iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[Yirrkala Arts]

Hey there... I assume word spreads fast anyway, but I'll post here that I've finally been able to launch the second published result of my master's thesis work on the yidaki with Yolngu here in Yirrkala and surrounds. The first was M*lk*y's 'Hard Tongue Didgeridoo,' the second is 'Yidakiwuy Dhawu Miwatjngurunydja,' a big website done in collaboration with and as a result of interviews with many different people, several of whom appear on the site. As far as I know it's the first yidaki info website owned by Yolngu and featuring Yolngu speaking directly to the issues of non-Yolngu didj players.

Check it out. Discuss. Not too heatedly.

http://www.yirrkala.com/yidaki/dhawu

[Josh Staley]

A very excellent, and informative site. It answers a lot of questions I have been thinking about lately. Very good for people like myself who are new to this whole scene. thanks

[ididjaustralia]

Good work Randy and thanks for the posting. Give yourself a pat on the back for this achievement!

I know it hasn't been easy for you but goodonya for persevering. I feel a little nostalgic knowing a bit of the process you've gone through beginning with your elated email announcement in March 2003 that you had won a Fulbright Fellowship, and then the years toiling away whilst juggling other commitments, and then finally the launch of the website. Good things don't come easily but the hard work pays off.

I'm glad too that my suggestions to include clan specificity in writing up your Fulbright proposal made it into your final project. We need more projects like this not only to raise public awareness of the rich cultural traditions of Indigenous Australians, but also as a scholarly record of what is happening where and why before it is lost forever.

The other thing I would say is that because of the enormous interest in the didjeridu and its cultural context, there will be more and more projects dealing with this fascinating musical instrument that will hopefully shed light on its more enigmatic aspects across the 'Top End'. You will be pleased to know that one other US scholar has approached me with a proposal to undertake a Fulbright-supported didjeridu project in Australia. And there will be ethnographic work I'll be engaged in later in the year working with Bininy and other Arnhem Land groups to document their didjeridu stories, uses and ideologies. I've always felt that there was more to the didjeridu than meets the eye, and now, years later, we can see the evidence of that through the generous sharing by traditional owners of this unique northern Australian icon.

Give yourself a well-deserved rest buddy! Again, congrats and a job well done.

Guan

_________________
iDIDJ Australia - Didgeridoo Cultural Hub
E-mail: info@ididj.com.au
Web: www.ididj.com.au
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ididjaustralia

[Cyril]

Hi Randin
Beautifull website very information... I very happy to hear again Djalu to tell us welcom....
thank you again..
Cyril
Yugo Buffalo

[teetoo]

Hi there,

So good! i wish that there will be some translations in other languages soon. Actually, i am volonteer to be in any group of translation toward french. Ciryl, Ggw, Zzie, Ahaw, Tooope, Mikah, anybody else, let's do it? it'd be a quick job, with a little help for our friends. Some peole there really need it.

[Yirrkala Arts]

Wow, that's the third language that's been mentioned already. Sounds great to me. If you just take the html and change the text leaving all the links and media in place, we'll upload it to yirrkala.com and it should work like a charm.

EXCEPT... that the Yolngu font doesn't have special characters from other languages, making it a major pain! On the M*lk*y CD translations, I manually changed the font and entered ASCII code for all the special characters from other languages. I need somebody else to solve that one this time!

And yep, Guan, I'd heard through the grapevine that another scholarly US didger was applying for a Fulbright, and was wondering when he was going to tell me himself!

Funny thing, when I originally announced I won the fellowship, I got a strange email from somebody I barely knew saying, "thanks for stealing my idea!" I said, "what?" And he said, "getting a Fulbright to study didj." I thought that was odd, because I got the idea from 3 different Fulbright scholars I knew - a scientist friend who had one to India and encouraged me to apply, Stewart Dempster, a trombonist who went to Oz in the 70's, and a vocalist friend who got a Fulbright to study Bulgarian women's singing.

Anyway, I brought up that story to say, I hope that by doing a big Fulbright project on yidaki in the 2003-4 round, I haven't made that a taboo subject, so that the Fulbright Commission won't give another "yidaki fellowship" for another decade or so! That was actually a big Yolngu year, anyway, with 3 of the 15 fellows' proposals related to Yolngu. One other was on music education, the other on interface of Yolngu religion and Christianity. There hasn't been a single Fulbright fellow up to Arnhem Land since. Hopefully that means the time is right for the next round!

[teetoo]

Nine month later... the baby is born
Yidaki dhawu miwatjngurunydja has now a french-using section :

http://www.yirrkala.com/yidaki/dhawu/fr/

YEEEPEEEEE!

[rudy de lyon]

good job mate!