abstract My perspective will focus around my journey learning and playing indigenous instruments and dance as a young black woman. Looking at the history trail of tradition and hear-say, some of these instruments were identified and known as a woman’s instrument. In questioning who can teach me, I raise my frustration with the barriers erected by academic institutions to the knowledge about and archival access to women’s indigenous music which I have confronted. My narrative speaks to practices of copyright exploitation and gatekeeping which keeps women ethnomusicologists who work as community activists, in the margins. Currently we have men in higher learning institutions as holders of this instrument with teaching rights. I recall several indigenous women performers whose work is widely recognised as contributing to indigenous music and knowledge, who learnt their cultural practices within their communities, many achieving fame even though illiterate. I argue for the old and new to mesh, for our women’s contribution as the holders of intellectual authority, memory and custom to be fully recognised to ensure it is not erased or that woman’s indigenous ways of knowing are lost to us through unacceptable forms of gender bias and artificial knowledge hierarchies. As my teachers, the women who have informed my study and practice, inspire me with the understanding that the body is the archive of sound, how the body helps us to reconnect with the ancestral vibration that is part of who we are. Healing through music and dance and nature is the centre stage of creating environments of connectivity. I conclude with possible methods of teaching indigenous knowledge systems and the value of preserving, promoting, developing and appreciation of our musical heritage as indigenous women.

中文翻译：

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Umakhweyana：谁能教我？

摘要 我的观点将集中在我作为一名年轻的黑人女性学习和演奏土著乐器和舞蹈的旅程上。纵观传统和传闻的历史轨迹，其中一些乐器被确定为女性乐器。在询问谁可以教我时，我对学术机构设置的障碍表达了对我所面临的女性本土音乐的知识和档案访问的失望。我的叙述讲述了版权利用和守门的做法，这使得作为社区活动家工作的女性民族音乐学家处于边缘。目前，我们在高等教育机构中拥有拥有教学权的这种工具的男性。我记得有几位土著女表演者，她们的作品被广泛认为对土著音乐和知识做出了贡献，她们在自己的社区中学习了自己的文化习俗，许多人即使不识字也成名。我主张新旧融合，我们的女性作为知识权威、记忆和习俗的持有者的贡献得到充分承认，以确保它不会被抹去，或者女性的本土认识方式因不可接受的性别形式而对我们失去了偏见和人工知识层次结构。作为我的老师，那些为我的学习和实践提供信息的女性启发了我的理解，即身体是声音的档案，身体如何帮助我们重新连接作为我们是谁的一部分的祖先振动。通过音乐、舞蹈和自然治愈是创造连通环境的中心阶段。最后，我总结了教授土著知识体系的可能方法，以及保护、促进、发展和欣赏我们作为土著妇女的音乐遗产的价值。