Recently, there has been significant academic work done to understand Australian First Nations "knowledges," and this work has resulted in a series of books, "First Knowledges." I've just started reading "First Knowledges: Law" by Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn. (ISBN 978-1-76076-283-4, ebook and ISBN 978-1-76076-282-7, paperback.)
While, Langton is an anthropologist and indigenous, I was puzzled by how Aaron Corn, a musicologist, was doing a book on law. His qualifications are impressive and he has worked with many famous, indigenous Australian artists, it seemed an odd setting. So I looked up an image of an indigenous painting he references: The Yolŋu Knowledge Constitution by Gumbula.
This document slapped me right back in my box. Of course he's the perfect academic for helping codify Australian First Nations' Law! Their law is codified in art, ritual and performance. Their performance rituals, corroboree, remind and teach law. Some of Australia's most recent land rights activists have been popular music artists, the Yunupingu brothers and Gumbula being very prominent, and Dr Corn has worked with Galloway Yunupingu and Gumbula, both.
Long winds to my point, though. European cultures are fixated on written knowledge. Writing though, like fire, is a great servant and a bad master. We lose key points because of the density of texts all the time. We argue tosses over misrepresented meanings.
Music, rhythm, lyrics and dance aid memory. I know this as a musician who spent more than 3 decades performing. I can't remember what's on my to-do list today, but I can remember the lyrics of every song I ever wrote and most of the covers that I actually had singing parts in.
As I write this, I'm sitting on a sofa under a dear friend's painting by an indigenous artist (name eludes us both, maybe we should relearn it and sing it ;-) that, after reading Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu" a few years ago, I had an epiphany about - it's a map of country and seasons. Indigenous Australians record their knowledges in images and learn the knowledges in ceremony and story telling, and their culture is as rich as any human culture on earth.
Who better to help understand this than a musicologist?!
John Lee Hooker was once asked what the Blues was. He replied, "Life. Blues is life."
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dancing_serpent
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Date: 2025-03-03 12:28 am (UTC)While, Langton is an anthropologist and indigenous, I was puzzled by how Aaron Corn, a musicologist, was doing a book on law. His qualifications are impressive and he has worked with many famous, indigenous Australian artists, it seemed an odd setting. So I looked up an image of an indigenous painting he references: The Yolŋu Knowledge Constitution by Gumbula.
What I found was another work Dr Corn did with another Elder, Steven Wantarri Jampijinpa Patrick, describing how to use Semantic Web technologies to describe indigenous law and doctrine. https://publications.archivists.org.au/index.php/asa/article/view/10347/10427
This document slapped me right back in my box. Of course he's the perfect academic for helping codify Australian First Nations' Law! Their law is codified in art, ritual and performance. Their performance rituals, corroboree, remind and teach law. Some of Australia's most recent land rights activists have been popular music artists, the Yunupingu brothers and Gumbula being very prominent, and Dr Corn has worked with Galloway Yunupingu and Gumbula, both.
Long winds to my point, though. European cultures are fixated on written knowledge. Writing though, like fire, is a great servant and a bad master. We lose key points because of the density of texts all the time. We argue tosses over misrepresented meanings.
Music, rhythm, lyrics and dance aid memory. I know this as a musician who spent more than 3 decades performing. I can't remember what's on my to-do list today, but I can remember the lyrics of every song I ever wrote and most of the covers that I actually had singing parts in.
As I write this, I'm sitting on a sofa under a dear friend's painting by an indigenous artist (name eludes us both, maybe we should relearn it and sing it ;-) that, after reading Bruce Pascoe's "Dark Emu" a few years ago, I had an epiphany about - it's a map of country and seasons. Indigenous Australians record their knowledges in images and learn the knowledges in ceremony and story telling, and their culture is as rich as any human culture on earth.
Who better to help understand this than a musicologist?!
John Lee Hooker was once asked what the Blues was. He replied, "Life. Blues is life."
In the "Great South Land," music is law.