Didgeridoo craftsmen under threat

Didgeridoo craftsmen under threat

By Christian Mahne Manyallaluk, Northern Territory, Australia

Facing an uncertain future?

The Didgeridoo is both the cultural icon of Aboriginal Australia and a keepsake for thousands of tourists each year.

How do you keep true to one, while being accessible to the other?

In the community of Manyallaluk, five hours drive from Darwin, didgeridoo making and playing is an art form as old as the hills.

That's the problem.

Commercial pressures of supply and demand don't sit well with traditional craftsmen - with so many visitors to Australia wanting a didgeridoo to take home with them, the old fashioned methods of production just can't keep up.

Painstaking process

Master Didgeridoo Maker "Long John" Dewar has been walking the forests of Manyallaluk for over 40 years.

First take your hollowed tree...

He finds the most suitable trees for making didgeridoos out of by tapping the tree to tell if it's been hollowed out by termites.

He might find one an hour.

After cutting it down by hand and stripping the bark he can carry it back to the community.

Shaping the stick into one of the 30 or so "yedaki" he will make this year, each one a time-consuming endeavour that will sell for around A$100.

Poaching threat

Communities like Manyallaluk make and sell their didgeridoos direct to the public but they are in a minority.

Add some traditional craftsmanship...

Of the 10,000 or so sticks that leave this region to feed the world market each year, less than half are "fair dinkum" - the genuine article.

Poachers are coming onto Aboriginal ground in ever-increasing numbers.

They clear-fell trees en masse and mechanically drill out the heart to enable the log to be played.

The sticks are then painted up - sometimes by traditional artists, sometimes not - and sold in tourist shops throughout Australia.

Meeting demand

Stephen Ariston from the Katherine Art Gallery believes the vast majority of didgeridoos sold are now produced this way.

...and sell to eager tourists

"Ninety percent of didgeridoos these days are made by white people. Aboriginal people just can't keep up the supply and demand for them," he said.

"A hundred percent of our didgeridoos are painted by aboriginals and I think it's wrong for them to be painted by white people, which goes on in Cairns and stuff like that."

Wrong or not, it is on the increase. Mass production of didgeridoos is the only way to meet demand but it comes at a high price - cutting aboriginal people out of the supply chain.

Nick Decandillo, business manager for the Jawoyn Association, said a tagging system was the answer.

"Aboriginal people are losing control of their icon, and I think a tagging system which says 'this didgeridoo is made, is cut, is processed, is handled and painted by aboriginal people' with a tag commands a much higher price."

But whether tourists, such as those visiting the recent "Didg Rocks Festival" in Sydney, are willing to pay top dollar for an authentic instrument most will never play is very hard to tell.