Ieramugadu is telling its truth through song, and it is empowering a community battered from the outside

NIT Published September 16, 2022 at 9.03am (AWST)

music

When Yindjibarndi Elder Allery Sandy stands on stage on the banks of the Ngurin (Harding River) on Saturday night, she will be doing so alongside her grandchildren in an ongoing campaign for peace and pride.

The Pilbara town of Ieramugadu (Roebourne) has gone through more than its fair share of hardships over the past century, but there is a strong sense in town now it is a community on the mend.

Nowhere is that more evident than at the annual Songs for Peace concert, organised by the community and Big hART as a coming together to sing about the past and blaze a trail forward through song.

"It's gives us joy to be part of that, to sing and to make songs about our country and taking us on a journey together as non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people," Ms Sandy said.

"It is peaceful and you can think back in your memory in feel it in your heart.

"Once you're on stage you are standing there boldly telling our stories, singing the songs, and that means something to me."

Yindjibarndi boy Mathias McKenna, 16, is one of the teens learning how to rap.

In a society where Voice, Treaty and Truth have become embedded in public discourse, the concert has been a powerful vehicle for truth-telling in Ieramugadu for more than a decade.

And Ieramugadu's truth is more complex than most.

The North West's first settler town on unceded Ngarluma ngurra (country), it is now a melting pot of Aboriginal cultures due to generations of land dispossesion by the government and pastoral industry.

Yindjibarndi from the neighbouring tablelands make up a large portion of the town, and today contribute greatly to its economy and community.

The 1983 death in custody of Murru (Mr Pat), alcohol and child sexual abuse are among the issues which have seen the town thrust into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

But Ieramugadu is a community full of love and one which leaves no one, not even those sent to prison, behind.

That was evident when the town's unofficial queen, Yindjibarndi Elder Tootsie Daniel, surprised a dress rehearsal at the Ngurin Cultural Centre with a visit two days out from the concert.

Ms Daniel had been in Perth all year for treatment, and her return was met with tears of joy from young and old alike.

Warren Foster Jnr in Ieramugadu.

Not that you could tell from years of national headlines, but this love has always existed in Ieramugadu.

When Big hART creative director Scott Rankin is asked whether these concerts are an effort to show that pride to the nation, his answer is, at first, surprising.

"Public perception is one thing and the perception is really that it's a white perception," he said.

"The perception amongst people who live here and maintain culture and country is very different.

"Our perceptions are one thing but they're our responsibility, not Roebourne's."

While the concert is unashamedly for Ieramugadu, often those brought in from the outside find inspiration in the remote town themselves.

Kimberley songwoman Kankawa Nagarra (Olive Knight), Djiringanj rapper Warren Foster Jnr and Matti Matti singer Kutcha Edwards are among the invitees gearing up to perform this weekend.

For Edwards, sitting around a circle with the Songs for Peace team stirs emotions.

He sees a community singing language songs confidently, something he reveals he never got to achieve with the exception of one song which he performed with pride for the group.

Nagarra too draws inspiration from Ieramugadu's journey towards peace for her own fight back home in Walmatjarri near Fitzroy Crossing, where water use and youth crime are pertinent issues.

The key thread for both is confidence, and that is something Foster Jnr is instilling in Ieramugadu's youth through a rap they are composing at the last minute for the concert.

"So many different aspects of hip hop make it the right place for young people these days to express themselves because it has all that emotion and power and passion behind it," Foster Jnr said.

"From when I first come in last week, there was a bit of shy.. 'I'm shame did people see me do that there?'

"But then with that encouragement, it's like 'Yeah, well, this is you, this is who you are man, this is is the best version of you'."

For Ms Sandy, who has been part of the Big hART show through more than a decade of iterations - from Hipbone Sticking Out to Murru to Tjaabi to Songs for Peace - seeing the pride on show never wears off.

Rankin feels much the same way; he points out many of those who first started on this journey now hold babies in their hands, babies who will get the chance to grow up with the words of song, not headlines, as their guiding lights in Ieramugadu.