Overview

Warlpiri songs hold together the ceremonies that structure and bind social relationships, and encode detailed information about Warlpiri country, cosmology and kinship. Today, only a small group of the oldest generations has full knowledge of ceremonial songs and their associated meanings, and there is widespread concern about the transmission of these songs to future generations. While musical and cultural change is normal, threats to attrition driven by large-scale external forces including sedentarisation and modernisation put strain on the systems of social relationships that have sustained Warlpiri cultures for millennia. Despite these concerns, songs remain key to Warlpiri identity and cultural heritage. Vitality and Change in Warlpiri Songs draws together insights from senior Warlpiri singers and custodians of these song traditions, profiling a number of senior singers and their views of the changes that they have witnessed over their lifetimes. The chapters in this book are written by Warlpiri custodians in collaboration with researchers who have worked in Warlpiri communities over the last five decades. Spanning interdisciplinary perspectives including musicology, linguistics, anthropology, cultural studies, dance ethnography and gender studies, chapters range from documentation of well-known and large-scale Warlpiri ceremonies, to detailed analysis of smaller-scale public rituals and the motivations behind newer innovative forms of ceremonial expression. Vitality and Change in Warlpiri Songs ultimately uncovers the complexity entailed in maintaining the vital components of classical Warlpiri singing practices and the deep desires that Warlpiri people have to maintain this important element of their cultural identity into the future.

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9781743329061

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Georgia Curran is an anthropologist who has undertaken collaborative projects in Warlpiri communities since 2005. She is currently a research fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. Linda Barwick is a musicologist collaborating with First Nations communities in Australia since 1985 and Italian communities since 1979. She is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Nicolas Peterson is emeritus professor of anthropology at the Australia National University. In conjunction with others he has written three land claims for the Warlpiri and two native title claims including for the heartland of Ngaliya Warlpiri people, Mt Doreen Station. Valerie Napaljarri Martin is the Chairperson for Pintupi Anmatyerr Warlpiri Media and Communications, based in Yuendumu, Central Australia. She has a Lifetime Achievement award for her contributions in the First Nations media sector. Simon Japangardi Fisher is the senior archive manager for the Warlpiri Media Archive housed at Pintupi Anmatyerr Warlpiri Media and Communications, based in Yuendumu, Central Australia.

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