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Yanyuwa women play too: didjeridu performance at Borroloola, N.T.
Article from:Women & Music
Article date:January 1, 2003
Author: MacKinlay, Elizabeth

ORIGINATING IN THE ARNHEM LAND region of the top end of northern Australia, today the didjeridu is variously recognized both as a symbol of Yolngu culture and pan-Aboriginal identity and as a distinctly Australian icon. Measuring approximately 1.3 to 1.5 meters, the instrument is cut from the narrow trunks of stringy bark eucalyptus already hollowed out by termites (Knopoff 1997:39; see fig. 1). The most common playing technique involves buzzing the lips on one end of the instrument to "produce a constant drone through the use of circular breathing" (Knopoff 1997:40). Described by Mandawuy Yunupingu, a Yolngu activist and lead singer of the popular Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi, as having a tongue and language of its own (1997:vii), the didjeridu functions musically as a "provider of tone colour, as a rhythm instrument, as a supplier of introductions, interludes and codas to songs, and as an issuer of elaborate coded signals" (Dunbar-Hall 1997:70). (1) Locally in Arnhem Land, Yolngu people refer to this instrument as yidaki. Yunupingu (1997:vii) explains that the yidaki has a deep spiritual existence in Yolngu culture and "holds a special place in the presentation of Yolngu art, music, dance, and history. Its basic role in Yolngu society is to accompany the singers, serving as a percussion instrument as well as setting time for the rhythm of songs." The contexts of didjeridu performance in Yolngu culture range from formal to informal--"it has a serious role to play in men's ceremony, but it is also used as a popular instruments for the enjoyment of women and children" (Yunupingu 1997:viii).

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Nationally, the didjeridu has become a symbol of resistance and survival for Aboriginal people, and the unique sounds of this instrument often carry political and poignant overtones to make comment on land rights and issues of social justice for Indigenous Australians. At the same time, the didjeridu has experienced widespread diffusion into non-Aboriginal performance cultures and Australian culture as a whole, and in these contexts it is performed at ANZAC ceremonies, at football grand finals, and on other occasions of national spectacle such as the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Globally, the didjeridu has been swept up in the groundswell of appropriation and commodification of both culture and indigeneity. The journey from "Arnhem Land to Internet and back again," as Hayward and Neuenfeldt (1997:9) put it, has seen the didjeridu enter into the soundscapes of many individuals and groups in Australia and abroad.

Perhaps the most contentious and widely debated issue surrounding Aboriginal performance in both popular and academic circles today concerns the notion that it is taboo for women to play or even touch a didjeridu. Based on conversations with Aboriginal women and men in northern Australia and conversations with other researchers, recent work by Barwick (1997) rebuts the myths surrounding "gender taboos and didjeridus." Barwick's evidence suggests that many Aboriginal women do play didjeridu in traditional communities, and she reports that few restrictions exist on women's playing didjeridu in an informal capacity in Arnhem Land communities, from which the instrument originates. Barwick further suggests that in fact most restrictions about women's playing didjeridu exist in southeastern Australia, where the didjeridu has only recently been introduced (1997:89).

Barwick's comments could and will be read by some as highly controversial; however, her claims are strongly supported by historical and contemporary documentation. While undertaking extensive fieldwork during the 1960s throughout the Northern Territory, the musicologist Alice Moyle visited the township of Borroloola, on the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria. During her short stay there in 1966, Moyle recorded Jemima Wimalu, a Marra women from Roper River, playing didjeridu. According to Moyle (1978:17), Jemima Wimalu was a practiced didjeridu player whose performance incorporated overblown or upper-tone notes and voiced effects, beating stick accompaniment, and mouth sound demonstrations. Example 1 is Moyle's musical transcription of Jemima Wimalu's performance.

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My own involvement with the Aboriginal community at Borroloola, some thirty years after Moyle's visit, suggests that her observations were more than just an anomaly. During fieldwork in the region from 1994 to 1996, it was not unusual for Yanyuwa women to accompany public singing sessions with didjeridu. On one such occasion in July 1994, Jemima a-Wuwarlu Miller (named after the woman recorded by Alice Moyle three decades earlier) began playing a senior Garrwa man's didjeridu. She stopped playing after a few minutes because the didjeridu she was playing was too big for her to maintain a constant flow of air through the instrument Dinny Nyilba McDinny, the senior Garrwa man then took over the role as male didjeridu performer (see fig. 2).

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Nobody present at this performance, male or female, frowned upon Jemima's playing the didjeridu, and it did not appear as though Dinny felt threatened by Jemima's attempt to play the instrument. Outside the context of Borroloola, it is my experience that Yanyuwa women are more than willing to display their didjeridu-playing talents to others. For example, while visiting the University of Queensland in association with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit in June 1997 in their capacity as guest lecturers, both Jemima and her senior cousin Annie a-Karrakayn Isaac demonstrated their didjeridu-playing skills to students at the University of Queensland.

One of the most notable facts about didjeridu performance among the Yanyuwa community at Borroloola, then, is that women play too. Rather than enter into the debate on the appropriateness of women's playing didjeridu, in this paper I wish to explore the social and musical changes in the Borroloola region that have led to female performance on this instrument today. In doing so I will explore the history of didjeridu performance in this region, and my discussion will focus on changes in performance practice brought about by the introduction of this instrument into the Yanyuwa musical tradition. Attention will then turn to the present-day role that Yanyuwa women play in didjeridu performance and cultural maintenance as a whole.

Yanyuwa People and Performance Practice

As I have described elsewhere (Mackinlay 1997, 1998, 2000b) the group of Aboriginal people who call themselves Yanyuwa live in the township of Borroloola, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Borroloola is situated approximately 970 kilometers southeast of Darwin and 80 kilometers inland from the Gulf of Carpentaria (map 1). Yanyuwa culture is primarily sea-based, and the people traditionally identify themselves as island or saltwater people and often use the colorful phrase li-anthawirriyarra, or "people whose spirit belongs to the sea," as a marker of their spiritual and social identity. Four different major linguistic groups traditionally inhabited this area--Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra, and Gudanji. Garrwa and Yanyuwa speakers are more frequently encountered than Gudanji and Marra in the Borroloola region, Garrwa more so that Yanyuwa. I am currently working with this combined group of Yanyuwa and Garrwa women.

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Yanyuwa music is primarily vocal with beating accompaniment--paired boomerang clapsticks (wakirli), clapping sticks (karlwa), and hand or body slapping--and is characterized by unison singing with an organizational song leader and group. Performance of Yanyuwa songs comprise short passages of uninterrupted singing, each about thirty seconds to two minutes in duration, where a syllabic song text and rhythmic pattern is cyclically repeated and presented over a largely descending melodic shape Detailed musical analysis of public performance highlights that the textual and rhythmic structure of Yanyuwa song is similar to that of central Australian Aboriginal music, while melodically Yanyuwa pitch structures resemble more closely those used in some parts of north central ant northeast Arnhem Land song styles (Mackinlay 1998).

Yanyuwa people do not have a specific term for "music"; rather, each specific musical genre has its own particular name and sometimes sub set of names. Yanyuwa categorization of song styles is determined according to a complex set of interrelationships between the origins of the song, the purpose of the performance, and the participants who take part. On a broad level, songs may be distinguished with reference to the origins of music, and a distinction is made between songs from the Dreaming (kujika) and songs made by humans (walaba and a-kurija). As I have discussed elsewhere (Mackinlay 2000a, Bradley and Mackinlay 2000), the Yanyuwa have two terms, kurdukurdu and lhamarnda, that serve to further categorize genres of performance. Kurdukurdu is often explained by Yanyuwa as a correlate to the Western terms "secret" and "sacred" and therefore refers to performance genres such as kujika labeled as "business" and sometimes "restricted business." Lhamarnda is described by Yanyuwa people as "free" or "not secret and sacred" and refers to performance genres that are considered to be unrestricted. This category may include some forms of kujika and incorporates the extensive repertoire of walaba and a-kurija songs. As with many such words in indigenous languages, the interpretations given are multivocal, contextual, and open to many different interpretations dependent upon time, place, and gender.

The History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Yanyuwa people had experienced contact with several other cultural groups. Ceremonially and economically the Yanyuwa had continued interaction with neighboring indigenous groups such as the Garrwa, Marra, and Gudanji. A number of trade routes met at the area around Borroloola, one coming from the east and dominated by Garrwa people (bringing stone tools, plain boomerangs, spears, coolamons, and shell), another coming from the northwest and dominated by the Marra people (trading didjeridus, stone tools, and parrot feather armlets), and yet another coming from the south and dominated by the Gudanji people (exchanging shields, hooked boomerangs, stone tools, and pearl). Yanyuwa people sent out possum for pubic coverings for women and men, paired boomerangs, bundles of cycad food, and since contact with Europeans, salt, and they received objects from all of these directions (Bradley pers. com.).

The didjeridu was introduced through trade between the Yanyuwa and their neighbors to the northwest. According to Bradley (pers. com,), "the didjeridu came in [to Yanyuwa culture] on the northwestern path; some people say it came first with the Mara people, while others say it came from the Mara via Mayili people." Spencer and Gillen (1904:705) documented the use of the North Arnhem Land-style didjeridu in performance by the Yanyuwa at least as early as 1901. They collected a didjeridu played for public unrestricted performance from the Yanyuwa during their expedition to the Borroloola region at that time. Termed by them an ornamented bamboo trumpet, Spencer and Gillen reported that it was the only one of its kind to be found at Borroloola.

According to the Yanyuwa, however, a smaller didjeridu, measuring about fifteen to thirty centimeters in length, also existed at Borroloola. Called ma-kulurru, it was traditionally played primarily for restricted men's business associated strongly with the Spotted Nightjar Dreaming. Although the ceremony is no longer performed, the instrument is said by the Yanyuwa to be symbolic of a hollow log coffin through which the Rainbow Serpent blows. While Yanyuwa women have heard this instrument, they have never seen the small didjeridu nor participated in the ceremonies that accompanied it. (2) Today, senior Yanyuwa women talk about this instrument publicly, and over time, the name for the small restricted didjeridu has become that used by Yanyuwa for the larger introduced didjeridu. What was once a term applied to an instrument used in the context of restricted performance now has wide currency in public unrestricted settings.

Didjeridu Playing at Borroloola Today

The large didjeridu is used to accompany public unrestricted forms of performance loosely referred to as "island songs" by the Yanyuwa. More specifically, however, the large didjeridu is used only to accompany those island songs that are walaba, that is, songs composed by men. Island songs (Miller pets. com.) are concerned with life as experienced by the Yanyuwa on the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands. Island songs speak of the important relationship between people and place while expressing the beauty of the island country. Performance of these songs stimulates immense pride in being Yanyuwa and li-anthawirriyarra. Island songs can be categorized under the broader Yanyuwa term walaba, which is used to refer to "fun songs" composed by men. When composed by women, this type of Yanyuwa fun song is referred to as a-kurija. Typically, walaba and a-kurija concern the actions of human rather than spirit ancestors/beings and are thought by the Yanyuwa to stem from the not-too-distant past of human recollection and experience.

The staging of walaba and a-kurija is devoid of the performance restrictions often associated with ceremony and may occur, for example, at informal gatherings where both female and male musicians are present, within the framework of a staged musical performance for interested observers, or in association with indigenous festivals and organizations. Sitting around a campfire on a cool evening, "talking stories" and reminiscing about times past, usually provides an atmosphere that leads to performance of walaba and a-kurija. These performance occasions are usually accompanied by much frivolity and laughter as the older dancers guide young children in correct performance practice. Importantly, walaba and a-kurija may be seen as establishing a connection between the past and the present, solidifying the shared experiences of Yanyuwa people. This is important in terms of cultural maintenance for the Yanyuwa, since many public unrestricted songs reflect the impact of European contact on their culture and the way in which Yanyuwa people have responded to this imposition upon their indigenous reality. (3)

Although the didjeridu is employed in many instances, it is not seen as an essential component to the performance of these songs, as demonstrated by the performance of the same song with and without didjeridu accompaniment. Nevertheless, the inclusion of the didjeridu as accompaniment considerably alters the rhythmic and melodic structure of the song verse. These changes include the addition of signaling phrases such as "brrr-a-toot" to the song text; an increased complexity of rhythmic and melodic layers between the three components of voice, beating accompaniment, and didjeridu; and a structural alteration in sung pitch in accordance with the tonal orientation of the didjeridu.

Women Play Too

As I have argued elsewhere (Mackinlay 1997, 1998), since about 1970 under the heightened pressures of assimilation, it is evident that Yanyuwa women have played an increasingly important role as custodians of country, kin, and culture. Yanyuwa women have often remarked and lamented on the decreased participation of Yanyuwa men in various forms of public unrestricted performance, including island song and walaba (see Norman in Bradley 1992:634, McDinny 1983:73). By the early 1990s, when I began my fieldwork at Borroloola, the performance of island song and walaba by men without the presence, participation, and leadership of Yanyuwa women was almost nonexistent. This gender imbalance can be partly explained through examination of the impact of the cattle industry boom of the 1950s in northern Australia on the Yanyuwa community.

The Northern Territory Welfare Branch played an important role in supplying Aboriginal labor on stations, particularly at the end of World War II, when there was a considerable increase in pastoral activity in areas such as the Barkly Tablelands (Baker 1999:102). Yanyuwa people often describe this era as "cattle times." Aboriginal men found themselves employed as stock men and in this role found themselves valued by their European employers for their traditional bush skills and knowledge of the landscape. Hunting kangaroo was quickly and easily replaced with the task of hunting cattle, and Baker suggests that "one reason that the cattle industry could so readily be incorporated into Aboriginal lifestyles was that, as an economic activity, it was not so different from previous Aboriginal male economic activity" (1999:110).

Like Yanyuwa men, Aboriginal women from Borroloola were frequently employed on cattle stations in various roles ranging from stock work to domestic duties back at the homestead. Comments from Yanyuwa performers suggest that through this period of removal and dispersal across country, both men and women strove to maintain a sense of continuity with a strong tradition of song and ceremonial performance Mussolini Harvey (in Baker 1999:108-9) commented that cattle times offered him the opportunity to build up immense ceremonial knowledge as he moved across country and listened to the stories of the custodians of those places. Similarly, Jemima a-Wuwarlu Miller (pers. com.) explained to me that the performance of song played a major role in the lives of those Yanyuwa women based on homesteads or those women who remained in Borroloola, who would often sing songs to keep themselves company while their husbands were away at stock camp.

The Yanyuwa reaction to the impact of "cattle times" is mixed, illustrating the complexity of the assimilation process. For some Yanyuwa people, "cattle times" is viewed as a "golden era" when life was good. Roger Charlie (in Baker 1999) reflects that "Cattle station times were better ... used to have your own way that time ... do what you like, when you want to work or you go out bush, holiday. Welfare time you always get pushing for work." Baker (1999:107) suggests that "Roger's sentiments are echoed by most Aboriginal people in the Borroloola area who lived and worked on cattle stations," some of whom expressed the opinion that they preferred life on cattle stations because of the stability and consistency of employment it provided.

Other Yanyuwa people, however, perceive the extensive Aboriginal involvement in the cattle industry, coupled with the supervision and control imposed by the Northern Territory Welfare Branch, in a more negative light. Extended drought, a collapse in beef prices, and the introduction of equal wages in the 1960s resulted in massive layoffs in the cattle industry, and those Yanyuwa people employed on cattle stations returned to Borroloola (Baker 1999:116). Annie a-Karrakayn Isaac explained this period of change as a time when "we came into Borroloola welfare time, we sat down and people died. When people used to [be] out in the bush, they used to [be] good. I don't know why we came together and die people. All our people been die now ... kaluyibanda, kulu kalinyamba-mirra [translating] we came, we sat, we died" (in Baker 1999:95). As reflected in Annie's comment, it was during the period after the demise of the cattle industry that Aboriginal people who "sat down" at Borroloola became increasingly dependent and reliant upon white society for the economic and financial provisions of everyday life. The downfall of the cattle industry, combined with the introduction of equal wages for Aboriginal people, ultimately led to a dramatic decrease in employment opportunities for many Yanyuwa women and men and subsequently the termination of economic status and independence.

Without doubt, the disruption to social order and continuity brought about by the rise and fall of the cattle industry served to hasten the process whereby the social authority, status, and gender roles of both Yanyuwa women and Yanyuwa men gradually eroded. In many ways, however, Yanyuwa women were able to maintain elements of female social authority and status through the continuing importance of their established gender roles as mothers of children and nurturers of culture. As Grimshaw (1981:90) suggests, the maintenance of that "strong separate 'women's sphere,' and the female consciousness which accompanied it," sustained Aboriginal women through such dramatic social and cultural upheaval. In contrast, Yanyuwa men have struggled to uphold their roles as social actors that in the past held an intimate connection with their status and authority as sea turtle and dugong hunters or maranja. Bradley explains, "Maranja and the group term li-maranja are terms not used just for someone who is able to kill a dugong and sea turtle, although in the contemporary sense, it is more often becoming so. Rather, it is and was reserved for those people who also knew the Law associated with the sea, the sea grass, dugong and turtles as well as knowing the spiritual significance of the activity" (1997:263).

Cattle times restricted the freedom of Yanyuwa people to move across country to traditional sea turtle and dugong hunting grounds, and as Bradley (1997:264) suggests, Yanyuwa men's involvement in the cattle industry altered the time spent hunting, the necessity to hunt, and the availability of hunters: "History shows that the number of men hunting dugong and sea turtle has decreased dramatically. One of the major reasons for this was the disruption caused by the cattle industry and the need for that industry to have cheap labour, which was found in Indigenous labour" (1997:422). By taking Aboriginal people to work on cattle stations, the assimilation process transformed Yanyuwa men from "dugong hunters into cowboys" (Bradley 1997:393). The vital link between continuity and social structure was broken, and when Yanyuwa men returned to Borroloola, the option of resuming their traditional male roles, including those associated with men's performance of island songs and walaba, had gone.

As Bell (1983:230) has suggested, new understandings emerge when women are allowed to speak, and Yanyuwa women often discuss not only the devastating changes in male-female relations and gender roles but also the effects of those changes on performance practice. In conversation with the anthropologist John Bradley, Eileen a-Manankurrmara McDinny questioned: "Us mob, us women, we still talk together about everything, but I don't know about them men, they stay home, never get together, not like the old times, man he always he talk, all day, but we women we still here talking, talking, but the men, I don't know what's wrong" (in Bradley 1992:617). And Dinah a-Marrangawi Norman further remarked: "Well only us mob here singing, nobody want to learn, and you don't see much good thing this time, not like old days, and man, you know that man he don't sing, not like long time when we all been kid" (in Bradley 1992:634). Both comments illustrate that today the lack of participation by Yanyuwa men in unrestricted performance occasions has meant that Yanyuwa women have been left with little choice: if the performance tradition is to remain, they must take control. In relation to the performance of didjeridu as accompaniment to public unrestricted island songs and walaba, the way women take control is by playing didjeridu. Rather than a statement of Yanyuwa women's status and authority to exert power over men, the female performance of didjeridu represents an attempt by Yanyuwa women to resolve the tension brought about by historical circumstance and contemporary reality vis-a-vis dramatic shifts in gender roles and an overwhelming concern for cultural continuity. Today Yanyuwa women are taking primary responsibility for a performance tradition whose composition is attributed to men and whose song texts speak of men's activities and responses. I suggest that the unrestricted nature of island songs and walaba has made possible the transference of power and authority in relation to the maintenance of this performance tradition from the voices of Yanyuwa men to Yanyuwa women. (4)

In conclusion, although the didjeridu has been incorporated into one area of Yanyuwa performance practice, the original musical processes and meanings attached to this instrument in Yolngu culture have not crossed cultural boundaries. Musically, the instrument has not penetrated the deeper structures and systems of Yanyuwa thought as represented by restricted ceremony--kujika (Dreaming songs) remain the performance realm of Yanyuwa men and women, and both genders continue to participate equally in Yijan (Dreaming) sanctioned performance. Socially, however, traces of gender marking remains in the sense that the only song to which didjeridu is used as accompaniment in Yanyuwa culture are walaba, fun songs composed by men.

Without doubt, the performance of didjeridu by Yanyuwa women today is representative of extensive cultural change. The devastation and destruction wrought by colonization on established gender roles in Aboriginal cultures played out slightly differently in each region of Australia. Among the Yanyuwa and other Aboriginal groups rounded up and brought into Borroloola, the men were sent out to nearby cattle stations and became stock workers, while the women took on the role of domestic slaves to white women and men. For a time, this newfound status as accomplished cattle musterers allowed Aboriginal men in this region to maintain a relationship with their traditional country and to demonstrate knowledge of that country to white people, thereby gaining a sense of power and agency in the face of much government domination and control. The devastating effects of economic hardship in the Northern Territory during the 1960s left Yanyuwa and other Aboriginal men with nowhere to go except back to the town camps in Borroloola and ultimately back to government dependence. Many Aboriginal men in this region today are still struggling to regain a sense of place and purpose as individuals and as a group in a township that remains firmly in the grip of white management and power.

Taking on the role of didjeridu performance is but one example of how Yanyuwa women strive to sustain a strong musical and cultural tradition in times of rapid social change and upheaval. Often lamenting the lack of men's participation in walaba performance practice, Annie a-Karrakayn Isaac, Eileen a-Manankurrmara McDinny, Dinah a-Marrangawi Norman, Thelma a-Walwamara Douglas, Jemima a-Wuwarlu Miller, and their peers view themselves as the sole remaining preservers of this song genre, and by extension of the historical knowledge that resonates in the texts, melodies, and dance movements.

Note

Many thanks to John Bradley, Stephen Wild, Fiona Magowan, and the other editors and referees who have offered insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also acknowledge the senior Yanyuwa performers and custodians of these Yanyuwa performance traditions: Annie a-Karrakayn Isaac, Eileen a-Manankurrmara McDinny, Dinah a-Marrangawi Norman, Jemima a-Wuwarlu Miller, Thelma a-Walwamara Douglas, and Dinny Nyilba McDinny. I thank them for their teaching, assistance, guidance, and permission in relation to the interpretation of these performance traditions for public discussion.

(1.) The musicological and cultural studies literature on the didjeridu is extensive. I refer the reader to historical work by Elkin and Jones (1958), Jones (1967 and 1973), and Stubington (1978), as well as the recently edited collection by Neuenfeldt (1997), for an in-depth overview of this instrument, its cultural foundations, and its musical locations.

(2.) This small didjeridu is similar to a wooden trumpet called ulbura reported by Strehlow (1947:78-79) for the Aranda of Central Australia, an aerophone referred to as kurnatja by R. Moyle (1986:130) among the Alyawarra of Central Australia.

(3.) See, for example, Bradley (1994:56-57) for description of a walaba composition describing the first sighting by two Yanyuwa men of a grader on the Tablelands.

(4.) The performance roles of Yanyuwa men and Yanyuwa women in restricted settings such as kujika have not altered in response to extensive social change. In this realm of performance Yanyuwa men continue to maintain and assert their cultural and musical roles and responsibilities, suggesting an area for future research.

Works Cited

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Barwick, Linda. 1997. "Gender 'Taboos' and Didjeridus." In The Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to Internet, ed. Karl Neuenfeldt, 89-98. Sydney: Libbey/Perfect Beat.

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Bradley, John. 1992. With Jean Kirton and the Yanyuwa community. "Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country: A Yanyuwa Dictionary and Cultural Resource." Unpublished document.

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Bradley, John, and Elizabeth Mackinlay. 2002. Songs from a Plastic Water Rat: An Introduction to the Musical Traditions of the Yanyuwa Community of the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria. Ngulaig 17.

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Elkin, A., and Trevor Jones. 1958. Arnhem Land Music. Oceania Monographs, no. 9. Sydney: Oceania.

Grimshaw, Patricia. 1981. "Aboriginal Women: A Study of Culture Contact." In Australian Women: Feminist Perspectives, ed. Norma Grieve and Patricia Grimshaw, 86-94. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Jones, Trevor. 1967. "The Didjeridu: Some Comparisons of Its Typology and Musical Functions with Similar Instruments throughout the World." Studies in Music (1): 23-55.

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Knopoff, Steven. 1997. "Accompanying the Dreaming: Determinants of Didjeridu Style in Traditional and Popular Yolngu Song." In The Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to Internet, ed. Karl Neuenfeldt, 39-67. Sydney: Libbey/Perfect Beat.

McDinny, Eileen Manankurrmara. 1983. "Borroloola Women Speak: Man and Woman Dance Now." In We Are Bosses Ourselves: The Status and Role of Aboriginal Women Today, ed. Fay Gale, 68-77. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Mackinlay, Elizabeth. 1997. "'Men Don't Talk Much Anymore': The Changing Status of Women in Society and Possible Implications for Yanyuwa Women as Keepers, Composers and Performers of A-Nguyulnguyul." Context 12: 45-50.

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--. 2000b. "Maintaining Grandmother's Law: Female Song Partners in Yanyuwa Culture. " Musicology Australia 23: 76-98.

Moyle, Alice. 1978. Aboriginal Sound Instruments. One 12" LP disc, AIAS/14. Sound recording and accompanying booklet. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Moyle, Richard. 1986. With the help of Slippery Morton. Alyawarra Music: Songs and Society in a Central Australian Community. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

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Strehlow, T. G. H. 1947. Aranda Traditions. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Stubington, Jill. 1978. "Yolngu Manikay: Modern Performances of Australian Aboriginal Clan Songs." Ph.D. diss., Monash University.

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Elizabeth Mackinlay is a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Tortes Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland, where she teaches Indigenous studies, anthropology, and ethnomusicology. Elizabeth completed her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 1998 at the University of Adelaide and conducts her research with Yanyuwa women in Borroloola, on the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory. Her main research interests are Indigenous Australian women's music and dance; cross-cultural gender studies in music; music performance and identity; and the ethics of ethnomusicological research and documentation. Elizabeth is presently the national treasurer of the Musicological Society of Australia, chair of the Queensland chapter of the society, and was recently elected to the Queensland Council of the Australian Society of Music Education. She is currently completing a Ph.D. in education at the University of Queensland and is undertaking research on performance pedagogy and cross-cultural music teaching and music learning environments.