He plans to create a database of his clan and their mythology. Impermanence is not the only problem Yolngu have with the Internet. In planning their home page, Maningrida Community Education Centre are grappling with the issue of language. The school aims to teach literacy not only in English, but also in students' first languages. The Literature Production Centre provides tools in desktop publishing for quick and accessible production of books.
Digital cameras are in much demand as simple hunting-like tools for gathering images.
One teacher uses Hypercard to make talking books from material collected during excursions. As testimony to their effectiveness, I once strayed into a class during his absence to find a keen circle of students squeezed around the computer reciting their fanciful tale of alien abduction. The dominant language of Maningrida is Burarra. Though a web site in the Burarra has been prototyped, it makes little sense to put it online when it is spoken by less than a thousand people, read by a fraction, only a couple of whom have net access. But like ceremonies, it may be the process of putting it together, rather than the end product, which matters most.