Research Seminar - Uncle Ossie Cruse & Robin Ryan Cruse

I Heard the Old Fellas Play: Preserving the Agency of the Gumleaf Sound in Contemporary Community Culture

The seminar highlights the dynamic role of the gumleaf sound in Indigenous cultural life and beyond. As a prototype of reed aerophones, an entire leaf instrument reflects ancient ways of coping with the immediate physical environment, in creative cultural response to environment. Playing 'out on country' is an intimate part of Indigenous personal reflection to, and from, the more-than-human world. 

Uncle Ossie Cruse (b. 1933) is the custodian of gumleaf playing along NSW's southeastern seaboard. He recalls the collective creativity of gumleaf bandsmen in uniting fragmented Koori communities before the mid-twentieth century saw bands splinter into threadbare ensembles. Since the turn of the century, a few remnant 'leafists' advance Indigenous advocacy within a space of possibles (Pierre Bourdieu, 1996). Bourdieu's field locates cultural products and producers within "a space of positions and position-takings" that constitute a set of objective relations. 

Uncle Ossie keeps the gumleaf sound alive at Indigenous community gatherings and funerals. The leaf uplifts his presentations at educational workshops, political forums, and regional festivals; and opens up rich exchanges of cultural musical diversity as he welcomes seafarers, tourists, and refugees to Eden. South East Arts recently enabled Uncle Ossie to form a modern-day leaf band. In paying centenary homage to Wallaga Lake's revered touring band of the 1920s, the project culminated in a unique, historic performance at Giiyong Festival 2022. 

Mindful of Nature's ongoing fractures, our summary challenge is to articulate a wide, holistic approach to the greening of musical performance. We reason that the whimsical grassroots instrument assumes its full potential only as its sound becomes a medium of cultural, social, or political expression. In drawing out the resonance of 'country' as a critical decolonising space, the gumleaf is an ecological resource for pointing us back to ways of 'playing the land' instead of destroying it.  

Uncle Ossie Cruse MBE, AM is the First Nations Elder of Thaua Country in far southeast New South Wales, and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wollongong. He has consistently defended the values of the Yuin-Monaro Nation in regional, national, and global spheres including the Commonwealth Heads of Government, the Pacific Asia Council of Indigenous People, and the United Nations. Uncle Ossie was instrumental in drafting "The International Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" for the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Cultural projects initiated through his vision and drive include Jigamy's majestic Aboriginal Keeping Place and the Eden Youth Camp. An ABC 'Australian Story' (2017) episode documents Uncle Ossie's peaceful way of settling mistrust and confrontation. He continues, at 88 years, to pastor the Eden Aboriginal church and community; and to promote Treaty and the renovation of the Constitution with the Federal Government.  

Dr Robin Ryan is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer attached to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She researched Indigenous gumleaf playing (PhD, 1999) under Professor Margaret Kartomi, publishing on the topic through her affiliations with Monash University, Macquarie University, and Edith Cowan University. Her chapters appear in the award-winning Current Directions in Ecomusicology: Music, Culture, Nature (Routledge); Collaborative Ethnomusicology: New Approaches to Music Research between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians (Lyrebird Press); Forest Family: Australian Culture, Art and Trees (Brill Rodopi); and (Routledge, forthcoming) Musical Exchanges in the Third Space. Recent articles appear in Arts and the Market; Environmental Humanities; Societies; The Journal of Music Research Online; and Yale Journal of Music and Religion. Robin was awarded the Rebecca Coyle Prize for significant advance in Australasian Popular Music Research by the ANZ Branch of IASPM in 2019.