Equiparación de condenas extranjeras a condenas impuestas por jueces

It is generally regarded that the musical instruments accompanying traditional songs in central Australia are simple: only pairs of boomerangs or clapsticks.21 _{This section is regarding research}

on the existence of the kurlumpurrngu or Warlpiri didjeridu which later would be known to have a connection with the purpose of Milpirri. In the first appointment with Wild in Australia, I saw beautiful didjeridus collected in his office in the School of Music. However, I was, to tell the truth, quite shocked to know the fact that I would have no chance of playing the didjeridu as far as studying Warlpiri music as I had liked the sound of didjeridus so much since I was in Japan. It might be thus natural to think that didjeridus or any wind instruments are nothing to do with Milpirri. However, as I found later a rare instrument, a kind of didjeridu in Lajamanu, whose cosmology and accompanying song and dances had intimate links to Milpirri, I will here review basic research on the existence of aerophones in central Australia. In the following chapter I will introduce how I came across the instrument unfamiliar in the literature.

21 _{See Ellis (1985) and Curran (2010) for common forms of percussion referred to in the performance on the Central}

Australian region — namely the use of digging sticks to strike the ground, and the use and techniques of women’s body percussion. It seems likely that the sound of the PET bottles is closer to that of striking the ground and possibly lapslapping than clapsticks.

It has been largely believed that the didjeridu was not Indigenous to central Australia. In his article, Karl Neuenfeldt (1997:108) mentioned that ‘the chief irony is that the didjeridu is the major musical symbol of Aboriginality marketed in central Australia, but it was not traditionally a hallmark of the rich musical traditions of local Aboriginal people’, which agrees with Dunbar-

Hall’s (1998) expression ‘a national symbol’ in both traditionally-didjeridu-using areas and non- using ones. Even Glowczewski (n.d.) who has travelled to Lajamanu from France for 30 years assumed as common sense that didjeridu had never been used in Purlapa:

The type of men’s singing and dancing that women can attend is called purlapa, a name also given to the songs and dances performed by men and women together. The purlapa dancers are always accompanied by a group of seated singers who give the beat by striking together two boomerangs or small sticks, or sometimes one stick against a shield lying on the ground. These percussion instruments are the only musical instruments of the desert people, who do not have the didgeridu (horns) or the drums hollowed from logs of the Arnhem Land tribes.

However, several studies have proved that certain aerophones, if not yiḏaki or Arnhem Land-type didjeridu, existed historically in central Australia. Referring to several documents in the late 19th _{and early 20}th _{centuries, Linda Barwick (n.d.) discovered that it was only a ‘myth’}

that didjeridus were only found traditionally in Northern Australia. Alice Moyle (1981:327) also mentioned that there was evidence that the didjeridu might have primarily been more

Not only with the variety in spelling (e.g. didjeridu, didgeridoo, digeridoo, etc.), this aerophone has several regional names identified by language groups. It is said that there are at least 45 synonyms for the didjeridu (Jones cited in Ngala n.d.) including bambu, bombo, kambu, pampuu, garnbak, illpirra, martba, jiragi, yiraki and yidaki. A. Moyle (1981, 322) speculated that some of the synonyms resemble the word ‘bamboo’ because the first didjeridus were made of bamboo. Amongst the various names, Ulbura is used by the Arrernte language group in central Australia. The first reference to this is by Spencer and Gillen (1899), who described a ‘rudimentary trumpet’ (60cm. in length) called ilpirra or ulpirra. Several illustrations were

drawn in 1908: The karakara used in an ‘Aranda Itata’ were recorded by Carl Strehlow (1913:15), and ‘Trompete der Waramunga’ by Erhard Eylmann (1908; see figure 2.5). Ernest Worms (1953:280) found that ubar, uwar and uluru (North-west Arnhem Land) and ulpirra, ilpirra and ulburu (central Australia) were ‘linguistic variations of the same stem’.

Figure 2.5: Trompete der Waramunga [Waramunga Trumpet]

A smaller didjeridu, measuring about fifteen to thirty centimeters in length, was also distinguished at Borroloola, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, NT, and will be related to the

instrument restored in Lajamanu. According to John Bradley and Elizabeth Mackinlay (2000:9), the didjeridu, termed ma-kulurru or bambu by the Yanyuwa people, was introduced through trade between the Yanyuwa and their neighbours to the west. It is also known that the equivalent didjeridu, or ‘Ornamented Bamboo Trumpet’, from the Anula (Yanyuwa) was

illustrated by Spencer and Gillen (1904:705). Mackinlay (2003) concluded that this small didjeridu was similar to the ulbura reported by Ted Strehlow (1947:78-79) for the Aranda (Arrernte) of central Australia. Speaking of small didjeridus, ‘kidjeridus’ are sometimes sold in souvenir shops in Australia. They are defined by Fiona Magowan (1997:164) as ‘short pieces of plastic piping about two feet in length with a smaller body capacity, requiring less air pressure to create a drone and thus, are more suitable for children’. On the other hand, the problem of

this is designated by a didjeridu instructor, Joe Cheal (2009:18), that ‘because the instrument is so short, it doesn’t sound much like a proper didjeridu’.

The method of playing the hollow log (didjeridu) is another matter of interest if the sound of the instrument was linked to the voice of an emu, which is regarded as a totemic animal. Worms took it as a kind of drum as well as a trumpet. As diminutive didjeridus like kidjeridus often lack deepness in the sound when blown, the sound of certain didjeridues are imagined to have been produced by slapping hand. A. Moyle (1981:327-328) suggested that ‘emu decoy’ recorded in several parts of Australia may have been a precursor of the didjeridu in

some areas. Thus, it is necessary to systematically evaluate the playing method and another purpose of the kurlumpurrngu in a later chapter.

The literature already responded to the question of whether the didjeridu was originally found in the Top End of the NT. The answer depends on how one defines ‘didjeridu’. Although Catherine Ellis (1998:436) knew that the ‘ulbura’ or ‘a wooden trumpet’ had been present in central Australia, she did not consider it to be a ‘didjeridu’. It is, however, hypothesised by A. Moyle (1981:327) that at an elementary stage in the development of blowing techniques,

aerophones might have been widely scattered throughout Australia. Therefore, it is apparent that if one defines the ‘didjeridu’ only as ‘yiḏaki’, then it cannot be said to have existed in

Australia’s central outback. On the other hand, if the definition extends to the ‘ulbura’ in all

manners of its performance, then the didjeridu can be described as having existed there. Whilst the current popularity of didjeridus in central Australia has been noted by several researchers (Ellis 1985; Neuenfeldt 1997; Dunbar-Hall 1998; etc.), they have always focused on new recordings of yiḏaki type didjeridus. This may be because, as Mackinlay (2003) states, ‘the didjeridu is variously recognized both as a symbol of Yolŋu culture and pan-Aboriginal identity and as an Australian icon’. Also, Shane Homan (1997) already recognised a more than twenty- year didjeridu representation of a ‘pan-Aboriginal culture’ and Dunbar-Hall (1998) depicted that

didjeridu is an innovation and interpreted as a national symbol of generalised Aboriginal culture for popular bands from both traditionally-didjeridu-using areas and non-using ones. There have been, however, few studies done on reviving an Indigenous musical instrument in central

Australia, including Lajamanu. Chapter 3 will demonstrate for the first time the story of restoration of a wind instrument called ‘kurlumpurrngu’ and how its ceremony relates to the idea of Milpirri.