Should a White Person Play the Didgeridoo?

Should restrictions be placed on culture? Should a white person play the didgeridoo?

Defining culture can be tricky but I am talking here about anything from kultcha, with a capital K for kitsch, to the type of art that evokes Aboriginal peoples’ deep affinity with the land.

Alice Springs and most of the Northern Territory engage in a mass trade in cultural commodities. More often than not, the traders are non-Indigenous while the culture is Indigenous, albeit often very derivative. Use of cultural commodities thus becomes intertwined with questions of identity. Does culture belong to a particular group of people and should it be used by another group?

The interlinking of culture and identity is often a destructive dialogue, particularly for the Indigenous people involved. The seeking out of an “authentic” Aboriginal dancer or didgeridoo (yidaki) player so often moves to discrimination against Indigenous people who cannot fit the stereotype of the noble savage. Images around Alice of the Aboriginal nomad with his spear attest to how effective this stereotype is in the marketing of cultural commodities.

Culture, however, is fluid. It is not something to be frozen in time, placed behind glass in a museum. It is as organic as the living, breathing people who produce it. This is true not just of Indigenous culture but the multicultural overlaps of identity that make up the interwoven fabric of Australian society.

Where does this leave us, then? Perhaps culture is something that cannot be begged, borrowed or stolen. And yet it is, often, which is what the increasing number of Indigenous intellectual property cases teach us. Perhaps a better test is where the money from a cultural product goes.

If you are going to trade in the culture of a people, then it is important that there are equitable returns to those people. There are some instances where the law may not demand this but fairness does. And, increasingly, tourists in Alice may demand it too.

So, can a white person play the didgeridoo? Sure, provided he gives due recognition, artistic and financial, to the people whose culture produced the instrument, the Yolngu.

Some Yolngu say that while non-Yolngu can play the didge, you need the vocal sounds of a Yolngu speaker to do full justice to the yidaki. Without this, they claim, yidaki playing resembles toilet sounds. And those who trade in cultural products without showing due respect to the people who produce them have something of a bad smell about them.

Siobhan McDonnell,

Reconciliation Australia

Being Aboriginal is a State of Mind

If a black man like me can play the guitar, then why should a white fella not play the didge? I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I have taught many white people to play the didgeridoo or yidaki, to give it its proper name. Now everyone worldwide wants to learn about Aboriginal culture and I am happy to teach anyone.

I even give lessons to the women tourists, although Aboriginal ladies who respect their own law don’t touch the yidaki because to them it is obviously a male instrument. The female part is to hum and dance. The important thing is to distinguish between ceremony and making music for pleasure. There are two levels, like in the church. You can play the organ at a sacred moment in the service or you can simply play the organ. The same goes for the didgeridoo.

When a white person asks sincere questions about my culture, he is respecting it. It’s all about respect and I automatically get respect  because I respect myself. I say I am a “quiet achiever and true believer”.

It was not always that way. When I was young, I drank heavily but I felt the grog was taking away my power, so I snapped out of it. It meant leaving friends behind. It was a lonely path but it has made me strong. I have a didge composition called “Depression in Society”, which is all about fighting the bottle and you can hear it at my shows. I also run my own art gallery and my business is growing all the time.

I came originally from Queensland. My people are the Mardgany tribe and my tribal name is Gural Wakarn. By trade, I am a spray painter and panel beater. As for my art, I started painting at school. Then I went up to the Top End to learn the didge. I just kept painting and playing, painting and playing, all the way down to Alice Springs.

My business in this town started in a small shed by Heavitree Gap. Now I have a large gallery and I am dreaming of expanding into the fashion trade. I want to see beautiful models and babies wearing clothes with my designs. I have been invited to play gigs in Melbourne. I had a trip to Germany that was the highlight of my life. It was the first time I saw snow. The only thing I did not like was the German food. I lived off cornflakes for two weeks and came home looking like a white ghost.

This is my story. If you want to know more, you are welcome to come and have a yarn with me at my gallery at the Red Centre Resort on the North Stuart Highway. I can tell you all about Aboriginal culture. I say that “Aboriginality is not the colour of one’s skin and not only that we are of Aboriginal descent. Being Aboriginal is a State of Mind.

Tommy Crow