Sustaining Tiwi Song Practice through Kulama

Abstract

Tiwi traditional song practice is defined by the improvisation of occasion-specific song within an intricate linguistic and musical framework. Historically the Kulama ceremony (part of a graded system of ritual instruction) was the main locus of song learning and performance by both men and women. The Tiwi language and way of life have undergone massive changes in the last sixty years. With a rapidly dwindling number of old Tiwi men and women who have any knowledge of the old language or the skills of song composition and performance, Kulama ceremonies are falling out of practice and new Kulama songs are no longer being composed. In an attempt to keep these skills alive, elders are using repatriated ethnographic recordings as a teaching tool; not only to preserve the cultural and spiritual knowledge held in the old song texts, but also as linguistic and melodic source material for new ways of composing.