Murtuka Yirraru

Arguably one of the most enduring icons of modernity is the automobile. The innumerable songs about motor vehicles are testimony to this status. This article examines Pilbara Aboriginal (marrngu) songs about the murtuka (motorcar). Focusing on a particular style of song known as yirraru to Ngarla people of the De Grey River area in Western Australia, I explore a range of questions concerning the impact of automobility on marrngu lifeworlds. Is the ‘freedom of the road’ a value historically shared by marrngu and walypala? Or is the marrngu passion for automobility evinced in these yirraru simply an adaptation of precolonial values, beliefs, and behaviours associated with mobility? This is not an ethnomusicology article; I treat yirraru as narratives, narratives that convey something about the relational in marrngu modes of orientation and engagement with the motor vehicle. Using archival and ethnographic data, I argue that murtuka song-poems show that marrngu regarded motor vehicles as instrumental in their own efforts for autonomy in the decades in which these yirraru originated (1920–1960s). Ultimately I consider what the enthusiastic embrace of the murtuka by marrngu might say about the nature of sociocultural difference, similarity, and marrngu and walypala boundedness in the Pilbara.Keywords: AutomobilityPilbaraPindan movementSongsSocial transformation Notes[1] Mr Brown is recently deceased and in keeping with marrngu preference, I use the respectful term Nyaparu to avoid offence. This article is dedicated to the late Mr A. Brown.[2] Throughout the paper, I will use the Nyangumarta terms marrngu to indicate Pilbara Aboriginal person/people, and walypala for ‘whitefellas’; these are the local terms used by marrngu. Nyangumarta is the lingua franca of the north-western Pilbara. In using these terms, I do not infer that there was, or is, an identifiable boundary between the two cultural domains, rather that the two categories of persons have arisen out of particular historical circumstances that have led to such racial categories gaining mutual (relational) currency (Cowlishaw Citation1999, 295–300).[3] Thomas states that ‘[m]ost of the tabis [in the von Brandenstein collection] are not older than half a century’ (von Brandenstein and Thomas Citation1974, n.p.).[4] For the sake of brevity, hereon I have reproduced only the English translation.[5] I am indebted to Benedicta Rousseau for this insight.[6] AN 5/2 Roebourne Acc 430 File 4144/1905 State Records Office, Perth, Western Australia.[7] AN 5/3 Acc 430 File 1347/1927 State Records Office, Perth, Western Australia.[8] The pearling season in the North West ran from October through to April, whereas shearing, and the drafting of sheep in preparation for shearing occurs outside these months. It became the De Grey leaseholders’ practice ‘to spend six months of the year on the pearling grounds and six months on the station (for) the natives at this time proved at expert at diving as they were at shearing’ (The Western Mail, 27 April 1912). By the early twentieth century as the abundance of shallow water shell diminished, Malay and Japanese divers replaced marnggu labour.[9] The numbers of Aborigines employed under permits across WA steadily increased from 5,463 in 1946 to 6,294 in 1950. From 1951 to 1954 there is a gradual decline (5,677–4,785). The lack of statistical evidence for the Pilbara pastoral strike may, however, be indicative of the Pilbara pastoralists’ evasion of the permit system (Biskup Citation1973, Appendix IV).[10] According to John Wilson who was undertaking ethnographic research among the group at the time, the ‘split’ was based on long-standing social and cultural distinctions made by marrngu at this time in the Pilbara: The tribes could be broadly classified into ‘river-line’ and ‘desert’. These categories were used by marngu themselves. The ‘river-line’ grouping included the Bailgu [Palyku], Gariera (Kariera) [Kariyarra], Indijibarndi [Yinjibarndi] Naluma [Ngarluma], Ngala [Ngarla], and Njamal [Nyamal]. ... The riverline people were regarded as coming originally from the rivers of the Pilbara, from the de Grey and its tributaries in the north, to the Sherlock and Harding in the south. The ‘desert’ category encompassed the Gadadjara (Gadudjara) [Kartujarra], Mandjildjara [Manyjilyjarra], Mangala, Njangomada [Nyangumarta], Warman [Warnman], Djualing (Djuwali) [Juwaliny] and, Yilbaridja [Yulparija]. (Wilson Citation1961, 153–154)[11] I am indebted to one anonymous reviewer for highlighting this pertinent dimension of the dispute.[12] Initiation journeys facilitated by motor vehicles originating in the Western Desert and travelling through the Pilbara have been documented by Peterson. He notes that in 1974 Wiluna residents travelled over 1,000 kilometres on an initiation journey to Strelley (approximately 75 kilometres east of Port Hedland); in 1973 a Papunya group journeyed over 1,200 kilometres northwest to La Grange (Bidyadanga); and in 1977–1978 Yuendumu residents travelled to Port Hedland (Peterson Citation2000, 210–211).[13] Motor vehicles are used in numerous ways throughout these ceremonies: to screen female- and/or male-restricted activities from the wider assembly; to delineate avoidance relationships; as a windbreak; as comfortable platforms in which the elderly are seated; to facilitate communication between ‘visitors’ and locals who often camp several kilometres distant from the main ceremonial ground; and to ferry supplies of food and water around the numerous camps. Similar uses have been documented by Young (Citation2001). Motor vehicles also enable more frequent trips to visit kin living throughout the Pilbara and southern Kimberley, especially funerals which involve extended periods of mourning with the immediate family in proximity to the deceased place of death; several marrngu families resident in Port Hedland have children at boarding school in Perth, or kin in Perth hospitals, necessitating a 3,500-kilometre return trip

Aesthetics · Art · Ethnomusicology · Humanities · Indigenous · Literature · Modernity · Musical · Narrative · Persona · Poetry · Political science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law

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