[Synapse elist] A true question of mine

[Esther Polak]

Dear all,



Today I remembered to raise a true question of mine. When working  
with mapping from time to time people revere to the aboriginal song  
lines. People would have all sorts of stories about song lines: what  
they mean, how special it is that only this culture has this special  
system of “mapping in words”. and how it relates to my practice.



Being interested in how people describe their routes, I wondered what  
the songs would really be like. I knew some existing route songs, but  
those were Irish… and besides, those were not the major route  
articulations used in a culture that also depended on traveling like  
the aboriginals are…So I naively wondered: what would the actual  
texts of Aboriginal song lines be like? In what literal words would  
they describe their routes? Would they use terms for directions like  
North and South? Landmarks? Would they describe distance in needed  
time to get somewhere? Stars for orientation? So I started an inquiry  
over the Internet.  Nothing was found. I became really determent and  
spent several evenings on this subject. When I checked the subject on  
wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songlines) promising  
descriptions of the song content were made, but little fruitful  
reverences were found. I did send several emails to organizations  
both in Europe and in Australia that focused on Aboriginal culture,  
but if I got an answer at all, it said that those texts are so  
totally secret, that they just are never published nowhere. I could  
understand this. Strangely enough I found texts of songs on  
aboriginal animal totems though, literally quoted on the Internet,  
even combined with audio files of recordings. Why are those to be  
found and the route songs, the song lines that I by now really would  
like to lay eyes on nowhere?



Do the song lines really exist? I mean do they exist beside the  
famous book of Bruce Chatwin and the minds of people that where  
inspired by it? Could the fact that the concept of song lines itself  
is so appealing that this alone keeps them alive? If so, what does  
this mean to our relation to mapping? Do we desperately want it to be  
more poetic than it really is? Is it like the popular legend that  
Inuit people have many words for snow? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Eskimo_words_for_snow)



If ever I would have the opportunity to work in Australia, I would  
like to do more in-depth research after this. Ore shouldn’t I? Is it  
better to leave the mystery in tact?



Best!



Esther 
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