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Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
Book, Robert Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria : volume 2 : with notes relating to the habits of the natives of other parts of Australia and Tasmania : compiled from various sources for the Government of Victoria, 2005
... language comparisons... to Aboriginal languages, including comparisons of Victorian languages... William Locke A. F. A. Greeves language comparisons phrenology ...Historical work by the Secretary of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines. (c.1876) Volume two is devoted to Aboriginal languages, including comparisons of Victorian languages with those from New South Wales, word lists, vocabularies, and native names of trees and plants. Volume two also includes details and customs of the aborigines in Tasmania. Includes interesting observations on the works of William Thomas, Alfred W, Howitt, Philip Chaney, Albert A.C. La Souef, John Moore Davis and Rev. William Ridley.robert brough smyth, philip chauncy, william ridley, albert le souef, a. w. howitt, john moore davis, william locke, a. f. a. greeves, language comparisons, phrenology, aboriginal social life and customs, death and burial customs, weapons, tasmania, lake tyers, lake wellington, gippsland, ballarat, brabrolong, lake hindmarsh, kotoopna -
Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
Book, Robert Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria : with notes relating to the habits of the natives of other parts of Australia and Tasmania : compiled from various sources for the Government of Victoria by R. Brough Smyth : vol. 2, 1878
... language comparisons... William Locke A. F. A. Greeves language comparisons phrenology ...Produced in two large volumes, Robert Brough Smyth has collected information on various tribes and their customs, as well as their physical and mental character; birth and education of children; marriage; death and burial of the dead; daily lives of the natives; food; diseases; dress and personal ornaments; weapons; implements and manufacturers; nets and fish hooks; methods of producing fire; canoes and myths. Smyth also devotes about two hundred pages to Aboriginal languages, as well as including details and customs of the aborigines in Tasmania. Complete with hundreds of sketches, the work is still a valuable resource not only for those with in an interest in aboriginal culture, but also those wanting to know the early history of Australia.b&w illustrations, word listsrobert brough smyth, philip chauncy, william ridley, albert le souef, a. w. howitt, john moore davis, william locke, a. f. a. greeves, language comparisons, phrenology, aboriginal social life and customs, death and burial customs, weapons, tasmania, lake tyers, lake wellington, gippsland, ballarat, brabrolong, lake hindmarsh, kotoopna -
Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
Periodical, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Australian Aboriginal studies : journal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2007
1. The moral lexicon of the Warlpiri people of central Australia LR Hiatt This paper discusses words that match ?Good? and ?Bad?; examples of ?Good? and ?Bad? behaviour; morality and law; and egalitarianism and dominance. It also presents a comparison with Gidjingarli (Burarra). 2. Mobs and bosses: Structures of Aboriginal sociality Patrick Mullins (Mount Druitt, NSW) A commonality of Aboriginal social organisation exists across the continent in communities as different as those from the Western Desert across to Cape York, from the towns of New South Wales and Western Australia to cities like Adelaide. This is found in the colloquial expressions ?mob? and ?boss?, which are used in widely differing contexts. Mobbing is the activity where relatedness, in the sense of social alliances, is established and affirmed by virtue of a common affiliation with place, common experience and common descent, as well as by the exchange of cash and commodities. Bossing is the activity of commanding respect by virtue of one?s capacity to bestow items of value such as ritual knowledge, nurturance, care, cash and commodities. Mobbing and bossing are best understood as structures in Giddens? sense of sets of rules and resources involved in the production of social systems, in this case social alliances. Mobbing and bossing imply a concept of a person as a being in a relationship. Attention needs to be given to the way these structures interact with institutions in the wider Australian society. 3. Recognising victims without blaming them: A moral contest? About Peter Sutton?s ?The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Policy in Australia since the 1970s? and Gillian Cowlishaw?s replies Ma�a Ponsonnet (Universit� Paris- 8-Saint-Denis) Peter Sutton?s texts on Aboriginal violence, health and their politicisation are replied to using his methodology, and acknowledging his convincing points. Sutton rightly denounces a lack of lucidity and scientific objectivity in anthropological debates. These inadequacies impede identification of what Aboriginal groups can do to improve their situations for fear that this identification would lead to blame the victims. At the other end of the ethical spectrum, those who advocate a broader use of what I will call a ?resistance interpretation? of violence fail to recognise victims as such, on the implicit grounds that seeing victims as victims would deprive them of any agency, on the one hand, and entail blame, on the other hand. I aim to define a middle road between those views: the idea that victims should be acknowledged as such without being denied their agency and without being blamed for their own condition. This middle road allows identification of the colonisers? responsibilities in the contemporary situation of Indigenous communities in Australia, and to determine who can do what. Secondly, I show that Sutton?s texts convey, through subtle but recurrent remarks, an ideology of blame rather than a mere will to identify practical solutions. As a consequence, some of his proposals do not stand on a solid and objective causal analysis. 4. 'You would have loved her for her lore?: The letters of Daisy Bates Bob Reece (Murdoch University) Daisy Bates was once an iconic figure in Australia but her popular and academic reputation became tarnished by her retrograde views. Her credibility was also put in doubt through the exposure of her fictionalised Irish background. In more recent times, however, her ethnographic data on the Aborigines of Western Australia has been an invaluable source for Native Title claims, while her views on Aboriginal extinction, cannibalism and ?castes? are being seen as typical of her time. This article briefly reviews what has been the orthodox academic opinion of her scientific achievement before summarising what is reliably known of her early history and indicating what kind of person is revealed in the 3000 or more letters that she left behind. 5. What potential might Narrative Therapy have to assist Indigenous Australians reduce substance misuse? Violet Bacon (Curtin University of Technology) Substance misuse is associated with adverse consequences for many Australians including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Extensive research has been conducted into various intervention, treatment and prevention programs to ascertain their potential in reducing substance misuse within Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. I explore the potential of Narrative Therapy as a counselling intervention for assisting Indigenous Australians reduce the harm associated with substance misuse. 6. Bone points from the Adelaide River, Northern Territory Sally Brockwell (University of Canberra) and Kim Akerman (Moonah) Large earth mounds located next to the vast floodplains of the lower Adelaide River, one of the major tropical rivers draining the flat coastal plains of northern Australia, contain cultural material, including bone points. The floodplains of the north underwent dynamic environmental change from extensive mangrove swamps in the mid-Holocene, through a transition phase of variable estuarine and freshwater mosaic environments, to the freshwater environment that exists today. This geomorphological framework provides a background for the interpretation of the archaeology, which spans some 4000 years. 7. A different look: Comparative rock-art recording from the Torres Strait using computer enhancement techniques Liam M Brady (Monash University) In 1888 and 1898, Cambridge University?s Alfred C Haddon made the first recording of rock-art from the Torres Strait islands using photography and sketches. Systematic recording of these same paintings and sites was carried out from 2000 to 2004 by archaeologists and Indigenous Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities as part of community-based rock-art recording projects. Computer enhancement techniques were used to identify differences between both sets of recordings, to reveal design elements that Haddon missed in his recordings, and to recover images recorded by Haddon that are today no longer visible to the naked eye. Using this data, preliminary observations into the antiquity of Torres Strait rock-art are noted along with recommendations for future Torres Strait region rock-art research and baseline monitoring projects. 8. Sources of bias in the Murray Black Collection: Implications for palaeopathological analysis Sarah Robertson (National Museum of Australia) The Murray Black collection of Aboriginal skeletal remains has been a mainstay of bio-anthropological research in Australia, but relatively little thought has been given to how and why this collection may differ from archaeologically obtained collections. The context in which remains were located and recovered has created bias within the sample, which was further skewed within the component of the collection sent to the Australian Institute of Anatomy, resulting in limitations for the research potential of the collection. This does not render all research on the collection unviable, but it demonstrates the importance of understanding the context of a skeletal collection when assessing its suitability for addressing specific research questions.maps, b&w photographs, colour photographs, illustrations, graphs, chartswarlpiri, sociology, daisy bates, substance abuse, narrative therapy, rock art, technology and art, murray black collection, pleistocene sites, watarrka plateau -
Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
Periodical, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Australian Aboriginal studies : journal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2007
1. Musical and linguistic perspectives on Aboriginal song Allan Marett and Linda Barwick Song brings language and music together. Great singers are at once musicians and wordsmiths, who toss rhythm, melody and word against one another in complex cross-play. In this paper we outline some initial findings that are emerging from our interdisciplinary study of the musical traditions of the Cobourg region of western Arnhem Land, a coastal area situated in the far north of the Australian continent 350 kilometres northeast of Darwin. We focus on a set of songs called Jurtbirrk, sung in Iwaidja, a highly endangered language, whose core speaker base is now located in the community of Minjilang on Croker Island. We bring to bear analytical methodologies from both musicology and linguistics to illuminate this hitherto undocumented genre of love songs. 2. Iwaidja Jurtbirrk songs: Bringing language and music together Linda Barwick (University of Sydney), Bruce Birch and Nicholas Evans (University of Melbourne) Song brings language and music together. Great singers are at once musicians and wordsmiths, who toss rhythm, melody and word against one another in complex cross-play. In this paper we outline some initial findings that are emerging from our interdisciplinary study of the musical traditions of the Cobourg region of western Arnhem Land, a coastal area situated in the far north of the Australian continent 350 kilometres northeast of Darwin. We focus on a set of songs called Jurtbirrk, sung in Iwaidja, a highly endangered language, whose core speaker base is now located in the community of Minjilang on Croker Island. We bring to bear analytical methodologies from both musicology and linguistics to illuminate this hitherto undocumented genre of love songs. 3. Morrdjdjanjno ngan-marnbom story nakka, ?songs that turn me into a story teller?: The morrdjdjanjno of western Arnhem Land Murray Garde (University of Melbourne) Morrdjdjanjno is the name of a song genre from the Arnhem Land plateau in the Top End of the Northern Territory and this paper is a first description of this previously undocumented song tradition. Morrdjdjanjno are songs owned neither by individuals or clans, but are handed down as ?open domain? songs with some singers having knowledge of certain songs unknown to others. Many morrdjdjanjno were once performed as part of animal increase rituals and each song is associated with a particular animal species, especially macropods. Sung only by men, they can be accompanied by clap sticks alone or both clap sticks and didjeridu. First investigations reveal that the song texts are not in everyday speech but include, among other things, totemic referential terms for animals which are exclusive to morrdjdjanjno. Translations from song language into ordinary register speech can often be ?worked up? when the song texts are discussed in their cultural and performance context. The transmission of these songs is severely endangered at present as there are only two known singers remaining both of whom are elderly. 4. Sung and spoken: An analysis of two different versions of a Kun-barlang love song Isabel O?Keeffe (nee Bickerdike) (University of Melbourne) In examining a sung version and a spoken version of a Kun-barlang love song text recorded by Alice Moyle in 1962, I outline the context and overall structure of the song, then provide a detailed comparative analysis of the two versions. I draw some preliminary conclusions about the nature of Kun-barlang song language, particularly in relation to the rhythmic setting of words in song texts and the use of vocables as structural markers. 5. Simplifying musical practice in order to enhance local identity: Rhythmic modes in the Walakandha wangga (Wadeye, Northern Territory) Allan Marett (University of Sydney) Around 1982, senior performers of the Walakandha wangga, a repertory of song and dance from the northern Australian community of Wadeye (Port Keats), made a conscious decision to simplify their complex musical and dance practice in order to strengthen the articulation of a group identity in ceremonial performance. Recordings from the period 1972?82 attest to a rich diversity of rhythmic modes, each of which was associated with a different style of dance. By the mid-1980s, however, this complexity had been significantly reduced. I trace the origin of the original complexity, explore the reasons why this was subsequently reduced, and trace the resultant changes in musical practice. 6. ?Too long, that wangga?: Analysing wangga texts over time Lysbeth Ford (University of Sydney) For the past forty or so years, Daly region song-men have joined with musicologists and linguists to document their wangga songs. This work has revealed a corpus of more than one hundred wangga songs composed in five language varieties Within this corpus are a few wangga texts recorded with their prose versions. I compare sung and spoken texts in an attempt to show not only what makes wangga texts consistently different from prose texts, but also how the most recent wangga texts differ from those composed some forty years ago. 7. Flesh with country: Juxtaposition and minimal contrast in the construction and melodic treatment of jadmi song texts Sally Treloyn (University of Sydney) For some time researchers of Centralian-style songs have found that compositional and performance practices that guide the construction and musical treatment of song texts have a broader social function. Most recently, Barwick has identified an ?aesthetics of parataxis or juxtaposition? in the design of Warumungu song texts and musical organisation (as well as visual arts and dances), that mirrors social values (such as the skin system) and forms 'inductive space' in which relationships between distinct classes of being, places, and groups of persons are established. Here I set out how juxtaposition and minimal contrast in the construction and melodic treatment of jadmi-type junba texts from the north and north-central Kimberley region similarly create 'inductive space' within which living performers, ancestral beings, and the country to which they are attached, are drawn into dynamic, contiguous relationships. 8. The poetics of central Australian Aboriginal song Myfany Turpin (University of Sydney) An often cited feature of traditional songs from Central Australia (CA songs) is the obfuscation of meaning. This arises partly from the difficulties of translation and partly from the difficulties in identifying words in song. The latter is the subject of this paper, where I argue it is a by-product of adhering to the requirements of a highly structured art form. Drawing upon a set of songs from the Arandic language group, I describe the CA song as having three independent obligatory components (text, rhythm and melody) and specify how text is set to rhythm within a rhythmic and a phonological constraint. I show how syllable counting, for the purposes of text setting, reflects a feature of the Arandic sound system. The resultant rhythmic text is then set to melody while adhering to a pattern of text alliteration. 9. Budutthun ratja wiyinymirri: Formal flexibility in the Yol?u manikay tradition and the challenge of recording a complete repertoire Aaron Corn (University of Sydney) with Neparr? a Gumbula (University of Sydney) Among the Yol?u (people) of north-eastern Arnhem Land, manikay (song) series serve as records of sacred relationships between humans, country and ancestors. Their formal structures constitute the overarching order of all ceremonial actions, and their lyrics comprise sacred esoteric lexicons held nowhere else in the Yol?u languages. A consummate knowledge of manikay and its interpenetrability with ancestors, country, and parallel canons of sacred y�ku (names), bu?gul (dances) and miny'tji (designs) is an essential prerequisite to traditional leadership in Yol?u society. Drawing on our recordings of the Baripuy manikay series from 2004 and 2005, we explore the aesthetics and functions of formal flexibility in the manikay tradition. We examine the individuation of lyrical realisations among singers, and the role of rhythmic modes in articulating between luku (root) and bu?gul'mirri (ceremonial) components of repertoire. Our findings will contribute significantly to intercultural understandings of manikay theory and aesthetics, and the centrality of manikay to Yol?u intellectual traditions. 10. Australian Aboriginal song language: So many questions, so little to work with Michael Walsh Review of the questions related to the analysis of Aboriginal song language; requirements for morpheme glossing, component package, interpretations, prose and song text comparison, separation of Indigenous and ethnographic explanations, candour about collection methods, limitations and interpretative origins.maps, colour photographs, tablesyolgnu, wadeye, music and culture -
Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages
Book, Marie Hansen Fels, Good men and true : the Aboriginal police of the Port Phillip District, 1837-1853, 1988
The Aboriginal Police in the Port Phillip District were LaTrobe?s orderlies. This book contrasts what attracted men to this force in comparison with Mission life.�b&w illustrationsport phillip district, wimmera, lower murray district, gippsland, pentridge stockade, victorian history