Tag Archives: song cycle

Sustaining Oral Tradition

Stephen Muecke writes the preface for Stuart Cooke’s edition and translation of George Dyuŋgayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle, which also appears in the Cordite Poetry Review (20 Oct 2014, see: Sustaining Oral Tradition: A Preface to Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle).

Muecke writes,

The complex process of translation spelled out by Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle – from a spirit being to Dyuŋgayan to Roe and Butcher Joe, to Ray Keogh to Stuart Cooke; from Nyigina to Broome English to Australian English; from oral production supplemented with gestures and sand drawings via tape recorders and notebooks to alphabetic script printed on paper – reinforces the idea that translation is emphatically never about reducing the number of mediations, nor indeed facilitating the transfer of meaning.

I am reminded of my own process of watching stories translate between contexts and materialities in my own research. These stories of being with, performed on country, move through. They might offer a moment of fixedness/stability (Frans; Law 2004), otherwise, they draw on metaphor to metamorphose and translate into new forms, including oral stories. Just like the rainbow serpent creator beings that are said to have shaped parts of the Australian continent, stories too ‘dive and reappear in new places’ (Emerson in Levin 1999, p. 3). Stories make themselves visible in one manifestation or another: in country and through storytelling, before they disappear or transform into some other materiality: into transcripts, conversations of remembrance and onto paper. Following stories and metaphors as they reveal themselves as actors in my research, my task as the researcher is to ‘… seek to understand, and to watch what they’re up to’ (Nicholls 2013, p. 42). There can be no prior assumptions about what these actors do; as John Law (2004) states, actors as entities ‘… are not given, [instead] they emerge in relations [with other actors]’ (p. 102).

References:

Dyungayan, G & Cooke, S 2014, Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle, Puncher &​ Wattmann, Glebe.

Law, J 2004, After Method: mess in social science research Routledge, Oxon.

Levin, J 1999, The poetics of transition: Emerson, pragmatism, and American literary modernism, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.

Nicholls, A 2013, ‘Paper work’, Learning Communities: International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts, vol. 12, pp. 40-3.

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Filed under Articles, Metaphors, Poetry

Native Planet – Protecting our songlines

The following documentary forms part of a six-episode series that highlights Indigenous peoples’ struggle to protect their lands from industrial development. Although the Browse LNG Processing Plant will not be developed along the Lurujarri Dreaming Trail and Northern Traditions Song Cycle (songline), the traditional lands of the Goolarabooloo and Jabirr Jabirr people have still been compulsorily acquired by the Western Australian government. The WA government intends on industrialising the monsoonal vine thicket of the Dampier Peninsula, which is now a threatened ecological community and functions as a year-round food and medicinal resource.

The Native Planet documentary was respectfully made with the Goolarabooloo people and gives voice to their fight to protect country and shares the perspectives of others with supporting and divergent viewpoints.

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Filed under Moving Images, The Campaign, Uncategorized, Walking

James Price Point Aboriginal cultural leader passes away

27 February, 2014 8:17AM AWST
By ABC Kimberley
 

He was best known as the face of Aboriginal opposition to gas processing at James Price Point north of Broome, and for being a grandson of celebrated Broome cultural leader, Paddy Roe.

The Goolarabooloo Law Boss, who cannot be named for cultural reasons, passed away in a Perth hospital after he suffered what is believed to be a massive heart attack while in Broome. His death comes as a shock to many who knew him as a vigorous opponent to the State Government and Woodside Petroleum’s plans to build a gas processing facility at James Price Point north of Broome.

He first lodged a native title claim over the James Price Point area in 1994. He described his connection to this country as the Keeper of the Northern Tradition, which had been passed to him from his Grandfather, Paddy Roe, who was given cultural custodianship by the Jabirr Jabirr traditional owners in the 1930s.

He, and his grandfather before him, were regarded by many in Broome as cultural leaders who maintained active Aboriginal religious beliefs which coexisted with modern society. But he was a controversial figure and his opposition to the planned James Price Point gas facility lead to a division between his Goolarabooloo family group, and the Jabirr Jabirr traditional owners.

He led many appeals and challenges to the gas processing facility planned for James Price Point. Eventually Woodside decided not to proceed with the project as it was determined to not be economically feasible.

Since that decision, the State Government has proceeded with the compulsory acquisition of James Price Point in spite of there being no known industry interest in developing the area. The Goolarabooloo Law Boss was unmoving in his opposition to efforts to industrialise the area.

Tributes have flowed today for the man from the Australian Greens with Senator Rachel Siewert expressing deep sadness at the man’s passing.

“His courage in fighting the James Price Point Gas hub proposal was inspiring and his leadership was a key to the success of the campaign,” she said today.

“His work will long be remembered and respected across Australia. It is a great shame to lose a leader at such an early age. He will be greatly missed.”

“I offer sincere condolences to his family, friends and community.”

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March 4, 2014 · 6:06 am

The Kimberley’s songlines at risk

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November 23, 2013 · 2:01 am