Multimedia Presentation

I hear the didgeridoo first, as we walk towards the ‘welcome to country’ on the sandy shore. The gut vibrating sound is ancient and demanding. The old man playing it, we learn later, is revered by his people for his wisdom and healing powers. Arriving on the scene, I hear too the high pitched call of the storyteller singing on one note then falling away, singing on one note then falling away, as if transmitting information from a distant place. He tells the Galpu clan story of the Spirit Man. Clap sticks accentuate the rhythm, also played by a chosen member of the clan.

The Spirit Man walks across the land, hunting and digging for bush tucker, placing it in his dilly bag. The Spirit Man finds water, cups it in his hands and splashes it onto his body. The Spirit Man negotiates with the crow for possession of a sweet water hole. The accompaniment starts just after the singer begins each section of the story. It ends just before he finishes, leaving the voice trailing on for a few seconds alone.

Two young male dancers also tell the story, using stylized stamping movements, clapping at times, or stretching their arms on either side of their bodies like bird wings. The quick movements of their thin legs are also birdlike. At other times they blow through their lips, or groan, or shout, in rhythm. One of them is handsome and has great presence, and the other less so, appearing more to be going through the motions while gazing out to sea. Yet later the more accomplished dancer is too shy to talk or to make eye contact, while the other one is friendly. The dancers’ bodies are adorned with clay from a sacred place elsewhere. They wear white emu feather head bands as the Spirit Man does. Their dancing also starts and ends with the didgeridoo and clap sticks, just after the singer begins and just before he finishes.

Women also dance nearby in a restrained way, with no clapping or vocalizing. They wear rainbow colours to represent the rainbow serpent which is a totem for the clan. Small children and strangers join them in their dance. One naked toddler bangs tiny clap sticks together.

A female informant also tells the story to those being welcomed, like me, in ordinary words. She speaks gently but proudly, between the episodes of didgeridoo, clap sticks and male singer. She makes clear the importance of this story to her people. The whole performance takes place on a sacred site on which we are standing, she says. She points to a crow that flies in from the surrounding bush just as the singer refers to the crow in his storytelling, as if this too has been arranged.  Other clans have rights to other parts of a much longer account of the actions of the Spirit Man, she says, so the Galpu clan presentation is part of something larger, shared across clans.

I find the ritualized story-telling entertaining, of course, and feel honoured to be welcomed in this way. I marvel too at the multimedia presentation. That the performance establishes the status of certain members within the clan, including different roles for men and women. That it tells something about the clan members’ place in the grand scheme of things and also places the clan in relation to other clans in the telling of a shared story. I marvel as well at the familiarity of it all, yet how little I know about the fifty-thousand-year-old culture of the Aboriginal people of Australia.