Contemporary Masters Series Volume 1: Gobulu Artist/Collector: Galarrwuy Yunupingu Label Information: Yothu Yindi Foundation Media Type: CD Year: 2001 Availability: Skinnyfish Music

"Gurrumuru is a land inland which connects the land with a large river and is based on a story of the ngarali and the mast and the flag, but there is no such significance of how that came to be. Such concepts are usually associated with the Macassan trepangers from Sulawesi who started trading with us five or six hundred years ago but in this case there is no evidence of Macassans having been to Gurrumuru.

It's firmly believed that there lives a spiritual creator, a hero, in one of the existing rainforests, and that spiritual being is called Birrinydji. Birrinydji is a living being that is still being talked about and sung about. It carries very sacred significant stories and song cycles to all of the Gurrumuru area. All of these songs are based on that. That story and its importance overrides the arrival of the Macassans in the 1400s. So there had to be another people who have created this particular cycle of stories, history, which we still sing about.

It may date back to the Bayini people who arrived at Dhanaya and other places along the coast much earlier than the Macassans. The Macassans are included in an extended way in this song cycle because it does not reflect any other evidence or movements, which differentiate from one or the other. But there is a clear break in the history of the story that we talk about on this album.

The whole album is set out not as a composition of myself. It's a composition of a story that has been passed on and I am responsible of singing these songs for the benefit of telling the next generation to tell it through the song cycle, the same story.

The songs are all original. I am allowed to compose the song. Any person is allowed to compose a song to a different rhythm but all the wordings remain the same, it's based on the same land, it's based on the same cycle of songs. It cannot be established outside original composition whatever that might be; let it be a flag, let it be a mast, it's based on those same words. It can't be changed.

The copyright belongs to the land. My song cannot be mine because it belongs to everybody. I would like to own it myself because I composed it but I've still got to ask permission. Any royalties must go to the original people."

Track Number	Track Title	Track Time	Notes
01	Gurrumuru (dhalwangu Homeland) 1	0:03:10	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A Gobulu can be a grave or a mound of sand over a grave. Gurrumuru is the homeland of the Dhalwangu people. The song is based on Gobulu. It's the making of a perfect grave for a person. This particular song was composed to a daughter who was brought up by the families and it was composed towards the owner of that child. It belongs to the Dhalwangu people and she was buried as the love child to the land of Birrinydji on land at Gurrumuru. The sequence of each song addresses different issues. It talks about flag, it talks about smoke, it talks about litter, the drinking and people getting intoxicated. It talks about making of the grave, it talks about the building of a home, it talks about people having games with bows and arrows and guns and knives and even cards, gambling. These song cycles still apply within what really happened in the days before the modern society developed these kinds of behaviors or practices.
02	Gurrumuru (dhalwangu Homeland) 2	0:02:20	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A Gobulu can be a grave or a mound of sand over a grave. Gurrumuru is the homeland of the Dhalwangu people. The song is based on Gobulu. It's the making of a perfect grave for a person. This particular song was composed to a daughter who was brought up by the families and it was composed towards the owner of that child. It belongs to the Dhalwangu people and she was buried as the love child to the land of Birrinydji on land at Gurrumuru. The sequence of each song addresses different issues. It talks about flag, it talks about smoke, it talks about litter, the drinking and people getting intoxicated. It talks about making of the grave, it talks about the building of a home, it talks about people having games with bows and arrows and guns and knives and even cards, gambling. These song cycles still apply within what really happened in the days before the modern society developed these kinds of behaviors or practices.
03	Gurrumuru (dhalwangu Homeland) 3	0:02:33	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A Gobulu can be a grave or a mound of sand over a grave. Gurrumuru is the homeland of the Dhalwangu people. The song is based on Gobulu. It's the making of a perfect grave for a person. This particular song was composed to a daughter who was brought up by the families and it was composed towards the owner of that child. It belongs to the Dhalwangu people and she was buried as the love child to the land of Birrinydji on land at Gurrumuru. The sequence of each song addresses different issues. It talks about flag, it talks about smoke, it talks about litter, the drinking and people getting intoxicated. It talks about making of the grave, it talks about the building of a home, it talks about people having games with bows and arrows and guns and knives and even cards, gambling. These song cycles still apply within what really happened in the days before the modern society developed these kinds of behaviors or practices.
04	Gurrumuru (dhalwangu Homeland) 4	0:03:22	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A Gobulu can be a grave or a mound of sand over a grave. Gurrumuru is the homeland of the Dhalwangu people. The song is based on Gobulu. It's the making of a perfect grave for a person. This particular song was composed to a daughter who was brought up by the families and it was composed towards the owner of that child. It belongs to the Dhalwangu people and she was buried as the love child to the land of Birrinydji on land at Gurrumuru. The sequence of each song addresses different issues. It talks about flag, it talks about smoke, it talks about litter, the drinking and people getting intoxicated. It talks about making of the grave, it talks about the building of a home, it talks about people having games with bows and arrows and guns and knives and even cards, gambling. These song cycles still apply within what really happened in the days before the modern society developed these kinds of behaviors or practices.
05	Gurrumuru (dhalwangu Homeland) 5	0:03:02	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A Gobulu can be a grave or a mound of sand over a grave. Gurrumuru is the homeland of the Dhalwangu people. The song is based on Gobulu. It's the making of a perfect grave for a person. This particular song was composed to a daughter who was brought up by the families and it was composed towards the owner of that child. It belongs to the Dhalwangu people and she was buried as the love child to the land of Birrinydji on land at Gurrumuru. The sequence of each song addresses different issues. It talks about flag, it talks about smoke, it talks about litter, the drinking and people getting intoxicated. It talks about making of the grave, it talks about the building of a home, it talks about people having games with bows and arrows and guns and knives and even cards, gambling. These song cycles still apply within what really happened in the days before the modern society developed these kinds of behaviors or practices.
06	Ngarali (smoke-cigarettes)	0:05:31	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. This song is about a smoke or cigarette being lit after the job is done on the grave; the cigarettes are being lit and smoked by those who covered the grave.
07	Marayarr (grave Mast) 1	0:02:12	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
08	Marayarr (grave Mast) 2	0:03:45	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
09	Marayarr (grave Mast) 3	0:03:55	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
10	Marayarr (grave Mast) 4	0:06:34	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
11	Marayarr (grave Mast) 5	0:07:21	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
12	Marayarr (grave Mast) 6	0:03:39	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. A final song indicating the completion of the grave. The mast-marayarr-is being raised and placed at the head of the grave.
13	Djoling (harmonica-mouth Organ)	0:02:32	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. Playing the mouth organ-djoling-expressing the sadness. The high pitch sound of the instrument is associated with the crying and the sadness.
14	Galiku (flag-calico) 1	0:06:09	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. The flag-galiku (calico)- is being raised which of course completes that cycle of songs. Normally at the end of the flag manikay (ancestral song) there's an easterly wind which races and makes the flag dance on the mast on the ground, just reversing the significance of it. To complete it is the easterly breeze and then the djapana-the sunset-which completes the circle of that section of songs.
15	Galiku (flag-calico) 2	0:03:46	Malngay Yunupingu on Yirdaki/Didjeridu. The flag-galiku (calico)- is being raised which of course completes that cycle of songs. Normally at the end of the flag manikay (ancestral song) there's an easterly wind which races and makes the flag dance on the mast on the ground, just reversing the significance of it. To complete it is the easterly breeze and then the djapana-the sunset-which completes the circle of that section of songs.