Ethnological studies among the North-West-Central Queensland aborigines / by Walter E. Roth.

  • Roth, Walter Edmund.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ethnological studies among the North-West-Central Queensland aborigines / by Walter E. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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142/274 (page 120)
simple statement or assertion. In the indigenous, that i3, pure Pitta-Pitta songs at Boulia, there is undoubtedly a variation both in pronunciation and inflexion from the ordinary every-day language, a variation which might certainly be regarded in the light of poetical or musical license. Thus— mol-lo-ro-chi-«-na por-<2-ke nung-\e, ought grammatically to be mdl-lo-ro -e-nay>«-koo-la nung-H-a = mountain-alongside-of two (people) sit-down. Again— ko-ta nen-ya mun-ka-rin-ni, should be in ordinary conversation Jcoo-ta nun-ya-ti, &c. = water belonging-to-me (is) clean. Or— wor-pil-la-ng nen-ya koo-na-'/>w7-ya-ro yak-ka-yak-Mwy-i, should read tcor-pil-la nun -ya-ti, &c., the ng being euphonic (compare Pitta- Pitta palcoolangooro, sect. 36). = hook-boomerang belonging-to-me mud digs-up. Other Boulia District songs are— ger-isi ger-tsi e-ri-^e-cha = grass-tops (make) bough-shed. ma-la-ka nem-pa ka-ril-pul-7e-a = dog (and) slut are-jumping, &c. The first verse of the song gives the name to the particular corrobboree: cf. the European’s “Pater Foster,” “Alphabet,” &c. (sect. 199). 197. (j) Music of the Song.—Unfortunately the actual harmony of the music I have not been able to decipher : to my unmusical ear the cadences seem always identical, a sort of wail commencing with a sudden rise and ending with a slow prolonged fall. 198. (k) Beating of the Time.— The audience squat upon the ground, usually in rows (in the Boulia District) ranged one behind the other, like the seats in the old form of theatre-pit. The men sit in front, the women and children behind, while the dogs are scattered anywhere around. Occasionally the audience is divided into two groups, side by side, one for each sex. Both sexes, as has been already mentioned, carry on the singing and both beat time, the meu alone doing this with two boomerangs, one held in either hand, made to strike one another on the flat: the women clap the open hand on to the crutch of the thighs, and thus produce a loud reverberation (Eig. 293). In the Leichhardt-Selwyn and Cloncurry Districts, the women, instead of striking their thighs, occasionally employ a sort of drum or small pillow made of opossum skin, &c., filled with feathers, rags, &c., upon which they bang with the flat of the open hands : in the Mitakoodi language the name of this pillow is pi-ka-bur-ra. To tintinabulate with boome- rangs is called, in the Pitta-Pitta, moolka-lo ivunJca-linga—i.e., to sing with the sticks ; the clapping of the hands, in the same language, is poor-pa-le. What with the barking of the dogs, the clapping of the hands, the beating of the boomerangs, the chanting of the song, ancl the stamping of the dancers—the weird and uncanny appearance presented by the costumes and the different attitudes only lit up by the intervening fire, all help to produce a scene which requires an abler pen than mine to describe. 199. (l) The Molonga Set of Corrobborees.—An account of this dance, together with the stage directions as far as they could be followed and understood, may not prove uninteresting here as indicative of the powers of memory that are exercised in reciting a song the delivery of which takes upwards of five nights for its completion. Here and there I will show how slight the variations are that may occur over the distance of ninety miles which separate Glenormiston from Boulia : the wonder is increased when it is remembered that the words are sung in a language of which the singers of both localities are entirely ignorant. This same corrobboree also draws into prominence the various changes of costumes throughout,