Karl Neuenfeldt
In the heart of each man there is contrived, by desperate devices, a magical island ... We place it in the past or the future for safety, for we dare not locate it in the present ... We call it a memory or a vision to lend it solidity, but it is neither really; it is the outcome of our sadness, and of our disgust with the world we have made (emphasis added, Forster 1936:48).
The New Age industry has adopted the didjeridu, like the African djembe drum or the Native American powwow chant, as a one-stop shop for personal spiritual transformation (Australian Indigenous radio program, Awaye 1997).
Tribal Trance - Music for the Mind, Body & Soul (Deep in Didge 1997).
... I am a German aboriginal planetary citizen ... I've been experiencing and exploring the healing effect and aspects of the harmonic vibrational sound of the didgeridoo -- "the mother of all flutes". I have greatest respect for this sacred instrument. And I'm grateful to the native people of Australia for sharing their ancient wind instrument as a sacred part of their culture with the rest of the world. I experience the didgeridoo as an important tool for us, especially in the Western 'civilized' world for reconnecting with Mother Earth and all of our relations on this planet ... It is in resonance with the sound of all sounds -- the sacred OM -- the sound of Oneness. The possibility for carrying information makes it perfect for healing purposes. For me personally it is a sacred prayer-tool ... My experience and that of my clients and audiences during concerts, sound massage and healing circles is very powerful in a deep and gentle way. Release and cleansing of energy blockages, tensions and stresses both in the physical and the energy bodies and centers, are experienced by many. Healing processes are supported and initiated ... I also know that these are only a part of the vast mystery of the didgeridoo and its multidimensional possibilities (Fruhwacht 1996).
On a general level this analysis focuses on two processes. First, how music has the purported power not only to entertain, uplift and heal but also to manufacture, mirror, and remake the social order, as suggested in the above quotation. Second, how New Age discourse circulates in a global cultural economy of cross-cultural consumption predicated on the hyper-spectacularisation and hyper-spiritualisation of indigenous cultures (Appadurai 1990, Howes 1996, Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a). Discourse is used here in Foucault's sense of "the group of statements that belongs to a single system or formation" (1972:107), which includes words, sounds and images. Analysing discourse and discursive systems and formations are important because culture does not reside solely in artefacts and practices. It also resides in the attitudes and accounts of cultural producers, consumers and commentators.
The interest here is how New Age discourse combines and conflates aspects of Aboriginal material and non-material culture with metaphysical traditions from other non-Western sources within both extra-musical and musical contexts. This is a predominantly non-dialogic process involving issues of representation and appropriation (Langton 1993). In extra-musical contexts, the process has previously occurred in Australia in the New Age appropriation of Uluru/Ayers Rock (Marcus 1997) and Aboriginal tropes (Newton 1988) through commodification, mystification, and essentialisation. In a musical context (Feld 1988), appropriation is characterisable as paradoxically and concurrently a blend of "respect and rip-off" in which "the West's validation and enablement of non-western musics and musicians is inherently, rather than incidentally, exploitative" (Hayward 1998:3). In regards to the didjeridu, an analogous process has been documented in Australia with "alternative lifestylers" (Sherwood 1997), "ferals" (St. John 1997) and "New Age devotees" (Garde 1997a); in Germany with "receptive music therapy" (Strobel cited in Schellberg 1993); in Great Britain and Ireland with "alternative healers" (Magowan 1997); and in Scotland with "neo-shamanism" (Willis 1994). Other aspects of the dissemination and transformation of the didjeridu also have been documented (Neuenfeldt 1998a+b 1997 1994 1993, Garde 1997b, Stubington and Dunbar-Hall 1994, Dunbar-Hall 1994).
It is not suggested New Age (or Aboriginality and Aboriginal culture), as a category of differentiated yet related perspectives, approaches and lifestyles, is in any way monolithic (Heelas 1996, Washington 1995, Hill 1993, Sjoo 1992, Ross 1991). Nor is it suggested there is a single New Age discourse; rather, there are a group of interconnected, overlapping discourses associated with the body, the psyche, the world and the spirit (Cuthbert and Grossman 1996:18). New Age has been typified as intrinsically "unstable and variegated" (Pfeil 1995:167), an ingredient in what has been typified as the "resacralisation" (Wexler 1996) and "rediscovering" (Wuthnow 1992) of the sacred in Western secular life. However, the term does provide a broad framework to understand better how meaning is textually constructed through interrelated beliefs and values (to be noted below). These are often drawn from indigenous cultures in Australia and elsewhere, primarily by non-indigenous writers catering to non-indigenous audiences (Stockton 1995, Tacey 1995, Cowan 1993+1992, Lawlor 1991).
As an old, technologically simple, and Aboriginal instrument, the didjeridu's use in New Age discourse is consistent with the epistemological, philosophical and ontological tenets which inform many New Age practices, and practitioners' explanations and understandings of them. However, some of the more egregious assertions in New Age discourse are challenged by indigenous and non-indigenous analysts worldwide (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a+b, Huggins 1996, Huggins and Marcus 1996, Markus 1996, Churchill 1994, Langton 1994+1993, Morrissey 1994, Churchill and Jaimes 1992, Hawthorne 1989). Such critiques provide trenchant criticisms of the Western appropriation (and expropriation) of aspects of indigeneity, pointing out how the contradictory and asymmetrical celebration of difference effectively erases it. By claiming untrammelled access to indigenous knowledge as but an expression of basic humanity, New Age followers in effect demand the right to appropriate (and expropriate) what may be restricted (and sometimes sacred/secret) knowledge and practices.
The didjeridu per se circulates currently within its own cultural industry entailing production, representation, identity, consumption, and regulation (Neuenfeldt 1997, Du Guy 1997). It has been variously characterised as: "one instrument with many voices" (Hayward and Neuenfeldt 1997); "a part of the Western culture of events and adventures" (Binas 1997); and, importantly here, "an instrument of expiation which absolves its new users of many of the sins of Western society" (Sherwood 1997:150). It has also been characterised by a New Age recording company as: "Though little more than a hollowed-out tree branch, it is capable of producing a vast array of intricate rhythms and otherworldly tone colours. The elaborate improvisations that result not only suggest the wonders of nature, but the mysteries of creation itself. The didgeridoo speaks with unforgettable, primordial voice to all who hear it ... [It] is a timeless instrument (Celestial Harmonies, 1993). As the quotation demonstrates, the didjeridu is now thoroughly enmeshed in the dynamics of "borrowed power" (Ziff and Rao 1997), the politics which inform debates about appropriation (Hladki 1994), and the commercialisation of intellectual and cultural property (Brown 1994). The following description and analysis provides examples of all of the above characterisations and contexts.
Differences in Aboriginal and New Age Uses and Understandings of Didjeridu
Before addressing New Age beliefs and values, it is important to establish the nature of Aboriginal cultural and therapeutic uses of the didjeridu in healing because they impact on the cultural politics which inform much of what follows. The therapeutic use of music in general by indigenous peoples worldwide has been well documented by researchers interested in how world views, cultural logics and aesthetic considerations impact on broader social systems of meaning, such as what constitutes illness and health (Baumann 1997, Larco 1997, Roseman 1991, Seeger 1988). Some researchers on Aboriginal music suggest even though it cannot "cure" physical illness, it can contribute to a sense of individual and group emotional health and well-being due to its social, cultural and religious significance (Ellis 1977, Cawte 1996, Turner 1997). For example, off the eastern coast of Arnhem Land on Groote Eylandt, the use of sound in the form of song to empower healing substances could be considered therapeutic (Turner 1997); in north central Arnhem Land the use of a "trumpet" in the Murngin "myth" of the Wawilak women could be interpreted as having empowering effects (Warner 1969); and, in north-eastern Arnhem Land in the regional Djungguwan ceremony, the use of one of two "trumpets" (the public one) could be read as benedictory (Morphy 1991). In particular, the Djungguwan ceremony is enacted to "enhance the fertility of the land and people and create a feeling of well-being in the participants" and during the ceremony the "trumpet" is "blown over the body of initiates and people being painted, and at the climax of the ceremony it is blown over the feather string, the posts, and the assembled company" (Morphy 1991:85). In these examples, music and sound helps affirm sociality and reconfirm relationships.
Opinions vary about the Aboriginal use of didjeridu in "healing" per se. It has not been a national instrument until quite recently, the previous range was primarily in the northern third of the continent (Moyle 1981). Consequently, Aborigines (and non-Aborigines) outside of its homeland areas have adopted and adapted it in different ways based on different sources and kinds of knowledge. The widespread use of didjeridu to heal in a Western sense is either un-noted or discounted both by contemporary research and the historical record (Toner 1998, Turner 1997, Barwick 1997, Garde 1997b). Morphy (1998) notes specifically that similar to marr, the didjeridu is not used with people in northeast Arnhem Land who are ill or weak expressly because of its power. Nevertheless, there are assertions the didjeridu was/is used in healing in specific places and contexts. Yunupingu asserts that in Yolngu Aboriginal culture in north-eastern Arnhem Land: "Yolngu people have long recognised the healing powers of the Yidaki [didjeridu]. Through the provision of exercises for breathing, the Yidaki holds collective powers in the healing process (1997:viii). He suggests the sound of the didjeridu "transfers peaceful vibrations that penetrate the mind and create inner spiritual oneness in an individual or group. In some cases, the Yidaki is used for physical healing with the player concentrating his breath on an afflicted part of the patient's body" (Yunupingu 1997:viii). Conversely to Yunupingu's assertions, Garde maintains that in a nearby cultural block in north-central Arnhem Land (centred around Maningrida approximately 300 kilometres west from Yunupingu's Yolngu homeland area at Yirrkala): "the didjeridu is not primarily a musical instrument used in sacred or secret ceremonies" (1997b). He stresses: "Aboriginal people in [north-central] Arnhem Land do not share the New Age view of the didjeridu as being a highly sacred and spiritual object the sounds of which are able to heal the sick" (Garde 1997b). Rather, it is an integral but not paramount part of socio-cultural and musical practice.
Increasing contact with New Age discourse in regions such as north-central Arnhem Land is creating situations in which local practices are compared and questioned by information circulating within the discourse. Especially relevant to this analysis, Garde (1997b) notes there have been: "some rather bizarre claims about the didjeridu in its new global context" since the establishment of the Maningrida Cultural Centre's Internet world wide web site (Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation). He says: "What has been most notable ... is the number of responses from European and North American didjeridu players espousing `New Age' philosophies and spirituality. The initial communication from New Age devotees was met by [Aboriginal people] with amusement and difficulty in knowing how to respond" (Garde 1997a). Garde attributes this development to the wide spread dissemination of the didjeridu nationally and internationally without the socio-cultural and musical context which anchor it within local, "traditional' practice. He observes: "Along with [the] adoption of the didjeridu by Aboriginal people in many southern parts of Australia, new beliefs [by non-Aboriginal people in Australia and overseas] have developed about the instrument which are not found in areas where the didjeridu is traditionally played"; especially beliefs emphasising sacredness which in turn imbue the didjeridu with a kind of "mystic spirituality" (Garde 1997b). As Yunupingu's and Garde's perspectives indicate, therapeutic and healing uses of the didjeridu may vary within groups living in the same general region. This is consistent with the diversity of Aboriginal socio-cultural and musical practices. It also is consistent with either the restricted nature of knowledge (hidden from researchers or available only to those allowed access), or the diverse agendas pursued by individuals and groups.
Extra-musical New Age discourse contains numerous invocations of the avowed power of the didjeridu such as the following quotation: "It's time for Aboriginal spirit to rise in us all ... The didjeridu is the sound of Mother Earth and is bringing forth the heart spirit, from the depths of our land. The Didjeridu spirit will guide us ... By using it in creative ritual in day to day life and going into meditative, reflective and feeling spaces it becomes our soul companion" (Tocumwal Festival 1996 cited in St. John 1997:177). The general concern of some Aboriginal people about such invocations and in particular the use of the didjeridu in healing is exemplified by the following remarks, which relate directly to issues of appropriation, "borrowed power", representation, and cultural and intellectual copyright rights. Helena Gulash, an Aboriginal activist and participant in the large and successful Woodford Folk Festival in southern Queensland, feels some the tenets and goals of New Age are admirable, especially "people in society wanting to look at life differently, wanting to move towards a lifestyle that is more connected to a spiritual way of living" (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a:50). However, she has concerns about the way some people in the New Age movement go about accessing and acquiring knowledge, specifically concerning Aboriginal spirituality. Similarly, Gulash has worries about "the ways in which a lot of people in the New Age movement actually adopt practices which they take out of context and then attribute them as being part of Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal spirituality" (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a:50). She cites examples of appropriation deemed offensive such as "non-[Aboriginal] people selling [Aboriginal] artefacts, didgeridoos and boomerangs and playing didges and that sort of thing" (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a:50). Further to this: "There's all sorts of things going on still that we've expressed concern about ... such as someone advertising a healing method that involved using the didgeridoo" (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a:50-51). Such practices are of concern to Gulash because of the lack of cultural etiquette or sensitivity from New Agers who lay claim to being all about intercultural "sharing and caring".
Walbira Watts, the Aboriginal (Murri) Festival co-director at the Australian 1995-96 Woodford Folk Festival accuses "hippies" of "plundering" aspects of Aboriginal culture and using them in "their new-age religion industry" (Priest 1996:1). She also denounces how: "They have stolen our land, taken our children and now they want to take what little we have left - our songs, our dances, our art" (Priest 1996:1). In the wider scheme of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal politics she declares: "reconciliation doesn't mean cultural appropriation. Part of reconciliation must be non-Aboriginal people finding their own cultural roots - and if they don't have any, then creating their own" (Priest 1996:1). Watts characterises the overall process as a new wave of colonisation, comparable to what Huggins (1996) terms "exotic tourism" and "traditional cultural voyeurism".
Some Aboriginal people visiting the Woodford Folk Festival were quite offended by what they felt was the theft of Aboriginal culture. For example, sarongs painted by non-Aboriginal people with Aboriginal artwork, and, of more relevance here, the use of didjeridu in healing contexts and women playing it publicly (Barwick 1997). Watts suggests non-Aboriginal people do not just want to look at Aboriginal culture, they want to borrow its power and she takes offence when: "They say we should be flattered by them mimicking it but I certainly don't find it flattering" (Priest 1996:1). She feels strongly an appreciation of Aboriginal politics and beliefs must accompany the appropriation of artefacts and practices, otherwise there is the real danger of appropriation ending up as expropriation, or "borrowed power" ending up as someone's light entertainment, or cultural and intellectual property rights ending up as someone's marketing strategy.
From a musical, performative perspective, Turner has pointed out several specific key points at which New Age and Aboriginal uses and understandings of the didjeridu diverge. He sees its cult status, rather than its more utilitarian use, as one of the limitations of the New Age approach, especially its "supposed powers to heal by being blown over a sick person and as a vehicle for `getting in touch' with one's `inner self' when one plays it" (Turner 1997:245). He characterises the New Age style of playing per se as a drone with a "whining overtone" to which are added "effects to imitate animals, birds and so on, claiming the instrument is in touch with `mother earth'". However, of the 662 Aboriginal songs he recorded on Groote Eylandt, there was only a single example of such a style and a specifically constructed instrument was used. Turner (1997:245) also observes: "New Age players favour curved, bell-bottomed didjereedoos to maximize the overtones and amplify the sound coming out the end. What they want is an `out of control sound'". In contrast, he maintains, "Aboriginal players ... want complete control over the overtones and select instruments (or spaces within instruments) that enable them to do this" (1997:245). Turner observes "New Age players justify what they do relative to Aboriginal players by saying they are working out the full potentialities of the instrument, implying that the Aborigines did not" (1997:245). However, he emphasises: "the way Aborigines play reflects and reinforces a way of life" (Turner 1997:245); a way of life to which some participants in New Age discourse aspire (even if it is dimly understood or acknowledged). As a cultural insider, Tom Djelkwarrngi Wood (Assistant Aboriginal Heritage Officer with Maningrida Arts and Culture) explains: "I've seen non-Aboriginal people playing the didjeridu and the way they play there's no tune, no song, and no meaning ... Non-Aboriginal people have tried to take hold of the didjeridu but they just don't seem to be able to understand it. Maybe if they look at our Internet site they might understand" (Garde forthcoming). As an iconic aspect of New Age discourse, the extra-musical and musical use of the didjeridu is suffused at times with the different cultural perspectives and practices noted above. Other examples of the cultural politics engendered by New Age discourse will be addressed after examining some germane features of some New Age beliefs and values that inform practice.
Ross (1992) identifies the following features present in many contemporary, non-mainstream spiritual/religious sensibilities and practices aggregated as New Age: the `nature' versus `science/technology' dichotomy; personal transformation; appropriate technology; self-reliance; mind-body-spirit interconnections; and psychotechnologies of healing. He suggests an overarching feature of New Age in Western societies is the dichotomisation of `nature' and `society/technology'. This construction of nature as a social vacuum has the effect of: "removing people from any direct engagement with the actual social forces that command vast power in our everyday lives through their organization of technology and bureaucracy" (Ross 1992:546). He believes an inevitable outcome of this withdrawal is to foster "Arcadian fantasies of pre-industrial life" which are embellished with displaced post-industrial philosophical contexts in combination with "New Age Orientalism, or New Age patronage of traditional, archaic cultures" (Ross 1992:538). Ross proposes what further follows on is: "a set of governing principles about the use of `appropriate technology' for the goal of personal transformation" (1992:538). Although conceding "appropriate technology" is not a term used usually to describe healing techniques, he submits it is apropos because it links back to two factors which infuse much New Age discourse: a relationship of postcolonial dependency with indigenous or marginalised peoples, and an ecologically orientated underpinning.
In order to answer the key question of how to use "appropriate technology" to encourage nothing less than a species wide evolution (in a sense by going back to the future), Ross (1992:543) notes: "New Age practitioners have placed their evolutionary faith in what are commonly known as `psychotechnologies'". These range from mechanised biofeedback machines to more visionary shamanic and magical methods, along with various other alternative religious practices, bodywork disciplines, holistic therapies, and paranormal activities. However, Ross cautions: "In any final analysis, the holistic opposition between `nature' and `technology' is quite groundless. Technologies are social processes of organization, in one form or another, and the sacralized passing of a healer's hands over the body of a patient is just as much a technological process as the demonized use of external hardware like CAT scans or electrocephalographic machines" (1992:543). Notwithstanding such a caveat, there are varying degrees of acceptable technologisation within New Age therapeutic practice such as the passing of a didjeridu and its sound waves over a patient's body.
On the issue of the interconnections between mind, body and spirit, Ross conjectures: "If orthodox biomedicine treats the body as if the mind were not there, then the mind-body-spirit continuum that is central to the New Age concept of health appeals directly to transcendentalist codes of self reliance" (1992:540). Because the physical is considered mainly as a symptom of a sense of dis-ease arising from a person's social and spiritual environments, the least important part of holistic treatment is the physical. By acting as "a catalyst in restoring the natural balance of the body-mind-spirit's economy of energies", self-analysis combined with therapies can effect a cure and a return to a sense of ease (Ross 1992:540).
And finally, Ross makes an important connection between politics and practice which situates New Age within decisive historical and contemporary Western contexts underlying the use of "simple", spiritualised indigenous cultural artefacts such as the didjeridu: "It is no surprise to find that people will opt for spiritualistic solutions for the problems encountered in a materialist culture. This is surely one of the lessons to be drawn from the worldwide revival of religious fundamentalism as well as the flood of non-institutional cults, old and new, that have poured into the respective vacuums created by the bankrupt cultures of state socialism, capitalist, and scientific materialism" (1992:545). Thus New Age can be understood as a particular yet predictable response to the complex and ever-changing environments Westerners inhabit, socially construct and culturally produce through practices such as music and artefacts such as the didjeridu.
As well as Ross' insights, those of Sherwood are valuable when analysing New Age discourse and the roles of Aboriginal culture and the didjeridu specifically in healing. Sherwood examines how it is used by alternative lifestylers to: "produce and reproduce ... Eurocentric dreams of a better world" (1997:149). Sherwood makes a clear, and critical, distinction between alternative lifestylers' values and those of New Agers. Following on from Metcalf (cited in Schwartz 1990), she differentiates between the two: "[Alternative lifestylers' values incorporate] a rejection of materialism, a yearning for a spiritual element lacking in mainstream religion and a concern for the environment. It is their rejection of materialism that differentiates them from the New Age movement which has become, in many cases, a highly commercialised and profit making industry" (Sherwood 1997:140). Sherwood proposes alternative lifestylers gravitate towards: "low consumption, low cost lifestyles of third and fourth world cultures to provide them with cultural motifs, traditions, roles and practices (Sherwood 1997:140). These are considered co-terminus with their values (Sebald 1984).
Sherwood regards the didjeridu as an important symbolic and ubiquitous musical component in how alternative lifestylers try to attain their goal of a model society. Their model society is based on four essential elements: "holism of experience, community with its qualities of interrelatedness and co-operation, ecology with its sustainable ethos, and a creative spiritual milieu" (1997:140). Further to this she notes several interrelated reasons why people take up the instrument: "Some who learn say that they were motivated by its power to make them feel whole; others emphasise the experience they derive from playing it which connects them with the earth; while others emphasise the experience of healing that they attribute to listening to the sound of the didjeridu. There are communities of friends who play didjeridu and [it] provides the fabric for the participants to weave a communal experience" (Sherwood 1997:145). These mainly experiential reasons are augmented by more philosophical ones connected to notions of holism: "[The didjeridu functions as] a metaphor of holism which [is] seen as uniting them with the earth, with each other, with sustainable lifestyles and with all living things" (Sherwood 1997:141). It is also connected to notions of healing: "Several of the female ... [didjeriduists] commented on their use of the didjeridu to produce healing vibrations for ill friends ... Workshops on didjeridu playing that attract alternative lifestylers often emphasise the spiritual and healing effects" (1997:148). Consequently, holism, spirituality and healing intersect in the didjeridu.
The notion of expiation (making amends for some sin) is identified by Sherwood as an important but problematic part of the equation of holism, with the didjeridu supplying a bridge to reconnect non-Aboriginal Australians (and by extension other Westerners) with what they have sinned against: the land, each other and themselves. She grants they perceive it as a different way of connecting compared to traditional Aboriginal peoples, stressing how alternative lifestylers consider themselves at least to be making an effort to reconnect. They are critical of other non-indigenous Australians who persist in the wasteful lifestyle of Western industrial society. Overall, Sherwood submits: "Although in the construction of this new [alternative lifestyler] culture, the traditional Aboriginal culture may be idealised and its values transformed or distorted from a traditional perspective" (1997:152), the goal of a new social reality is considered worthwhile pursuing and a powerful influence in transforming the lives of alternative lifestylers.
Despite the kinds of differences noted by Sherwood, there is a degree of correlation between alternative lifestylers' general ethos and New Age beliefs and values. Alternative lifestylers seek ostensibly to transform themselves, their groups, and the planet. Distortions, some of which pervade the discourse, may be opaque to participants, as is the case with many socio-cultural and musical practices. However, such distortions do not necessarily discount or dismiss their intentions. What it does do is draw attention to the role of discourse in constructing what New Agers consider subjectively to be positive and affirming appropriations in the alleged pursuit of health and well-being, even when they might be more accurately appreciated objectively (and analytically) as potentially negative and demeaning expropriations. New Age discourse is where such transformations and distortions are displayed and worked through, and marketed, as demonstrated in the following examples.
The didgeridoo is said to be the oldest wind instrument known ... The Aboriginal culture is known to have gone back at least 100,000 years earthtime on this continent [Australia] ... It is only as we [Westerners] open up beyond our third-dimensional reality to the more subtle worlds beyond that we may see, feel, and clearly interact and direct the sound and the subtle yet strong vibrations that the didgeridoo emanates ... Like the whales [and dolphins], the Aboriginal people act consciously as guardians, and sing into existence the energies latent in the earth, and along [its magnetic] lines, and they do this through a complex series of rituals and ceremonies ... This is not just something of the past. In the north of Australia there are tribes that still understand much, and perhaps all is contained awaiting the right time for opening.
The next passage (partly quoted from an uncited source) alludes to mind-body-spirit interconnections located in a mythologised past but also mediated in the present by the didjeridu as a supposedly bi-sexual instrument.
`In an ancient myth from Arnhem Land, the great ancestral Rainbow Serpent Ngaljod first created into `Ubar' a long hollow log. `Ubar' (as the didgeridoo spirit is called in this version) produces a powerful, hypnotic vibration and sound. The hollow inside of Ubar symbolises the uterus of the great mother, and the external form symbolises the penis or the male form of the rainbow serpent'. So the earth has created a musical instrument that holds the female and male energies in perfect harmony: a totally organic instrument (Tynon 1996).
Tynon (1996) also connects the didjeridu to the Year 2000 Olympic Games to be held in Sydney, Australia. Incongruously, the Olympic Games are perhaps the ultimate example of the mixing rather than the dichotomising of `nature' and `science/technology'. To win, athletes' bodies are scientised and technologised to achieve maximum output; but winning is predicted on their supposedly natural rather than drug aided ability. Male/female dynamics, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of Communist East Germany, Australian nationalism, and the globalisation of the didjeridu and its naturalness also inform the discourse, which is, to say the least, eclectic if not always congruous:
... the didgeridoo, as the clearest symbol of the Aboriginal culture will become a focus in the year 2000. The world will centre in on the playing of the didgeridoo, and as is already happening, will be caught by the irresistible charm of the instrument, perhaps not knowing why, yet being drawn to play in numbers beyond appreciation now. Already I've even heard it said that there are more didgeridoo players in Germany than Australia! ... It's part of the trend and attraction, and also reflecting the healing of East/West [German] issues that are symbolic of the opposing forces and perhaps also highlights Germany's needs to go further in the healing of the inner wall between male and female. The didgeridoo as a symbol of the 2000 [Sydney Olympic] games holds the promise and the dream of harnessing and harmonising the forces of male and female, and also symbolises the forces of creation being brought about by organic rather than mechanistic processes, symbolised by a hollow tree. We can also see the harmonising and integrating with the knowing wisdom of the indigenous people and those [non-indigenous people] that have opened up to their [Australian] homeland's song, that will unfold out of the didgeridoo playing, and opening to our heartland (Tynon 1996).
The following passage combines utopian fantasies and Aboriginal culture. It suggests new, proactive ways of living can lead not only to personal but also to planetary transformation:
All of us playing, feeling, and making the didgeridoo get an awesome sense of where it is going. It is beyond understanding or predicting at this point. The trend towards drums, didgeridoo, and music from indigenous cultures is showing us the desire to move forward and yet back, finding a new way yet bringing with us the roots of what makes a balanced culture and way of life. It's time to own we're coming together to form a new indigenous `one big extended family of humanity'. At this point I'll leave you with your dreaming and our picturing of our unfolding part in creation. Happy Journeys. Love, light and laughter (Tynon 1996).
From another magazine source, Nova: Western Australia's Holistic Journal, come passages which allude to many of the points Ross and Sherwood identify as central to New Age. They take the form of a quasi-sycophantic portrait by Sowelu (1996a) of Maxine Fumagalli, a Noongar Aboriginal women from south-west Western Australia. As well as being a non-Aboriginal didjeriduist, Sowelu also identifies himself as a therapeutic astrologer, primal therapist and writer. He blends a description of Fumagalli, her healing practices, and his own experiences into a discourse imbued with New Age beliefs and values:
She is a formidable character, a Leo woman with a big heart, ready sense of humour and a passionate desire to share her knowing and skills. She is spiritually very close to the Earth Mother, Kunupipi, whose image adorns her shop and paintings. She has worked successfully with street kids, prison inmates and a growing number of white healers and therapists, using the didgeridoo as her main tool (Sowelu 1996a:17).
Sowelu goes on to describe Fumagalli's style of healing as:
working on the physical, emotional and spiritual bodies simultaneously, by blowing a continuous note at, and through, each segment of the body. The sound vibration empowers the healing and serves as a diagnostic tool. Any change in pitch or tone during the blowing reflects some disturbance in the person's energy bodies (1996a:17).
He reports Fumagalli mixes intuitive counselling and site specific blowing and is able:
to move the disturbances, allowing a clear note to pass through that part of the body. This more organic approach goes beyond the more common practice of blowing on the chakras, mobilising blocked energy and emotional residues, sealing holes in the aura and, on rare occasions, expelling foreign spirits from a person's system (traditionally a common practice in aboriginal healing) (Sowelu 1996a:17).
Sowelu concludes by characterising Fumagalli's practice and how it impacts on him personally:
Maxine's teaching is very simple, earthy and from the heart. Around her I am powerfully reminded of the interconnectedness of all things, where every sound, bird call, rush of wind and seeming `coincidence' has immediate, direct meaning. Invariably some form of magic occurs, often in the form of an aboriginal spirit elder who sometimes thumps out an unexpected sound from the didg. The form of the magic varies, but it touches the child within me, and transports me to an earlier sense of knowing and seeing (1996a:17).
In another article in the same issue, Sowelu (1996b) recounts a use of music which speaks to its purported therapeutic benefit in New Age discourse to heal and to reconnect people with themselves, each other and their collectively constructed socio-cultural and physical environments. He states: "A white Australian musician is using sound and music to heal damaged [Aboriginal sacred] sites. These and other quietly ground breaking ventures are happening around Australia and are a source of great inspiration and hope for us" (Sowelu 1996b:16). The title of the article is "Between Worlds: A Meeting Place for White & Black Australians". Whilst the sentiment is certainly admirable it begs questions such as: to whom does the didjeridu, healing and Aboriginal culture bring hope? what are the underlying cultural politics? what is the source of the inspiration? who stands to profit from such ventures?
Native American Indian musical motifs dominate this recording while the ever-present didgeridoo provides a textual atmosphere that creates a heightened sense of depth and mystery. This recording is indeed capable of carrying you away On the Wings of Eagles if you allow yourself to listen in a relaxed and meditative manner ... I can tell you that the power of the didgeridoo has certainly been demonstrated in my life in that it is now the focal point of nearly everything I do (On the Wings of Eagles 1997).
Another recording by Blonski (Didjeridoo in the American Outback, 1997) advertises the music as:
A refreshing new look at one of the oldest and most primitive instruments known to man. David's unique approach ... honors its aboriginal roots by using the land and animals of the `new world' to inspire this collection of didjeridoo recordings. David's evocative and contemporary style adds a percussive element to his didjeridoo playing that helps bring this 40,000 year old instrument into the modern world while still maintaining its primal edge.
Also noted is how Blonski has handmade most of the instruments used and "His line of `Walkabout Performance Didjeridoos' are available for purchase" (Didjeridoo in the American Outback, 1997).
The cover-notes on the recording One Fine Mama (1993) by Native Ground announce it is: "Uniting the Australian Aborigenes (sic) Instrument `didgeridoo'` the african `Djembe' drum, with the guitar and marimba ... creating a music that taps into the soul of our History on this planet - The songs of humanity from our earliest time. The joy in our heart when we open our arms to the sky, the spirit of the ancestors reaching across to us from the millenum (sic). Whether in the forest, on the mountain, a quiet river village, or urban inner-city, we are all of us on our `Native Ground'. These are some of its songs". On the Australian recording Primal Pulse (1997) by Ganga Giri the cover-notes state it is: "A world music album featuring didgeridoo and spanning the realms of traditional Aboriginal chants through to dynamic afro percussion, embellished with instruments from around the world". It goes on to propose a larger agenda ("Aspirations: To preserve wilderness for future generations. The proceeds from this CD will go towards making this dream a reality"); without detailing how it will be realised.
Four Australian Music International CDs are among the largest selling recordings of didjeridu music globally and all contain similar information on their covers: "[The Winds of Warning CD] is a collection of songs that gives thanks to Mother Nature, the wisdom of Aboriginal culture and the Australian landscape. Collectively, these songs are a votive offering for the hope that we may reconnect ourselves to Mother nature, and see all cultures as equally important ... We hope that you will continue to support independent artists and labels by not taping their recordings. Independent recordings broaden the spectrum of musical choice" (Winds of Warning, 1993). A solo Australian recording, Naked Didge (1997), by Dr. Didge ("a practising medical doctor exploring the healing properties of the didgeridoo", aka Peter O'Brien) contains the cover-note comment: "Through the didgeridoo I am awakening my Kundalini breath pump, allowing me to pulse with my own inherent rhythms. In that moment I am an expression of mother earth offering myself to the divine through song". An integral element in Dr. Didge's healing practice is directing sound at the body's various chakras. The back cover features a picture of Uluru/Ayers Rock and the following statement: "Naked Didge is inspired by the creative forces of the rainbow serpent. By using didges of various keys - from the earth chakra (key low A) to the crown chakra (key high B) we open our vibrational rhythms. This ancestral sound/dreaming provides a vehicle to connect heaven and earth. May we all learn to walk in a balanced manner upon mother earth" (Naked Didge 1997).
A common feature of New Age recordings' cover-notes (and didjeridu instructional tapes) are statements acknowledging the Aboriginal provenance of the instrument and associated symbols. For example, a compilation recording called Didjeridu Planet (1997), featuring didjeridu enthusiasts from around the world, professes the recording was done: "With Profound Respect and Gratitude to the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia". However, including the statement sparked debate on the discussion group's Internet site because some participants were opposed to noting Aboriginal provenance or contributing any profits to Aboriginal organisations as a token of recognition (Dreamtime Didjeridu W3 Server). Lights in a Fat City's Somewhere (1988) states: "The didgeridoo is played with the greatest respect for the Aboriginal people of Australia and their struggle for land rights in their homeland". While Adam Plack (aka Nomad) and Johnny "White Ant" Soames' Winds of Warning (1993) maintain: "Aboriginal symbols borrowed with respect" and Deep in Didge claims: "Tribal Trance gives respect and gratitude to the indigenous culture and peoples of Australia".
Yet another common feature of recordings (and didjeridu instructional tapes and New Age books) are statements proclaiming one or two Aboriginal people or a local group (out of an indigenous population of approximately 350,000) either granted permission to play and record or participated somehow. Such claims to patronage or "authentication by association" beg the vital questions of authorisation and payment. This is because of the typically localised nature of authority in Aboriginal communities and a history of some unscrupulous didjeriduists, producers and recording companies either pilfering or plagiarising Aboriginal music and performances. Ironically, some of those who trumpet their purported empathy and ethics the loudest may have problematic reputations with Aboriginal musicians, communities or archival "keeping places" (Musa 1997, Taylor 1997, Cosic 1995). To date there have been several cases in which Aboriginal musicians have been paid either a pittance or sampled and copied without compensation except for at best a cover-note or promotional materials mention, similar to similar experiences of other indigenous people noted by music researchers (Feld 1996, Mills 1996, Zemp 1996, Seeger 1992+1991).
One unique method of song titling bears comment. On his French recording Australie Didgeridoo (1996), former Australian resident Phillip Peris uses phrases from the unofficial Australian national song Waltzing Matilda for song titles. The connotation (and humour in the sequencing) of Down by the Billabong and the next song Under the Shade of the Coolabah Tree, would elude most consumers. However, other song titles and cover-notes (and their connotations) on Australie Didgeridoo such as Gone Walkabout ("A walkabout is a periodic migration by Aboriginals into the bush".) and Rainbow Heartbeat ("The rhythm of the heartbeat is one that unites all cultures. The many cultural differences here in Europe need the heartbeat to bring them together".) would be instantly recognisable to New Age consumers, some of who would have gathered their information about Aborigines, and by inference the alleged power of the Aboriginal music and the didjeridu to heal, from New Age books.
The book recounts the Arcadian adventures of an "average American female" who is mysteriously chosen by a tribe of Aborigines called the Real People who lead her, barefoot and nearly naked, on a "four month walkabout". While traversing trackless deserts, they reveal to her their secrets. She has been selected (inexplicably) as the only person in the world fit to carry their message to the world. They have decided to die out by not reproducing because of the dystopian state of the planet. The book's notes on the author say Morgan "shares the experience of [her nomadic teachers'] healing, relationship to the environment, and a new perception of spirituality". The didjeridu is only one of numerous Aboriginal artefacts and cultural practices which are incongruously introduced into the narrative in a hodge podge of gratuitous caricatures and disjointed stereotypes. In a chapter titled "Medicine of Music", the following passages appear:
Several people in the group possessed the medicine of music. Medicine was the word used in the translation sometimes ... We carried no instruments in our meager possessions, but I had long ago ceased to question how and where things would appear ... We stopped for the night, and while the vegetable and insect meal was being prepared, the musicians set up their stage.
An old dead tree lay nearby, several of the limbs covered with termites. One was broken off and the insects knocked off. The termites had eaten the center out of the branch, and it was filed with sawdust. By using a stick in a ramming motion and then blowing out the dead crumbly core, they soon had a hollow tube. I felt I was seeing Gabriel's trumpet constructed. I found out later, this is what the Australians commonly refer to as a didjeridu. It makes a low musical sound when you blow into it.
... I realized some of the songs were as old as time. These people repeat chants created here in the desert before the invention of our calendar. But I also experienced new compositions, music being composed just because I was there. I was told, `Just as a musician seeks musical expression, so the music in the Universe seeks to be expressed'.
What I really witnessed, however was how these people live life to the fullest without material attachments ... [After the concert] the [clap] sticks, [didjeridu] limb, and [percussive] rocks were released by the musicians, yet the joy of creative composition, and the talent remained as a confirmation of each person's worth and self esteem. A musician carries the music within him. He needs no specific instrument. He is the music.
... These people say they have been here for all time. Scientists know they have inhabited Australia for at least 50,000 years. It is truly amazing that after 50,000 years they have destroyed no forests, polluted no water, endangered no species, caused no contamination, and all the while they have received abundant food and shelter. They have laughed a lot and cried very little. They live long, productive, healthy lives and leave spiritually confident (Morgan 1991:95-97).
The inaccuracies and inanities in the passages are too numerous to detail here; however, the general tenor of the discourse fits readily within Ross' (1992) and Sherwood's (1997) frameworks. The overall effect of the hyper-spectacularisation and hyper-spiritualisation of Aboriginal culture is to deny history, agency and the genocide and ethnocide experienced by many Aboriginal people in the past. In the present, it denies diminished life chances, higher rates of debilitating diseases and infant mortality, and lower life expectancy for Aborigines compared to the general population (Johnston 1991). It also ignores the realpolitik demagoguery of the anti-Aboriginal industry and the divisive policies, rhetoric and actions of conservative (and in some instances blatantly racist) politicians set on overriding or emasculating High Court decisions recognising Native Title in Common Law. Specifically with the didjeridu: they are cut from living trees (not dead ones); the lips, lungs and diaphragm are all used to play (you do not simply blow into it); there is a dearth of suitable trees or termites in the "desert" (nor was it commonly a desert region instrument); termites are found on the inside not on the outside (they die in heat and light); they do not make "sawdust" (they digest wood); and the use of the didjeridu in "traditional" Aboriginal ceremony is quite prescribed (and neither improvisational nor usually dedicated to "honoured" guests) (Knopoff 1997).
The cultural politics of media and academic debates over the book are also an instructive part of New Age discourse. In order to counter claims made in the book and Morgan's presumption to speak on behalf of Aborigines, an Aboriginal community organisation in Perth Western Australia, the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, contacted Aboriginal communities across the area where her adventures had supposedly taken place. They were unable to establish any record of her or the Real People with whom she supposedly shared the adventures. A concerted media campaign was launched in Australia against the book. With support from the peak indigenous governmental agency in Australia (The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission), an Aboriginal delegation headed by Dumbartung coordinator Robert Eggington then travelled to North America. There they reiterated their view the book is deceitful and degrading. At one stage even gaining support from actor Steven Segal, the San Francisco Chronicle's influential columnist Jon Carroll, and other media commentators and book reviewers.
The book has also sparked heated academic debate, often quite acrimonious, concerning the book's content, its reception and stakeholders' roles and reactions (Hiatt 1997, Eggington 1996, Griffiths 1996, Shoemaker 1995, Hawthorne 1994). The majority of reviews and critiques were broadly sympathetic to Dumbartung's agenda of questioning the representations of Aborigines and vetting who has the authority to make them. However, Dumbartung, its findings, media campaign and key individuals were not above criticism; a predictable development in the polarised (and racialised) cultural politics of Australia.
As an example of this sub-discourse operating within a wider discourse, one experienced anthropologist, John Stanton, curator at the Berndt Museum of Anthropology, critiqued the book for Dumbartung and pointed out three major flaws. These were its claim to be factual, its reliance on imagination rather than first-hand experience, and its insults to the religious beliefs of some Aborigines. He summarised his criticism as: "It is condescending in the extreme, devoid of any detailed appreciation of Aboriginality, and reflects more of the author's personal preoccupations and experiences within the North American context than those of Australia" (Stanton in Dumbartung 1995:41).
Another experienced anthropologist, Les Hiatt (1997), proposed a somewhat different view, one highly critical of Dumbartung and its supporters. Writing in the conservative magazine Quadrant, while a Visiting Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Hiatt does not disagree with the substance of Stanton's criticisms. Rather, he disagrees with Dumbartung's agenda and methods in the context of what he characterises as "a developing mood in Aboriginal politics on the definition and control of cultural property" (Hiatt 1997:38), an issue at the core of cultural politics in Australia. Hiatt saves his main (and personalised) opprobrium for a non-anthropologist, literary scholar Gareth Griffith, whose musings on the conundrum that some indigenous North Americans actually identified with Morgan's book are dismissed as: "to be understood wholly in terms of political correctness" (1997:38).
Hiatt acknowledges Mutant Message Down Under is romantic and factually problematic but cautions against siding with its critics: "who treat it as an opportunity to advocate parochialism and thought control" (1997:40). By trotting out the analytically meaningless and ideologically compromised mantras of "political correctness", "parochialism" and "thought control", Hiatt highlights the kind of acrimonious cultural politics New Age discourse encourages but usually ignores or elides because of its innate instability and variegation (Pfeil 1995). Notwithstanding the pointless attacks on Morgan's Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal critics, Hiatt does identify several points particularly relevant to this analysis: the difficulty of differentiating cultural appropriation from the free exchange of ideas and differentiating custodianship from censorship (1997:38); and, the reality that exchanges between New Age and indigenous peoples are not always uni-directional or negative, a point made above by Gulash and elsewhere by other researchers (Cuthbert and Grossman 1997a).
The didjeridu is admittedly peripheral to Mutant Message Down Under. However, Morgan's depictions of Aborigines are symptomatic of the tendency towards commodification, mystification, and essentialisation in New Age discourse, constructing Aborigines, Aboriginal culture and practices, and the didjeridu as the kinds of exotica New Age consumers obviously desire. Morgan is reputed to have made considerable profit from the sale of the book, tapes, videos, movie rights, and lecture tours. What is perturbing, but perhaps not surprising, is the book crossed over from the somewhat limited New Age market into the larger mainstream market. Obviously, a dishonest and discredited quest for a "magical island" can make money even if it fails to make sense. Mutant Message Down Under and the examples drawn from magazines, recordings' cover-notes and promotional materials, and song and album titles are quintessential examples of "imperialist nostalgia" (Rosaldo 1989), the pining after of what one has helped to destroy. They are also good examples of abjection in Kristeva's sense of "the mourning for an object that had already been lost" (1982:13). Morgan in particular has objectified Aborigines as "savages" so "noble" they even willingly commit a form of collective suicide, rendering themselves mute and her the only messenger capable of conveying to the world their secrets for planetary survival. The overwhelming ethos of New Age discourse is that the messages (whether mutant or well-meaning, whether cynically calculated or ignorantly accidental) are basically commodities for sale in the marketplace and not enlightenment circulating for free. They are too often mercenary, nostalgic mourning which masquerades as celebration.
The didjeridu can be appreciated as playing meaningful roles in a general way in Ross' New Age Technoculture and more specifically in Sherwood's alternative lifestylers' model society. While Ross and Sherwood provide keys to grasp how the beliefs and values espoused in New Age discourse can help construct a different "way of life" for followers, Turner provides examples of points at which New Age and Aboriginal understandings and uses diverge considerably, points at which differences need to be noted, and where combining and conflating artefacts and practices are either inappropriate or expropriative. New Age discourse, however, is not always discerning or conscientious.
The caustic comments made earlier by Gulash and Watts about "members of the New Age movement" and "hippies" who plundered Aboriginal culture for their "new-age religion industry" articulate informed Aboriginal perspectives on "borrowing" power, a prime ingredient in appropriation. Another informed opinion is articulated by Mark Atkins (1997), one of the expert Aboriginal didjeriduists who attended the "Seven Day International Didgeridoo Gathering in Switzerland" quoted at the outset. He adds a valuable viewpoint on what has been analysed here based on his experiences and thoughts about what occurred at the "Gathering". Atkins says many people asked him about Marlo Morgan, Mutant Message Down Under, and healing, and the festival "was very New Age with a lot of people from all over the world". The issue of gender arose and Atkins explained his personal understanding of why Aboriginal women generally do not play the instrument; however, "everybody was teaching women to play anyways". The question of didjeridu healing also arose and he observes: "There wouldn't be too many didjeridu healers in Australia, but all of a sudden when they leave [Australia] a lot of them are doing it. I don't know any Aboriginal didjeriduists doing healings overseas. The ones that I've come across are either white Australians or Europeans. For me to even attempt to do something like that is just wrong". Even as an experienced performer and cultural ambassador and an internationally regarded master of his instrument, Atkins feels healing is a no-go zone for him.
The fact someone of Atkins' stature feels so strongly is indicative that although an honoured guest (and paid performer), the issue of appropriation remains problematic to him. It caused him genuine concern about how people are appropriating the instrument without understanding or necessarily even caring about either the socio-cultural and musical aspects of its Aboriginal provenance or the complex cultural politics informing its use as it circulates and mutates in the global cultural economy.
Therein lies the New Age quandary for Westerners eager to "borrow the power" of indigenous peoples in extra-musical and musical contexts: how to use Aboriginal artefacts, practices and knowledge appropriately without devaluing or destroy them via the mystification, essentialisation, and commodification described here. This analysis has provided examples of how the process of appropriation is being played out in the "magical island" of New Age discourse, a metaphorical place and textual space where the didjeridu, Aboriginal culture, healing and cultural politics converge - and sometimes collide.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Mark Atkins, Charlie McMahon, Patricia Sherwood and the referees for suggestions.
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