The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
This article discusses some of the types of commonly written texts, and genres being produced in Aboriginal languages. It focuses on just one Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, the Walpiri community of Willowra, located 450 kilometers northwest of Alice Springs. Through an analysis of the content of a single issue of the local school magazine, (Wirliyajarrayi Ngurrji Yimi, 1989), it will be revealed that elements of the second, third, and fourth contemporary motivations for writing in Aboriginal languages mentioned, are potentially being served in the community of Willowra. The central focus, however, of this analysis is on two similar types of contemporary Warlpiri writing, which are referred to by the Warlpiri as Jukurrpa and oral history texts. Samples produced by Warlpiri adults, of both of these types of texts appear in the magazine issue under analysis. Observations are also made about the content and style of some written texts by Warlpiri children that recount hunting trips or camp incidents. These children's texts are either dictated to teachers or written by the children themselves in the classroom. Quite a number are reproduced in the magazine under analysis. There are marked similarities between adult Jukurrpa and oral histories on the one hand and the children's texts on the other. Hence, the main intention of this article is to inform white educators who are involved in Aboriginal education that Aboriginal children, on beginning school already possess very rich cultural knowledge and understandings about what constitutes typical story content, style, and structure.
