Requiem

• The European violin was initially an imposition on Indigenous culture.
• But Aboriginal engagement with the violin cannot be exclusively seen as a means of cultural loss.
• As my new research shows, Indigenous violin playing throughout 20th century Australia saw Aboriginal people adapting the European violin to fit within ongoing cultural practices.

Cultural continuation

• Western music was often taught to Aboriginal people as a means of demonstrating civility and as preparation for assimilation into white Australian society.
• Aboriginal people used music in the creation and preservation of individual, cultural and collective identities.
• As historian Anna Haebich writes, Jetta played the violin for local dances, weddings and Nyungar-only campfire gatherings in the bush.
• Read more:
  An Ode To My Grandmother: remaking the past using oral histories, theatre and music

An Aboriginal jazz band

• Music was provided by an Aboriginal jazz band playing locally made violins, banjos, steel guitars and gum leaves.
• This couple walking down the aisle as these musicians played the Wedding March provides a rich evocation of the way western instruments were incorporated into Aboriginal music and events on their own terms.

Violins at a corroboree

• An article from the Northern Champion in 1934 recounts a concert and corroboree that occurred in Purfleet, New South Wales, for the local “townspeople”.
• The first part of the program was devoted to songs and native dances, followed by a corroboree which illustrated elements of native lore.
• Each instrument was homemade and included single-string fiddles, violins and ukuleles made from tea chests.

Indigenous players today

• These historical violinists are the predecessors of creative and innovative Indigenous string players who enrich our contemporary cultural life today.
• Noongar violist, composer and conductor Aaron Wyatt made history in 2022 as the first Indigenous conductor of a state orchestra.