Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:27:16.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Yut̲a Manikay: Juxtaposition of Ancestral and Contemporary Elements in the Performance of Yolngu Clan Songs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Steven Knopoff
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Among the earlier views and assumptions about non-Western music that have come to be reconsidered in the present period of musicological self-reflection are those concerning issues of conservatism (or stability) and innovation (or change). In a number of cultural areas, a bias among researchers towards perceived conservatism was influenced by both indigenous and Western beliefs. Clunies-Ross has aptly summarized the bi-cultural impact upon the perception of conservatism in the case of Australian Aboriginal song: “… it is only relatively recently that scholars have begun to question the ideology of stability of songs and their meanings that has been espoused by Aborigines and researchers alike. Two converging ideologies have ensured that the matter remained beyond question. For their part, Aborigines have tended to communicate an ideology of stability to enquiries, and the enquirers have tended to accept this ideology at face value because they have themselves brought to their task prior assumptions about the stability of oral traditions. These assumptions derive from our own culture's emphasis on the unchanging nature of artistic forms, especially of those that have the authority of antiquity” (Clunies-Ross 1987: 4).

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 24 , 1992 , pp. 138 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Read at the 31st ICTM World Conference in Hong Kong July 1991.

References

References Cited

Barwick, L.M. 1989 “Creative (Ir)regularities: The Intermeshing of Text and Melody in Performance of Central Australian Song.” Australian Aboriginal Studies (1): 2–11.Google Scholar
Berndt, C.H. 1950 “Expression of Grief Among Aboriginal Women.” Oceania 20(4): 286–332.Google Scholar
Berndt, R.M. and Tonkinson, R. 1988 “A Contemporary Overview.” In Social Anthropology and Australian Aboriginal Studies, (eds.) R.M. Berndt and R. Tonkinson, 3–13. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.Google Scholar
Clunies-Ross, M. 1987 “Research into Aboriginal Songs: The State of the Art.” In Songs of Aboriginal Australia, (eds.) M. Clunies-Ross, T. Donaldson and S.A. Wild, 1–13. Sydney: Oceania Monographs 32.Google Scholar
Clunies-Ross, M. and Wild, S.A. 1984 “Formal Performance: The Relations of Tune, Text, and Dance in Arnhem Land Clan Songs.” Ethnomusicology 28(2): 209–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiatt, L.R. and Jones, R. 1988 “Aboriginal Conceptions for the Workings of Nature.” In Australian Science in the Making, (ed.) Rod Home, 1–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, T.A. 1957 “Arnhem Land Music. Part II (Continued). A Musical Survey.” Oceania 28(1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKnight, C.C. 1971 “Macassans and Aborigines.” Oceania 42(4): 283–321.Google Scholar
Morphy, H. 1984 Journey to the Crocodile's Nest. An accompanying monograph to the film Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka'wuy. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Stubington, J. 1978 “Yolngu Manikay: Modern Performances of Australian Aboriginal Clan Songs.” Ph.D. thesis, Monash University.Google Scholar
1982 “Song Performance and Aboriginal Polity: A North-East Arnhem Land Example.” Musicology 7: 84–103.Google Scholar
Warner, W.L. 1958 [1937] A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe. Chicago: Harper and Brothers, revised ed.Google Scholar
Waterman, R.A. 1952-53 Field recordings made at Yirrkala, held at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.Google Scholar
Wild, S.A. 1987 “Recreating the Jukurrpa: Adaptation and Innovation of Songs and Ceremonies in Warlpiri Society.” In Songs of Aboriginal Australia, (eds.) M. Clunies-Ross, T. Donaldson and S.A. Wild, 97–120. Sydney: Oceania Monographs 32.Google Scholar
Williams, N. 1986 The Yolngu and Their Land: A System of Land Tenure and the Fight for its Recognition. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar