, and community history is held in songs and therefore is held by those who know those songs. They have been able to recognize words, subject matter, names, and country-specific song texts. Using this knowledge, they have identified particu-lar songmen as the most likely performers. The impact of the returned recordings has been great. It has inspired a sense of both pride and sadness at the realization that such a rich and complex skill is almost completely gone. Invigorated by what they heard on these recordings, the group used them as a springboard into dis-cussions with their children and grandchildren about family, culture, singing, and ceremony. having experienced the sounds of the old words and learned some of their meanings, the kids were encouraged to compose their own song phrases out of ideas they had about life and their community.

Ngariwanajirri:21 The “Strong Kids Song”

In 2010 the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency ran a women’s safety awareness project, with sessions based at the Nguiu women’s centre and safe-house. Some of the Strong Women’s group were involved in these sessions in their role as community mentors and were asked their opinions on how to get informa-tion and advice across to Tiwi youth. They felt that the production of yet another round of pamphlets or booklets was not the best way to successfully engage young people. The older women found themselves talking about how, when they were young, much of their sense of identity, of connection to place, of familial security and of social responsibilities came through the stories and the songs learned from the elders. The ensuing conversation identified song as an excellent way to get a message across to young people who may have problems with literacy and/or for-mal “western” teaching methods. They knew that for many generations knowledge transmission through song had always been successful, and so why shouldn’t it continue?

21. ngariwanajirri means “we all work together and help each other.”


The Strong kids Song project22 was instigated by the Strong Women’s group and saw the women and their grandchildren get together at a number of informal sessions over the course of about six months to write a song in both english and Tiwi (Modern and New) about the importance of being strong, making peace, and being proud of their culture. The appendix presents a summary of the project writ-ten by Teresita Puruntatameri in consultation with the Strong Women’s group; the english translation by Therese Puruntatameri. The underlying aim from the outset was to use song as the vehicle for teaching about culture, ceremony, language, and identity while facilitating a connection between youths and elders. This was very much a cultural heritage preservation project. It was also a community health and well-being project. The crossovers are clear in terms of language, generational con-nection, personal and community pride, and identity.23 I include the full song text in figure 6.24

Three sets of “good rules for life” were produced, one by each of the three community groups: Nguiu on Bathurst Island; Pirlangimpi and Milikapiti on Melville Island. These were then composed into Modern Tiwi song words by three of the most senior women with input from their grandchildren where possible. Unfortunately the children’s command of Modern Tiwi (deemed the appropriate level of language for the song) was not good enough for them to have much input in this process. The women also had to simplify some Modern Tiwi words so that the children could pronounce them. Just as they would when singing in the old way, when the text was set to music (at the performance stage), the women altered the pronunciation of certain words in order to fit the melody and, in this case, the rhyth-mic pattern of the guitar-based arrangement (figure 7). It was important however that the children were able to understand and learn the lyrics so the modifications from the spoken to the sung text are small and are mostly to syllable length and emphasis with only a few elisions and deletions. The first line of the song was com-posed by calista kantilla, an elder songwoman, and conforms to the procedures used in traditional song composition, following the metrical structure of old Tiwi songs (units of five followed by a unit of four syllables). Figure 8 shows in square brackets those syllables that are absent when sung. The addition of (gh) facilitates the separate voicing of ma and api.25

22. “Strong Kids” is not a cultural classification in the way “Strong Women” and “Strong Men” are. The use of “Strong” in the name of this project is a play on words (thought up by the women), symbolizing connection with culture and identity through song in the sense of the Strong Women, as well as saying that children can be strong, confident, and knowledge-able like their elders, and proud of who they are. 23. The project was funded by the federal Australian government through their Indigenous cultural Support programme and the communities for children programme through the Department of Families, housing, community Services, and Indigenous Affairs (facilitated by the Northern Territory red cross). 24. This is the complete song text, presented in order to indicate the aim of the project. It does not exactly correspond with the song on the resulting cD recording. Women and chil-dren in three Tiwi communities created their own sections of text and recorded their own song using parts of the complete text and setting it to their own local-country melody. 25. The gh sound is no longer used, having been replaced by y. I use it here because the older women do pronounce the gh and sang it that way.


karri ngumpuriyi kapi ngawa murrakupuni ngini wutawa walima api ngawa kuwayi ngumpurumi

When we enter our country we can feel their spirit calling us

kapi ngawa ampi ngini yinukuni ngarimuwuMake proper law to live well for a long time

najingawula Tiwi ngawayati ponki ngarrimiTo share, to keep our peace and remember

ngawatu kapinganki kakarrijuwi ngawurraningirrumarri nginingawula ngirraminiWe young people get together

ngawurra ngungurrumagi ngini ngawa ampi ngirramini putuwurrumpurraWe remember our ancestors’ stories

ngawa ngawutimarti kakarrijuwi ngini pupuwi pumatamaWe want our children to be strong and healthy—to follow the right path

ngawurra ngingurrumangi amintiya kukunari ngawuramiWe support one another and are happy and strong people

Pilingawa yati ngaparinga ngingingawula pupuni ngirraminiWe are the Tiwi that speak our Tiwi language

ngariwanajirri ngawurra ninguru magi awarra nginiNgariwanajirri working together to listen and helping one another

ngawa ampi ngamaninguwi putuwurumpurahang on to old stories from our ancestors that they left behind

ngajirti awa jawaya mulunjupa Tiwi ngirramini ngini ngawa ngampangiragaLet us not lose our culture and the language we speak

Figure 6. Strong kids Song text.

Metricalkarringumpuriyi kapingawamu rrakupuni nginiwutawa walima(gh)api ngawakuwayi

ngumpuru[mi]

Sungkarri ngumpuriyi kapi nga[wa] m[u]rrakupuni ngini wuta[wa] walima [api] ngawa

kuwayi ngumpurumi

Figure 8. First line of song text showing modifications from metrical to sung form.

ngariwanajirri ngawurra ninguru ma[gi] awarra nginingawa[a]mpi ngamaninguwi putuwurumpurangajirti awa ja[waya] mulunjupa Tiwi ngirramini ngini ngawa [nga]mpangira[ga]

Figure 7. chorus text showing deletions in sung form.


The rest of the song does not follow the metrical pattern of traditional Tiwi song. Many of the children had great difficulty pronouncing the words the women had composed. A further simplified version of a small part of the text was therefore cre-ated and taught to the children at Pirlangimpi and they sang it for the cD recording (figure 9). The children at Milikapiti and Nguiu learned the text in English and took part in singing some of the Tiwi with the older women. The final recorded song also features individual children from each group speaking the words they chose from the song text.

Loss of deep meaning: The evolution and reinterpretation of song language

The following recounts how the meaning of one phrase in the “Strong kids Song” posed very different meanings to elders and children, and how the composition pro-cess itself has potentially brought about linguistic change. In an attempt to achieve a meaningful documentation of song texts, translation is only part of the picture. A detailed linguistic analysis will provide the words that are useful as a reference for future study and/or as a teaching tool, but it can leave out deeper underly-ing and often multiple meanings. Due to the varying experiences, knowledge, and affiliations of listeners, there will always be more than one understanding of a song (Marett and Barwick 2003; Walsh 2007).

With the Tiwi language having changed so much, the embedded metaphor and allusion in some of the song poetry that the elder songwomen composed for the “Strong kids Song” were beyond the reach of the children.

Figure 9. Teresita Puruntatameri (left) and Jacinta Tipungwuti (second from right) working on the lyrics with their grandchildren. Nguiu, 13 August 2010

(photo: genevieve campbell).


Figure 10 shows how some of the deeper meaning of the original text was lost through simplification. The richer meaning embedded in the Modern Tiwi language is not present in the shorter, simpler phrase that the children learned. The richness of the word ngirramini—meaning at once stories, words, and law—is gone with that word’s removal from the text. The words ngawurra ngungurrumagi, which hold the ideas of memory as well as valuing and connecting with knowledge from the past, are also missing from the New Tiwi phrase. The elder women were trou-bled by the loss of these images from the song, and so it was decided the children should speak those words in english; they were then used in the hip-hop section of the new song.

Figure 11 presents an interesting example of translation and reinterpretation. One of the lines in the new song, composed by the older women, was ngawa ngawutimarti kakarrijuwi ngini pupuwi pumatama, roughly translating as “we want our children to be strong and healthy and to follow the right path in life.” It was decided that the Modern Tiwi word pumatama most closely translated the English phrase “follow the right path,” but this was a difficult linguistic image for the children to grasp. In discussion with the children, it was simplified to “take the good road.” When it came to the children to make up their words for this line of the song they understood the words literally. At the time (after heavy wet season rains) the road heading to the beach was in the best condition compared to others in Milikapiti. Beaches are important to the Tiwi and ubiquitous, since they live on two small islands. Beaches are also symbolic of the edge of the Tiwi world—the point of contact with outsiders and the point of departure for locals. Purrukupali, the spir-itual ancestor, walked out from the beach to his death and decreed that henceforth

modern Tiwi[ngawurra ngungurrumagi] ngini ngawa ampi [ngirramini]We remember / hold on to those ancestors’ stories / words / law

putuwurrumpurrathey left it for us / a legacy.

new Tiwingini ngawampi putuwurrumpurraThose ancestors they left it for us

english (spoken in hip-hop section)Let us not lose our culture and the language we speak.

Figure 10. Loss of meaning through language simplification.

ngawa ngawutimarti kakarrijuwi ngini: pupuwi pumatama.We want our children to : be strong and healthy. : follow the right path. : take the good road, go in the right direction.We are going down to the beach.

Figure 11. evolution and re-interpretation of song phrase.


all Tiwi would also have to die one day. Beaches are also regularly visited sources of food, places for children to explore and play, and areas for older people to find space to sit and talk in peace. ceremony is often held at the beach, people go down to the beach to meet the weekly barge or to cross from one island to the other, and communal gatherings happen fairly regularly on the beach for the sharing of good catches of crocodile, turtle, or dugong.26 This and the fact that the beach is a good direction to go in from a child’s point of view meant the line of text became “we are going down to the beach” (figure 11). This is evidence of creativity in the recasting of a phrase through the process of translation for contemporary use. In the context of the improvisatory nature of much Tiwi song composition, it shows the children (and the adults who approved of it) are willing and able to rephrase words in order to make them their own. There is multilayered meaning to the phrase that will be sustained by the living memory of those involved in composing, singing, or hearing the song. Setting the text in print is another matter. On the cD sleeve the translation of what in Tiwi more correctly means “follow the right direction in life” is therefore presented as “we are going down to the beach,” potentially changing the understanding of those words in the future as those children become the next generation of adult speakers.27

reclaiming the old recordings through new work

As a result of our discovery work on the repatriated song material, it was decided that two items from Baldwin Spencer’s recordings of 1912 should be incorporated into the “Strong kids Song” arrangement. One of these is the Train song discussed above. The other is Tide (figure 12),28 a kulama song (performed by Tungutalum in 1912) about a boat having to wait for the tide to come into Apsley Strait, the body of water separating Bathurst and Melville Islands. In our 2010–11 project, it was important that the involvement of groups from both islands be acknowledged as much as possible, and so this old song was selected because it placed the com-munity on both shores of the strait. It also tied nicely into the words “we are going down to the beach” that the children had created for the new song. The 1912 song shows clearly how current topics of import were sung in ceremony, and the fact that the barge and the ferry even today have to wait for the tide to come up in Apsley Strait gives further connection in song between the past and the present. Deeper levels of meaning were heard by elders in the old language: the tide29 evokes the context of time passing and the ebb and flow of life, as well as the symbolic con-

26. The dugong is a large marine mammal that lives in the tropical waters around the north of Australia. 27. When I recently asked older women (not involved in the song project) about this phrase, they gave a translation that was closer to the original (“to follow the right direction in life”). 28. I have used Osborne’s spelling for this transcription and translation as the text is Old Tiwi. In line 2 of the metrical form, the syllable e is bracketed—[e]—to indicate it is deleted in the song text. 29. This symbolism is also found in the songs of other indigenous Australian songs (see, in particular, Marett 2005).


nection to maternal kinship status (breast milk is often alluded to in song as water). The text also includes rre-ke and rrike, syllables that have no translatable mean-ing, but serve to place the time of the song’s performance (and composition) in the evening of the second day of the kulama ceremony, when ritual washing of the kulama yams takes place. In terms of preservation then, although the song was perhaps not fully understood by the children, it was very important for the elders that it be included.

creating the music

As well as linguistic integrity, the grounding of this song in Tiwi musical traditions was an important factor for the elders. Incorporating both old and new linguistic elements, the “Strong kids Song” also includes elements of Tiwi musical trans-formations. With the Sydney musicians, the women have created an arrangement for guitar, double bass, trombone, horn, saxophone, and drums. The melody is one that belongs to the local Mantiupi country group. It been used with slight varia-tions by the women’s group for other guitar-accompanied songs in the past twenty years. The melody was known anecdotally to have been composed by (Tiwi man) Daniel Paujimi many years ago but no one recalled when. Amongst the AIATSIS recordings, we discovered a recording made by Alice Moyle in 1962 of a group of Bathurst Island boys, led by Daniel, singing this tune.30 In the “Strong kids Song,” the women have retained the original Tiwi melodic contour and phrase structure, with a line pattern of AAB, while modifying the rhythms in order to accommodate the text. Indeed this is exactly how all Tiwi songs are composed. The melodic contour is set for each song type, while the text determines the rhythms and line

30. It was also recorded by helen groger-Wurm in 1965, Michael Sims in 1972, and charles roland Osborne in 1975. All renditions are without guitar and conform to the generic form of songs of this type.

Warrami mangulumpwarni tyipankuna tyi- pu- ngu- wamentirrimaybe high tide lugger she connective halfway impatient

ngent awungarra kurrawarring a- pe- tyimi- nguntye- rre-then here boat she feminine wet durative link

ke- mange- rrike- rrangenigha evening grammar sea evening grammar flow

metrical form:Warramimangu lumpwarnityipan kunatyipungu wamentirriThe boat is waiting for the tide

ngentawungarra kurawarringa petyiminguntyerr[e] kemangerrike rrangenighabut now the tide comes flowing to the boat

Figure 12. The Tide song (1912); gloss by Osborne (1989). “evening grammar” refers to specific prefixes and suffixes used to mark the part of the day at which a song is performed

(morning, midday, evening).


lengths. This section then leads into a digitally edited and produced treatment of the same words. A number of children and young adults were involved in choosing the “groove” for the digital section, playing around with ideas for the beats and digital sounds, and editing together the voices of all the kids who had recorded their parts of the song on my laptop. Senior songwoman clementine Puruntatameri31 performed a call to the spirits of the country at the beginning of the song.32 It was digitally altered and sampled in the modern section in order to symbolize the con-nection between young people and their elders, and to provide an example of a strong, proud Tiwi voice to which the children can aspire. A few teenagers and some older men then spent a couple of days at the digital studio labs at charles Darwin University, giving the teenagers an opportunity to be part of the sampling and production process, and using the linguistic and artistic knowledge of the old men to be sure editing of the old songs was done appropriately from a poetic as well as musical point of view. rather than have the 1912 performance swamped by the 4/4 drum beat, we felt it essential that the contemporary drums followed the lead of the 1912 singers. The rhythms played by the (non-Tiwi) drummer are closely informed by the complex rhythmic patterns of the 1912 performance; they are the result of close and careful study, and a long time in the recording studio!

The motivation behind the sampling of the 1912 recordings was threefold. One was that, by embedding them into the new song and cD, the old recordings would become widely heard in the community, especially by young people who may not have been exposed to them before. Another was the hope that the song would inspire a sense of musical identity and history in the kids while showing them that traditional culture can also be “hip.” Thirdly, the use of the sample challenges the fact that the copyright of the old recordings is owned by the anthropologists who took them and not the performers themselves. The hassles the group went through to gain access to the recordings—and indeed having to ask permission to hear them in the first place—is something that has caused quite some bewilderment and anger amongst the community. having some of this material on a cD produced and owned by the community, therefore, became very important.

conclusion: The future of Tiwi song practice

The resulting cD contains nine tracks, four of which are versions of the “Strong Kids Song” text and the other five popular Tiwi songs.33 A video clip accompany-

31. clementine was a revered culture woman and elder, a leader for the Strong Women’s group and central to this project. her death in August 2011 was a huge blow to the women and the community. her voice and image are prevalent in the audio and video of the “Strong kids Song” and so, for reasons of cultural respect, the YouTube link to the video was imme-diately taken down and the cD was not played for a period of time. restrictions on the use of her voice and image have recently been lifted. I therefore have permission to use her name here, and the women and her family are proud that her voice is such a significant part of the song. 32. This type of call precedes singing at ceremony and, in recent professional performances, is sung as the group enters the stage. 33. The opening two tracks are of eustace Tipiloura, a leading songman who performs two


ing the main song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QbntcUO_GE) shows all the children involved at various stages of the project and was made available via YouTube so that the whole community could have access to it. The songs have also been given to people on MP3 and USB devices as a modern way of disseminating the song and its message.

The return of the old recordings and their role in inspiring new music-making has certainly resulted in a renewed interest in song culture amongst young Tiwi people, with the elders as teachers and mentors, as well as performers. It has also nurtured in the senior men and women a desire to further document and preserve a corpus of Tiwi songs, as well as to maintain skills of song composition and per-formance in whatever new form might develop. It would be a huge and probably impossible task, however, to try to keep the skill of poetic song composition alive. There are fewer than ten Tiwi elders (two of whom are women) now who can sing at funerals, pukumani, or kulama ceremonies. Although they don’t speak the old language, they remember enough words and enough about the metrical procedures to sing their own repertoire of songs. They no longer improvise much, but sing the kinship and country songs that they know.34 With the kulama ceremony (the main vehicle for improvisatory song practice) now being sporadically performed with only a handful of attendees and no young learners, it seems likely that improvising is not going to last long at all.

Tiwi song practice is facing a fundamental change. The language shift from Old Tiwi to Modern Tiwi and now to New Tiwi means that what had been the new way of speaking (Modern Tiwi) is now becoming itself an obsolete language, only spoken by an older few. Songs have always been fundamentally of the moment, created through improvisation, individually owned, and not passed down. It was not a song that was learned by the novice, but the skill of composing, following particular linguistic procedures. With the approaching loss of anyone with knowl-edge of the old language—the raw materials required—the elders are faced with the challenge of developing new ways to pass on the skills and to keep the culture of song composition alive. The “Strong kids Song” is an important part of this. The statement composed by three of the elders especially for the CD booklet (figure 13) succinctly presents their motivation. combining ancestral knowledge with current ideas as well as old and new language, the “Strong kids Song” has brought together the voices of Tiwi singers across three current generations and across one hundred

kulama songs he found amongst the archived recordings and particularly wanted to preserve in this recording. One of those he and a young Tiwi man set to a digital drum “dance” beat. 34. Funeral and pukumani ceremonies do not entirely rely on improvised songs, so can be held with the performance of pre-learned songs relating to dreaming, country, and kinship.

karri alalinguwi wurrukurunyuwi wurrima wuta awungarri wurumungurumi nginingawula. Awarra pupuni ngirramini. Awarra wurraningurimagi.

When they grow into young women and young men they will understand about our culture. This important culture. Wherever they go it will be with them.

Figure 13. Statement from the elders, printed on the “Strong kids Song” cD sleeve.


years of recorded performance. Perhaps most importantly, it has the potential to help preserve traditional practices while inspiring contemporary music-making, which is after all what Tiwi song has always been.

appendix: Summary of the topic in Tiwi languagenaki awarra ngini kakirijuwi nginiwuta ngirramini ngini ngarikuruwala kapi ngini-ngawula murrakupuni, Pirlangimpi, Milikapiti amintiya Wurrumiyanga. ngawa nginitipaningimarri kapi mamirnikuwi pulawujinga amintiya yingapini kapi wuniwaluwa kakirijuwi pulawu-jinga. Api nimarra ngintirimi kapi kakirijuwi kapi ngini kamini amaningurimagi nuwa amintiya ngini ngarikuruwani ngini-ngawula ngini ngawa-ampi amintiya ngawa-man-inguwi putuwuripura. Wuta kakirijuwi pirikirimi ngini-wuta ngirramini ngini pupuni api awarra ngini pimatapunya amintiya ngini ngawa-ampi amintiya ngawa-maninguwi, ngawa ngintipurti-ngaya amintiya ngintipakurluwunyi yimanka ngini yoyi karri parlingarri 1912.

ngini-ngatawa yirrajirrima murrakupuni kapi yuwurrara ratiwati, Pirlangimpi, Milika-piti amintiya Wurrumiyanga wuta pirripamurrumi ngini-ngawula ngarikuruwala. Awuta kapi purukuturumi mamirnikuwi ngampi Pirlangimpi, Milikapiti amintiya Wurrumiyanga nimarra pirimi kapi wuta-jamuluwi amintiya wuta-mampi api puruwani awuta ngini pirikir-imi ngirramini ngini- ngawula ngarikuruwala api awarra naki ngini yirrajirrima pitipalami kangi Cd. ngawa-ampi amintiya ngawa-maninguwi purukuruwala awarra ngirramini ngini kulama ngini parlingarri. ngarra wiyi awarra ngirramini awuriyi kapi kakirijuwi ngampi ningani, pangarri amintiya kapi parlinginari api wuta wiyi wurra-ningirimagi awarra ngir-ramini ngini ngarikuruwala.

ngawa kukunari ngini nginti-pamurrumi awarra amintiya ngini ngintiripurtingaya ngini parlini ngini ngawa-ampi amintiya ngawa-maninguwi purtiri-kuruwalamini. ngawa kuku-nari ngini awuta ngawa-ampi amintiya ngawa-maninguwi kapi purumu api wuta warntir-rarna mijiwaluwi ngini putuwurimpura ngirramini ngini pitiripalamani kapi ngini-ngawula pikaringini. Api ngawatuwu wiyi kapi ngawa pakajapuruwi ngawurra-ngirimagi awarrra naki ngirramini ngini parlini. ngawa-jamuluwi amintiya ngaw-mampi wuta waya ningani wurrani-ngurumagi ngirramini ngini murruntawi pikaringini awanuwanga. ngampi nin-gani kakirijuwi api wuta pimataputurumi ngini- ngawula ngirramini ngini parlingarri ngini kapi papaluwi pikaringani ngini yoyi, nimarra amintiya ngarukuruwula. kapi awurankuwi api pimataputurumi amintiya ngini wurra-ningirimagi ngini-ngawula ngirramini kapi pikaringini ngini papaluwi putuwurimpura.

english translation of summaryThe Strong kids Song project is very important for our community. We got together in the women’s centre, sometimes at the school and talked to the children about being strong, being healthy, and being proud. The children came up with their ideas about good rules for life, and we talked about the ancestors, played them some old recordings from way back, and showed them film of dancing in 1912. Each community was involved. The strong women at Pirlangimpi, Milikapiti, and Wurrumiyanga talked with their grandchildren and helped put the words into Tiwi, and we came up with three different parts of the song that all got put together on the cD. The old ladies sang the same words in kulama, the old way, so it will be there for the future. We had great fun travelling and visiting each other and getting together to listen to the old recordings. That was inspiring for us to hear how skilled they were. It also makes us determined to preserve our culture and our language before it is too late. You can say more in your own language. Our children are stuck halfway between Tiwi and english. They need to know english, of course, so they can move on into the world. But they still need to know their own language so they will always feel strong and proud about who they


are, and so they can learn about where they come from. The whole idea of this cD is to get the young fellas interested in learning so they might keep the songs alive.

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