The Dyirbal Song Poetry: the oral literature of an Australian rainforest people record, is now live in aCQUIRe.
Here is the link: https://hdl.handle.net/10779/cqu.28587005.v1

The description of the resource is below.

DYIRBAL SONG POETRY: Traditional songs of an Australian Rainforest people
collected, edited and analysed by R.M.W. Dixon and Grace Koch
This book contains full transcriptions of 174 Dyirbal songs, the original words in Dyirbal, morpheme-by-morpheme gloss, translation of each line, list of performers and performance details, discussion of the background and meaning, list of special song words, and discussion of the grammar of each song. There is also a general introduction dealing with the five song styles and the social context in which they were performed. Dixon discusses the linguistic features of the songs, and Koch considers the musical features of each style and of each singer. A full musical transcription is provided for 20 songs, and many shorter examples are included in the general musical discussion.
The CD includes 94 different song performances. For six songs we provide two versions, for two there are three versions, for one we include four versions and for another five versions; these are sometimes by the same singer and sometimes by different singers.
The choice of what to include on the CD has been motivated by a number of considerations. We have included all those performances for which full musical transcriptions are given in the accompanying volume and almost all of those for which musical extracts were given.

A 24-pp booklet has descriptions of each song on the CD.

THE FIVE SONG STYLES. The Dyirbal people had five song styles, each with its characteristic metrical pattern, accompaniment, and subject matter. Songs in the (Gama and Marrga styles were performed at corroborees (which several neighbouring tribes might attend). The singer would accompany himself with clapped boomerangs, and one or more women would beat a skin drum stretched across the lap. Corroboree songs deal with everyday topics -the behaviour of an animal or bird, or the odd antics of while people. A Gama song has lines consisting of nine or eleven Syllables, while the line of a Marrga song would normally consist of eight syllables. Jangala, Burran and Gaynyil are referred to as ‘love-song’ styles, or ‘Gugulu songs’ (after the name for the main accompaniment stick, made of polished hardwood). These styles are used for personal messages -of love, jealousy, sorrow or revenge. A Jangala song has a number of lines, all of six syllables, sung in almost random order. A Burran song has lines of six and three syllables, sung alternately. There was no fixed metrical pattern for Gaynyil, but often a type of alliterative opposition -yilida/yiliba or madal/ngadal, for example. A full discussion of the five song styles, their metrical patterns and linguistic and musical characteristics, is in the accompanying book.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Dyirbal (dbl)