Research Catalog

Title

Afterlife before Genesis : an introduction : accessing the eternal through Australian Aboriginal music / David H. Turner.

Author

Turner, David H.

Publication

New York : Peter Lang, [1997], ©1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxiv, 267 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

• Afterlife Before Genesis is the final volume in a trilogy that began with Life Before Genesis and was followed by Return to Eden. Here David H. Turner focusses on what the Aborigines of the Groote Eylandt area of northern Australia take to be the foundations of their way of life, namely musical Forms. Their music, like their way of life, incarnates from "Nothing" as differences (songLines) which are "renounced" from "owners" to "non-owners" to connect rather than divide.
• This music is a complex polyphonic interplay of didjereedoo (their hollow log instrument) and voice which not only transcends but also heals. This the author documents by recounting how he learned to play the didjereedoo.

Series Statement

Toronto studies in religion, 8756-7385 ; vol. 22

Uniform Title

Toronto studies in religion ; v. 22.

Subjects

• Didjeridu
• Aboriginal Australians > Music > History and criticism
• Folk music > Australia > History and criticism
• Aboriginal Australians > Religion

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-261) and index.
• Discography: p. 262.

Contents

Glossary of Aboriginal Terms -- I. The Art of the Didjereedoo -- II. The Craft of the Didjereedoo -- III. Gula on Aboriginal Music -- IV. Gula's Aboriginal Music -- V. Arnhem Land Variations -- VI. The Blurring of Traditions -- App. A. A Summary of the Methodology Used for Transcribing Australian Aboriginal Music.

ISBN

0820434779 (alk. paper)

LCCN

96038538

OCLC

• 35305120
• ocm35305120

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries