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Grey, Rosemary --- "Ayeye: History for the Future" [2007] IndigLawB 9; (2007) 6(25) Indigenous Law Bulletin 2

Ayeye: History for the Future

by Rosemary Grey

Across Australia, Indigenous communities are cataloguing and digitally archiving their stories; ensuring that the rich local histories, traditions and customs are preserved for future generations. By strengthening links with the past, these community projects are contributing to a more promising future for young Aboriginal people.

In Alice Springs, Northern Territory, the Tangentyere Council is developing the Ayeye archiving project with those ideas in mind. Ayeye, meaning ‘history’ in the Arrente language, is an appropriate name – the purpose of the project is to ensure that as Alice Springs becomes increasingly developed and commercialised, the stories of its Indigenous peoples are not lost.

The project also has a positive significance for young Aboriginal people growing up in Alice Springs, as project officer Mary Flynn explains.[1] Over the last 80 years, she notes, there have been major changes to the town. Traditional sites and stories have been literally and figuratively demolished. Young Aboriginal people feel they don’t belong to the European and American cultures which they encounter at school and in the media.[2]

With scarce local content to provide these young people with an alternative Aboriginal identity, it is common for them to feel aimless and disconnected. The Ayeye project will help to restore a sense of cultural identity to young Aboriginal people. A database storing a wealth of Aboriginal history and knowledge will be created, providing a cultural resource for young Aboriginal people to access and learn from.

More broadly, the project has the capacity to help divert young Aboriginal people from becoming involved in petty crime, substance abuse and juvenile detention. Fostering a more solid sense of identity and self-esteem in young Aboriginal people means they will approach their lives with more assurance and direction.[3] Furthermore, bringing the young people back to their culture strengthens community relationships, affording the older generation greater scope to have a constructive influence on the young people.[4]

The idea of archiving local Aboriginal stories was pioneered by the Pitjantjatjara Council in South Australia with the Ara Irititja project, which archived the materials of the Anangu people. Following that model, the Ayeye project involves collating and then digitising photographs, videos and oral histories from local Indigenous families as well as the people who have come to Alice Springs after being displaced from country. To preserve the Indigenous languages, the histories will be recorded as far as possible in the local tongue, with an accompanying written English translation.

Ayeye is one of many projects run by the Tangentyere Council for the benefit of the Aboriginal population in and around Alice Springs. Tangentyere means ‘working together’, and that description has been true of the Council since it was established in the mid 1970s by the Arrernte people and other Aboriginal people who had come to the area. The Ayeye project began around 18 months ago and is still a work in progress. Once the archive has been put together, the task will be to make it a resource that people use.

In the Alice Springs region, the majority of Aboriginal people live in camps surrounding the town, most of which have their own community committee. The Executive of the Council is made up of representatives from each of these community committees. The Tangentyere Council will meet with the committees to design programs to familiarise people with the Ayeye archives. With specific local knowledge and experience in working with the community, the committees are well-equipped to advise the Council on how to make the archive a resource which is accessed by the local people.

The Pitjantjatjara Council’s Ara Irititja project, which has been widely utilised by the community since it was launched in 1994, provides a guide as to how such a resource can be made available.[5] The Ara Irititja database can be found on computers in schools, libraries and tertiary education centres throughout the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In recognition of the benefits the archives offer the younger generation, the Ara Irititja project focused on including material of particular interest to young people, such as contemporary Indigenous music and information which compliments the school curriculum.

The principle of educating young Aboriginal people in their culture and history as a way of reducing juvenile delinquency has also inspired other successful programs for Aboriginal youth. In southern New South Wales, the Tirkandi Inaburra Cultural and Development Centre, funded by the NSW Attorney-General’s Department, runs a three- to six-month educational, vocational and cultural programs for teenage Aboriginal boys. The idea behind the program is that building up the boys’ competence and self-esteem is the way to prevent them from offending. The Tirkandi Inaburra programs have done well in realising that aim, according to the very positive reports of the participants.[6]

For culture to survive, the passing on of stories, traditions and customs to the next generation is of paramount importance. Archiving projects such as the Ayeye and Ara Irititja projects represent a continuation of that tradition, as well as securing records for the local people which might otherwise have been irretrievably lost, and developing in young people a sense of self-respect and confidence.

Rosemary Grey is in her fifth year of a combined BA (Politics) / LLB at the University of NSW. At the time of writing, Rosemary was a volunteer with the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre. Rosemary is currently a Social Justice Intern with the Indigenous Law Centre.


[1] Interview with Mary Flynn, Project Officer (Telephone interview, 6 November 2006).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid; Emails from John Dallwitz (Ara Irititja Project) to Rosemary Grey 6 and 7 November 2006.

[5] Emails from John Dallwitz (Ara Irititja Project) to Rosemary Grey 6 and 7 November 2006.

[6] Lindsay Hayes, ‘Boys Learning to Dream at Tirkandi Centre’ Koori Mail (Lismore), 25 October 2006, 11.


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