The site assumes a high spped Internet connection and even in Canberra on my wiless Internet link I had diffciulties. The web site has some text for display (excerpts below) to those who are unable to see the video. However, this is not normally apparent to the viewer, who will have to wait for video to download, unless they are using a text only or specially adapted web browser. It would be better if the site offered a text menu which allowed skipping the video rich content, for those on a slow link.
Some years ago I was invovled in projects to provide indiginous ciolutural content online,. Those suffered from taking too academic and textural approach to web based content. Twelcve canoes goes to other extreme and suffers from too little thought as to text and indexing inforamtion.
Unfortunately the web site has invalid HTML markup and some accessibility problems. When I attempted an accessibility test of the site, all I got was the message "Parked Page for 12canoes.com.au".
We are the first people of our lands.These are some of our stories from where we have lived so long.
We welcome you to know about us, about our culture, this way.
12 Canoes
This website is built for us, for everyone.
There are 12 stories here about where we live, about how we came to be, about our history and about how we live now.
- Creation
- Our Ancestors
- The Macassans
- First White Men
- ThomsonTime
- The Swamp
- Plants and Animals
- Seasons
- Kinship
- Ceremony
- Language
- Nowadays
Gallery
There are many artworks (by many artists), photos and music here about where we live, about how we came to be, about our history and about how we live now. ...
Gallery > People & Places
There are over 60 photos here about where and how we live.
...About > Meanings
Yolngu: The literal translation of Yolngu is simply, "the people", but it is used nowadays as a term to describe the group of Australian Indigenous people (Aboriginals) living in or originating from central and eastern Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.
Balanda: A word meaning "white person(s)", derived from the word "Hollander"...the Dutch were the first white people to come into contact with the Yolngu.
Macassan: The Macassans, from the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia began visiting the north coast of Australia centuries ago. Their trade made the Yolngu a very powerful grouping economically. Such trading was stopped by the government in the 1906-07 season, and the economy of the region was destroyed by the imposition of Balanda law. ...
About > The People
We are the Yolngu people of Ramingining, in the northern part of Central Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.
Ramingining is a town of about 800 of our people. More of our people live on outstations different distances from town. Also about 50 Balanda live here.
The nearest other town is Maningrida, more than two hours drive away except in the rainy season, when we can only fly there.
In Ramingining we have a store, a clinic, a school, a new police station, an arts centre, a resource centre, houses and not much else.
But we have history and culture here, that our ancestors have been growing for more than forty thousand years.
They passed that culture on from generation to generation. Now it's our turn to pass it on, not just to the next generation, but to people everywhere, all over the world.
That's because our way of life is changing fast now, and what you're going to see is for every generation to remember and keep our culture alive.
About > Where In The World
Ramingining is in the northern part of Central Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.
Ramingining is a town of about 800 of our people.
About > Study Guide
This section coming soon. ...
Share
We are proud of our community. We are proud of our history and our present.
We are proud of our children, and our artists, and our songmen, we are proud of our whole place.
Because we are proud of all these things, we are sharing them with you. We are glad that you are interested enough to be here.
We hope that if you like them, the paintings or the stories or any of it, that you will share them with other people who are interested in learning about us...
From: Twelve Canoes: Introduction, Indigemedia Incorporated, Christensen Fund, South Australian Film Corporation and Screen Australia, 2008
website error"
ReplyDelete"No DOCTYPE Declaration could be found or recognized in this document. This generally means that the document is not declaring its Document Type at the top. It can also mean that the DOCTYPE declaration contains a spelling error, or that it is not using the correct syntax."
As the site features languages other than English, there are bound to be what may be considered "spelling errors" or "incorrect syntax".......
Great blog but!!!
Belinda wrote: September 09, 2008 10:00 AM:
ReplyDelete... As the site features languages other than English, there are bound to be what may be considered "spelling errors" or "incorrect syntax" ...'
The incorrect syntax and errors I was referring to aren't in the natural language of the document, but the HTML mark-up of the web page.
For the document to reliably display on a web browser, the correct DOCTYPE and other technical features need to be used. These are written in special technical languages which have their own spelling and syntax defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This can be checked using the W3C's validation tool.
The W3C was started by English speakers, so English words are used in the web's technical languages, even when the content of web pages are in other languages.
Well explained for fellow "newbies" who may read this blog!
ReplyDelete