Lyrics To Bura Fera

The lyrics to Bura Fera
Bura Fera, sometimes called Ngarra Burra Ferra, is a traditional Yorta Yorta song, the lan-
guage spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Goulburn Valley and Murray Valleys cen-
tred around modern-day Echuca. The history of Bura Fera suggests a story that stretches
across several continents and thousands of years.
Womriga Moses yinin walla

Walla yupna yeipuch
Nara Bura Fera yumena yalla
[Chorus]
Nara Bura Fera
Yumena yalla yalla
Nara Bura Fera
Yumena yalla yalla
Nara Bura Fera Yumena
Bura Fera Yumena
Bura Fera Yumena
Yalla yalla
Nyundo peco Jesu

Bora bocono yumena
Nara Bura Fera
Yumena yalla
[Chorus]
The yorta yorta lyrics are based on an ancient song within the Jewish tradition, known as
the “Song of the Sea” from circa 1446BC. Sometimes called “Miriam’s Song”, the song was
composed and sung by Miriam, the older sister of the prophet Moses. It may be found in
Exodus 15, especially verse 4, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea:
his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.”
Lyrics provided by Geraldine Briggs and translated with the help of Dr Heather Bowe
The song was originally bought to Aboriginal ears by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The tour of
this world-famous ensemble in 1886 bought negro spirituals to Australian audiences,
probably for the first time. Led by Frederick Loudin, the group enjoyed widespread suc-
cess.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers saw a particularly enthusiastic reaction to their gospel music
when they visited the Maloga Aboriginal Mission in August of that Year. In fact, the
director of the choir wrote a letter about the welcome they got – which was frosty at
first. But became very warm once the men and women from Nashville began singing.
The director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers remembers meeting the Indigenous community at
Maloga.
While many spirituals were sung that day, no doubt including “Swing Low” and “Steal
Away”, the one song that made a lasting impression was “Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army”. For
it is the one song from the repertoire of the Jubilee singers that was translated into the
language of those Indigenous people, which is, of course, “Bura Fera.”
It might be said that the Fisk Jubilee Singers entrusted this song to the Aborigines. For
while the American ensemble has sung for decades – and still sing today – it seems nei-
ther they, or any choir performs this song today. No one, except for the Aboriginal com-
munities that have their roots in Maloga.
It’s a tradition held by some, particularly in the Briggs family, that it was Theresa Clem-
ents who worked with Thomas James to compose the Yorta Yorta version of “Turn Back
Pharaoh’s Army”. Certainly, Mr James, a Ceylonese Tamil who’d become the resident edu-
cator at Maloga, was a polyglot and was more than capable of assisting in translation.
Whoever created the final version of Bura Fera, or Ngarra Burra Ferra as it’s sometimes
called, it soon became owned by the Bangerang people, or, in fact anyone who identified
with Yorta Yorta people. For people like Pastor Denis Atkinson, whose memories of
Cummeragunja stretches back to the 1940s, Bura Fera was a song that the community
always sang – and he would say the song belongs to the Cummeragunja choir.
But it was never a song that Bangerang people kept to themselves. It was a song to sing
out to all Australians, as a statement. Professor Bain Attwood 1 found that, as William
Cooper and others negotiated with officials as to how best commemorate the founding of
Melbourne, the Aboriginal leadership was able to include a performance of their Biblical
song of defiance and hope.
In the concert held to mark Melbourne’s foundation in May 1937, the

grand finale was the aboriginal choir’s singing of a ‘Burra Phara’, an
African American spiritual, translated into the Yorta Yorta language,
which expressed their identification with the Jews as the dispos-
sessed of the Book of Exodus…
Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army was an important part of the repertoire performed by the Fisk
Jubilee Singers, as is seen in the collection of their songs published in 1880. File
retrieved from http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.5348:1.lincoln
The original lyrics to “Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army” can be found in the book about the
Fisk Jubilee Singers by J B T Marsh. The lyrics the troupe used, and later published by
Fisk were, probably, first set down by the Hutchinson Family Singers. This white family
were well-known Abolitionists, who had supported the great Frederick Douglass in his
campaign for emancipation. Interestingly, they adopted many of these slave songs, but
arranged them using a closed part harmony style from Austrian choristers who had vis-
ited the United States, such as the Tyrolese Minstrels.
The first publication of “Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army” came thanks to the work of William
A Pond in 1870. It was one of a collection of pieces collected and arranged by Abby
Hutchinson Patton.
The Hutchison Family Singer’s version of “Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army” may have con-
tained only three verses, only one of which may be recognised in the current version of
“Bura Fera” See http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm_n0895/
“Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army” was first popularised by the Hutchinson Family Singers.
This edition found at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm_n0895/
Revisions: (Show)
Notes:
1. Bain Attwood, ‘Treating the past: narratives of possession and dispossession in
a settler community’, paper for Storied Communities: Narratives of Contact and
Arrival in Constituting Political Community ↩

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The lyrics to Bura Fera

Womriga Moses yinin walla

Nyundo peco Jesu

In the concert held to mark Melbourne’s foundation in May 1937, the

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