Songs, Dreamings, and Ghosts: The Wangga of North Australia

Winner of the Stanner Award from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies (2006)

Aboriginal musicians receive songs both from an eternal realm known as The Dreaming and from the ghosts of deceased ancestors. Songs, Dreamings, and Ghosts is the first book-length study of wangga, a musical and ceremonial genre of Aboriginal people of the Daly Region of Northern Australia. This work is a labor of love, the culmination of nearly 20 years of field work and research by renowned ethnomusicologist Allan Marett, and represents the only comprehensive documentation of a single major genre of Aboriginal music. With first-hand, in-depth knowledge of Northwest Australia’s Aboriginal cultures, Marett provides the reader with a penetrating description and analysis of this compelling musical practice. This book makes a significant contribution to knowledge of Aboriginal studies, and provides a rare glimpse into relatively unknown traditions and cultures. It includes illustrations, musical examples, and links to a web-based virtual CD loaded with samples of this fascinating music, closely linked to the text, at http://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/wanggacd/.