The Old Songs are Always New: Singing Traditions of the Tiwi Islands

It's really great. It's like they're all here. I hear all of these voices and I sing with them, you know? - Yikliya Eustace Tipiloura, senior songman and Elder

Perhaps the most defining feature of Tiwi song is the importance placed on the creative innovation of the individual singer/composer. Tiwi songs are fundamentally new, unique and occasion specific, and yet sit within a continuum of an oral artistic tradition. Performed in ceremony, at public events, for art and for fun, songs form the...