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Witjiti and Tjapukula George | Simon and Pantjiti Tjiyangu

Taking video from the past into the future

PY Media is concerned with the maintenance of Pitjantjatjara as a living language and is actively supporting its preservation and promotion. With the ever widening gap between the language that is spoken by Elders to that which is spoken by the younger generation there is the potential for a language crisis in the not too distant future.

W.H. Edwards in his letter entitled "Comments on Pitjantjatjara language" highlights the prediction that "all languages with less than 10,000 speakers are at severe threat of becoming extinct early in the next century."

With approximately 3,000 Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara speakers, the need for concerted initiatives that promote and strengthen local language use should be of the highest priority. PY Media, through its Community Broadcast program, "Tjina Irititja - Old Tracks", draws upon its unique media archive collection to create a program designed to support cultural maintenance.

The video collection is a legacy passed on from Ernabella Video Television (EVTV), the name of PY Media prior to 1989. The video collection represents all of EVTV's and PY Media's recorded material from 1983 to 1996, approximately 3,000 hours of recorded material in the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara languages.

Much of the material is extremely important and sensitive cultural material such as "Inma" (dance and song) and "Tjukurpa" (traditional storytelling and re-enactments of dreaming stories), oral histories, as well as traditional skills and knowledge programs such as Bush Medicine, Bush Food and making a Wiltja (traditional shelter).

There are nearly two hundred edit masters that are invaluable in terms of their language and cultural content as well as their relatively high production values.

In 1997, EVTV's video cassettes went to the South Australia Museum in Adelaide in an effort to catalogue and stabilize the collection. Simon and Pantjiti Tjiyangu spent many hours reviewing the tapes and helped document valuable cultural information regarding the tapes.

PY Media Video Productions has made it a priority to produce stable digital copies and maintain the data base so that the archive can be returned to the people on the AP Lands. In addition, those productions are broadcast to the public on Imparja Television's Channel 31 during the "Tjini Irititja - Old Tracks" program.

"Bush Medicine" was the first production for EVTV shot in 1983. The production was contracted through the South Australian Film Corporation and provided EVTV with its first funds for equipment. Several productions have sold hundreds of copies to libraries, organizations and individuals around Australia and overseas. "The Seven Sisters Dreaming" has been distributed to Australian Embassies all over the world.

Witjiti and Tjapukula George

We started making video in Fregon, by duplicating the video tapes that we shot. We were making two copies of the video cassettes in order to edit the images and distribute the tapes.

Fregon was the number two EVTV. Tjapukula George and I, together we were the camerapersons. We filmed in the bush, and in the cattle and camel yards of West Bore. There were lots of wild camels on the Lands. Those camels were mustered in the yards. Afterwards, those camels would be sold somewhere overseas. Besides camels, there were wild donkeys, and some quiet ones. Some camels were also quiet. We ran a good business in West Bore and Mulga Bore. We also had a large garden - orange trees, watermelon, rock melon, pumpkin, mulberry, lemon. We would harvest the fruit. Some of the produce would be sold.

We also filmed during the day and at night the dancing and singing for inma. Everybody would come to the Fregon community to get together for inma. Sometimes, CAAMA would come from Alice Springs and Adelaide with their big cameras to take pictures. We shot with smaller cameras. Eventually, EVTV had a big camera. Smaller cameras continued to be used in Fregon and Mimili.

Happy singing. Everybody, men and women and children, were very happy. We also filmed boys and girls who were doing inma together with the old fellas. Inmas would last for one week.

We would travel far away for inma in other places. We would travel from Fregon to Warburton in one night. From Warburton, we would travel to Kalgoorlie and then on to Perth. Inma Pulka ("big culture") would bring people together for one week from all over Western Australia. When inma was finished, everybody went back to the communities.

Simon and Pantjiti Tjiyangu

We trained for one year at Batchelor College in Darwin. For a long time we worked for no salary. Eventually, we were paid a small wage by CDEP (Community Development Employment Program). In the beginning, there was no support from ATSIC. Since there was no money for cameras, the first cameras were small amateur models. Over the years, we sold video cassettes to raise money, over $10,000, for EVTV. We built a small studio in Pukatja for video production.

We have made over two thousand videos over the years. Among them, we have produced the following: the Seven Sister ceremony, Baby Clinic, Woodcarving, Witchetty Grub, Honey Ants, Bush Medicine, and Bush Tucker. On one occasion, a group of white ladies visited the Land to learn something of our ceremonies. We shot a videotape that captured their experience. Women's business is separate from other ceremonies. Pantjiti shoots women's business.

There was a big inma celebration in 1994 in Pukatja that EVTV sponsored. The whole community came together. Lots of people came. Men and women sang and danced. It was a time for teaching the children about inma. It was a very busy time for shooting video. Video cassettes were produced from this event and later sold.

EVTV has also sponsored inma events in Adelaide. EVTV brought people from the communities to the city to share their culture, to perform traditional dances and songs. Our culture travels everywhere, to Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Alice Springs, and now, through electronic media, around the world.