Tuesday, November 19, 2019

SONGS AND VOICES FROM YARRABAH IN UNIVERSITY COLLECTION

 

In our experience , a  trip to Special Collections  at James Cook University, Townsville , always  results  in  a feast  of  interesting   items  coming  to attention .  One example- the above  record of  songs, some  in  English ,  recorded  in  the  l960s at  the Yarrabah aboriginal settlement  , near Cairns . Singers are named as  Hillary and W. Harris and  Dick Taylor.

The emblem on the  sleeve cover  is derived from a   boomerang totem on a softwood shield  collected in the early l930s by the late Mrs Ursula McConnel  at Yarrabah . Field collectors  for the songs were Alice M. Moyle and P. C. Griffin, master dubbing performed by Audio Visual Aids, Monash University, Melbourne .
  
Song titles included Spear Making, Cyclone, Alligator, Carpet Snake, Scrub Hen , Feathers , Bark Canoe, Octopus , Two Brothers,  Two Sisters. "Prowler from the North "  is another  , which raises the  possibility that  it  referred  to WWll .