The Singing Telegraph

a Jon Rose and Tara Community project

In some regards, Morse was an early binary language which integrated words and music. The Singing Telegraph, designed and built for use by the Tara (Atarre) Community, can be used to transmit their own Kaytetye language (instead of English) or simply played as a capacious and expressive musical instrument incorporating the rhythms of Kaytetye.

Kaperle angketye ampilerantye (two sisters were following a lizard's track)
Twepe-twepe ampilerantye (following round and round)
Kaperle angketye ampilerantye (they looked on the other side)
Nthenayne elweme arenhe (they saw a Kurdaitcha)
Artweyelke elweme arenhe (big sister says watch out for that)
Arrerele artntwenke ntheketyarte (watch out for that Kurdaitcha)
Pwertaye ketye artweye ketye! (they were scared, they ran)
Aterelke elweme alpenhe (to home they ran)
Apmerelke elweme alpenhe (round and round they ran home)

The technical achievement of The Overland Telegraph from Adelaide to Darwin transformed Australia’s relationship to the outside world and enable the colonisation of unceded central Australia. The Singing Telegraph project interrogates this cultural collision and includes reconciliatory outcomes such as a movie The Singing Telegraph (translation and full credits here), performances on country at the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station, community memoires, and this webpage.

The Singing Telegraph utilises an eight-meter-long specially designed and built musical instrument consisting of two primary support poles and spacers; telegraph Morse keys and sounders are connected at each end on the poles. The Singing Telegraph works at a number of levels: 1. Live performance of songs and texts are transmitted through The Singing Telegraph via Morse Keys in the rhythms of Kaytetye words and realised as samples in the sounders (speakers). 2. In addition to the telegraph wires, an extra suspended playable fence wire is added for physical ‘excitation’’ with bows and drum sticks. 3. Aeolian excitation of The Singing Telegraph (the so called 'whispering line') can also be heard in performance.  4. Projection of historic colonial photos, telegrams, and contemporary images of the Kaytetye (in performance) can be triggered by the bespoke MIDI- enabled Morse Keys. The electronics are built into a standalone box (no on-site computers).

ngkwarle arwele arenye (sweet foods from trees)
ilperalke (native honey)
arrke arenye (from the bloodwood trees)
nyarte (this/here)
ngkwarle (sweet food)
twerrpe arenye (from the sandhills)
nyarte ngkwarle athimpe ngkwarle (this sweet food is ironwood sap)
athimpe ngkwarle athimpe arenye (ironwood sap from the ironwood tree)
nyarte ngkwarle (this sweet food)
arlperlampe (sweet food from the mulga tree)
nyarte ngkwarle (this sweet food)
ngkwarle ntyenye (red mallee nectar)
ntyenye ngkwarle (red mallee nectar)
yerrkeyerre (manor from the Normanton box trees/bush fairy floss)
ka ka ka (no translation)
apmere nyarte Kaytetye arenge (this is Kaytetye Country)

As the blurb on the back of the book says 'Long ago, in the Dreamtime, Arelpe the moon Man and Thangkenharenge the Bird Women created Kaytetye Country - a land of dry spinifex plains, low rocky outcrops and flat-topped hills. Kaytetye Country compiled by Grace Koch with translations by Harold Koch, brings together for the first time the stories of the Kaytetye people'...it's a great and informative read told by the people of Tara themselves.

A cultural collision. Here are two verses of the women's 'Red bank' song cycle of Rtwerrpe Country (Carol and Selma Thompson’s country) recorded by Grace Koch 3/2/1977 in Tara. The singers are Topsy Ampetyane, Nellie Kemarre, Ruby Pwerle, Eileen Ngamane, and Mary Ngalyerre. This song cycle is held by AIATSIS, KOCH_G01-005165_01 and used with the permission of Selma Thompson. The string quartet plays the rhythms of K-A-Y-T-E-T-Y-E in Morse code, not as accompaniment, but as contrasting musical counterpoint. The quartet music is composed and played by Jon Rose.

verse 1.
Kwerrelame ayenge alpetyenhe (I, a girl, will go back home)
Amerlerekwere ayenge alpetyenhe (I, an unmarried girl, will go back home)

verse 2.
Arawerrnge antyelewe-antyelewe antyelewe-antyelewe (Overcome with strong emotion)
Ahelhe irrararle ayenge alpetyenhe (Longing for my country, I will go back home)
(translation by Myfany Turpin)

There are a number of other significant links that deal with the interface between indigenous and settler lives in central Australia, none more detailed and extraordinary than the biography of Kaytetye man Donald Ross, The Versatile Man and author Terry (Anne) Whitebeach's doctoral thesis about this.

A well written and illustrated general history of the construction, tribulations, and achievement of the Overland Telegraph can be found here.

Oral histories are vital in accessing the past and the transcription of Peter Horsetailer Tyapeyarte's and Tommy Thompson Kngwarreye's memoires of a tough life, the violence at Barrow Creek, gold, camels, dynamite, in the first years of the Telegraph can be read here and here. These items are available with permission of AIATSIS, and with permission of next of kin, Selma Thompson, Frank and Owen Janima, and recordist Grace Koch.

The frontier reality: After the killing of Stapleton and Franks (Barrow Creek Telegraph Station Linesmen) by Kaytetye men in retaliation of Overland Telegraph workers abducting Aboriginal women, over the next three months, Police Trooper Gason and company carried out four punitive expeditions in the Barrow Creek area...costing up to 100 Aboriginal lives. Full story and references here

This project supports and emphasises the critical importance of indigenous language and its continuing practice. I thank the Kaytetye speaking community of Tara and in particular elders Selma Thompson, Timothy Price, Nancy Thompson, Vivianne Thompson, Alex Thompson, Ruth Rawnsley and Neutral Junction School, the contribution of linguist Myfany Turpin who has worked for over 25 years with Tara Community, the technical contribution of Nick Roux (via MESS) in the building of the Morse Key/MIDI interface.

The Twepe-twepe Ampilerantye Children's song was composed in 2005 by Carol Thompson, Bronwyn Young, Nancy Thompson, Rachel Nambulla, Myfany Turpin & Steve Berry. It can be downloaded here.

Thanks to NT libraries, Music Outback, and NT Education department - Growing Up Kaytetye

© Jon Rose and Tara Community 2024