Indigeneity Lecture.

I found the lecture of Indigeneity incredibly interesting, I have always been attracted to learning about indigenous cultures all over the world, and looking at it from a sonic point of view was something I hadn’t really explored before. Understanding the importance of the relationship between the music and the land around them that so many different indigenous cultures share. Although coming from completely different landscapes and areas of the world, this relationship is something that frequently presents itself when looking at the kinds of music played by different indigenous groups.

Song lines are a perfect example of how music is used to establish a relationship with the land, it is a kind of mapping system used by Australian Aboriginals. It consists of an intricate network of paths that describe the land, sky, and waters, embedding stories as they go along. These oral maps were passed down through generations in order to preserve this knowledge of navigation, identifying crucial landmarks and sources. As the Australian aboriginal communities survive off the land, they have to be aware of having a balanced relationship between them and it. Therefore when they notice the animals and food sources growing scarce, they move to a new location, allowing the pervious land to grow back and replenish. This relationship between man and land is something that is just completely lost within our society, the consumer culture is so strong, we take for our benefit only, leaving no time for the land to recover, therefore rendering it dead. This is something I find incredibly sad as this is really the result of money, money and selfishness. We all once had this balanced connection with the land- it’s embedded in us as animals, however, overtime we have created this complete separation between us as humans and the idea of being an animal, as a result of this we have lost the dynamic with the world we once had. It does however, still exist within most Indigenous communities as they have not lost connection to their roots.

Within many Indigenous cultures around the world history and storytelling are transmitted orally, whether this be through; spoken word, song, dance, ceremony, and/or performance. The reason for this is because many of these cultures see knowledge as a living thing, not something of the past that should be stored away, or separated from its context. There is a responsibility to pass on information to the younger generations, so the information is shared in the right way, at the right time. Much of the knowledge passed on is so deep rooted in their ancestry that it becomes something spiritual and socially bound to their land, family, and community. Additionally, many indigenous cultures did not develop a written language in the way a lot of the world did, instead they developed these complex oral systems of communication which are extremely precise. As colonisers began to disrupt indigenous communities and started forcing their languages, rules and ways of living onto them, oral storytelling became both a survival tool and a form of resistance, preserving their identity in the face of disruption and erasion.

This perspective of looking at how Indigenous communities use song and sound to preserve culture and connect to both each other and the world they live in is something I find really fascinating. There are so many different indigenous cultures around the world that each use sound in a slightly different way and yet each has similar reasonings or purposes behind them, even though they from such different environments. This idea paired with how much we have lost our connections to the world in modern, western society is something I will continue to look into and research.