Paper short abstract:

Since 2015, Jessie Lloyd has visited public collections and Indigenous communities across Australia researching forgotten and orphaned songs of the Mission Era (1901–1967), an intensive period of forced legislative removals of many Indigenous Australians from their homelands and families onto colonial mission and government settlements.

Paper long abstract:

Supported by the National Library of Australia and State Library of Victoria, to date, she has found some 30 songs that carry unique historical perspectives of Indigenous Australians who lived through the Mission Era, and convey personal stories of loss, hope and resilience that are rarely recorded in official histories. These songs now form the basis of the Mission Songs Project which, under Lloyd’s direction, has since generated concert tours in Australia, Canada, Mexico, Finland and the Czech Republic, a song book, and a 13-track CD and CD single. In this presentation, we will explore the notion of song as archive and the integral role of music heritage in sustaining suppressed Indigenous histories that challenge the colonial narratives often retained in official histories. We will examine how the songs of the Mission Songs Project interrogate legacy colonial narratives about Indigenous Australians, and recreate first-hand accounts and remembrances that represent the past as it was experienced within Indigenous families and communities. While representations of Indigenous Australia in anthropological discourses, archives and museums often focus on tangible heritage objects, we will further demonstrate how the medium of song has long been central to curating and transmitting Australian Indigenous histories and knowledges, and remains integral to sustaining genuine Indigenous perspectives into the future.