A PROUD group of Tiwi women have come from Bathurst Island to perform in the Canberra International Music Festival and to view historic footage of their ancestors held at the National Film and Sound Archive.

The footage was first viewed by two of the women from Wangatunga Strong Women’s Group in 2009 as part of the process of repatriating the material to the Tiwi community. It was a uniquely moving experience, as all saw family members, either at a time before they were born or when they were young men and women.

Genevieve Campbell, who accompanied them on that trip, has written that the oldest material viewed was footage taken by Baldwin Spencer on Bathurst Island in 1912, which shows men and women dancing “Yoi”, the dances that mark the “Dreamings”.

It’s a silent film, but the elders knew which songs would have been sung that day and, by tracing back genealogies, who was singing and dancing. One of those dances/songs, “Tepuwaturinga Wallaby”, had fallen out of practice, but after viewing the footage, one man began dancing it again that very day and has gone on to revive it back home.

“Yirrikapayi Crocodile” is another such, and the words captured in the corresponding audio recording made by Spencer are still sung today by Crocodile people.

Also, even now the Tiwi perform a ritual dance and song-telling of the bombing of Darwin.

Footage from the “Cinesound Review” shows the islands in 1938, mid-war footage, through to 1957, and home movies taken by tourists in the 1960s. In all of these there is the uncomfortable reality of power imbalance and cultural misunderstanding. Some of the footage is offensive and patronising, so the Tiwi group has decided it’s best not shown publicly, preferring to share and to comment on it from their own point of view.

The Tiwi Strong Women will sing and dance in Canberra International Music Festival concerts on Friday and their message is clear: “Dear friends, we in the ‘Ngarukuruwala’ group are happy to be performing in Canberra. We are very pleased to meet you all and to share our songs with you. Ngarukuruwala means ‘we sing’ and singing makes us feel happy and strong and we hope you have a good time with us as we sing”.

“Eyes and Ears” at the National Film and Sound Archive, 11am and 12.45pm, Friday, May 7, book here.