Overview

"In this poignant memoir, anthropologist and author David Turner tells of how he played the yiraga --- a musical instrument played by the aboriginal peoples of Australia --- for his friend and former partner Alexa, following her death in 2020. Turner describes the meaning of the yiraga within Australian aboriginal culture, and how he learned to play the instrument over the course of several decades living with and learning from indigenous peoples on Australia's Groote Eylandt archipelago. The result is a profound meditation on the meaning of life and death. FROM THE BOOK: ""Grief might prove debilitating at first and serve to clear the mind of all thoughts and distractions in preparation, except that the act of playing the yiraga induces a becalming state of mind/being in which only the sense of breathing remains. This is effected by the repetitive rhythms of the mouth-sound tempos (which there is no need to sound to oneself once one becomes adept at playing), of which there are three: degul degul, quick; degul-degula-gula, medium; and degula degula, slow. It is in a becalmed but empty state of mind/being that one potentially enters a mediating zone between the ""real"" and the ""transcendent"" and is able to open a portal for the departed in their journey."" Illustrated with more than 40 full-colour images"

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9781772442847

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David Turner is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having taught and conducted research in the Department of Anthropology and Centre for Religious Studies since 1975. His early interest in the Australian Aborigines took him to the University of Western Australia in Perth, where he completed his Ph.D. in Anthropology (with special commendation) in 1971. Following this he established the Aboriginal Studies program at the Australian National University. In 1973 he returned to Canada to teach, first at the University of Manitoba and then at the University of Toronto. His other books include Tradition and Transformation: A Study of Aborigines in the Groote Eylandt Area, Northern Australia and Return to Eden: A Journey through the Promised Landscape of Amagalyuagba. He currently resides in his home town of Perth, Ontario.

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