Listening to the Anmatyerr Song Recordings of T.G.H. Strehlow

T.G.H. Strehlow’s research on song and ritual in Central Australia stands as one of the most detailed studies of its type ever made in Australia. Succumbing to terrible hubris however, Strehlow cast himself as the only worthy ‘heir’ to these traditions and remained blinkered to the possibility of
their ongoing relevance to Central Australian Aboriginal people. In this paper, I describe the process of re-examining Strehlow’s recordings of song and ceremony in collaboration with contemporary Arrernte and Anmatyerr men over a number of years. Included in these discussions were men across
three generations, including some of those who acted as informants to Strehlow in the 1960s, those that witnessed him at work in their communities, and younger men who have come to this material for the fi rst time. Recasting Strehlow’s collection as a co-production, actively made with informants who responded dynamically and creatively to their unequal relationships with ethnographers, I argue for greater emphasis on the relational properties inherent in ethnographic research. I also describe
Anmatyerr people’s extensive contemporary knowledge of this song material, as well as the ongoing use of song and ritual in these communities today.