Ngarukuruwala means ‘we sing’

The Tiwi Strong Women’s group and senior songmen are in Sydney from Bathurst and Melville Islands, north of Darwin. Their songs hold knowledge from the Ancestors of the land, the animals and the spirits, the ceremonies and the old language. Through the dances and the songs, the stories of the ancient past are embodied in these Elders as their current custodians. The stories are sung and danced, as they always have been, following lines of transmission threading back through kinship to the Elders whose art is displayed in the Museum. The group will perform some very old ancestral songs – Jungle Fowl, Crocodile, Rainbow Serpent, hunting for Dugong, the mythical Nyingawi spirits and songs for Healing – and also new songs they’ll add to the continuing sung archive, as they sing for the moment and for those around them.

Singers: Jacinta Tipungwuti, Calista Kantilla, Regina Kantilla, Frances Therese Portaminni, Augusta Punguatji, Katrina Mungatopi, Karen Tipiloura, Elizabeth Tipiloura, Gemma Munkara, John Louis Munkara, Francis Orsto.

This event was presented at and in partnership with the Chau Chak Wing Museum on Monday 17 May 2021.

Header image: Calista Kantilla