Yolngu Country
Banner Map of Yolngu Territory
Background Information
The Yolngu are a group of Aboriginal Australians who reside in the Northern Territory of Australia’s mainland on the edge and islands of northeast Arnhem Land. There are more than forty different clan groups among two moieties who have resided or currently reside in the northeast Arnhem Land; but, they are all collectively known as the Yolgnu (Christie 2008:1). The term Yolngu means “people” in their language (National Museum of Australia 2021).
In the documentary, titled Another Country, David Gulpilil shares that the Yolngu have existed in this area and have connected with the land, or Country, for thousands of years (Reynolds 2015). In the many Aboriginal groups of Australia, Country refers to everything in the landscape: including history, land, water, rocks, air, and all living beings, like plants and animals, in a particular and significant region (Mungo National Park). The Yolngu have a complex culture and a strong connection with their Country.
Photo of a Yolngu woman and children walking through the bush in northeast Arnhem Land from 2014
To the Yolngu, there is no difference between natural and cultural territory. Both types of landscapes are interlaced and as a result, a distinction cannot be made between the significance of Country and tradition (White 2003:188). To the Yolngu, the land and water that compose their Country are not “inanimate,” but they are spiritual beings (Keen 2011:112). For example, Ian Keen shares the Yolngu’s “waters are ‘ancestral subjects’ with their own recognised agency and kinesis” (2011:113).
Yolngu Relationship to Country
The western concept of property is different from the way the Yolngu view and understand property, and this is true for many indigenous groups in regards to the topic of land. The Yolngu do not believe they are entitled to buy and sell their land. Rather, the Yolngu have a deep and mutual caring relationship to their land. They do not forcibly restrict the use of the land and its resources to specific people or clans so long as the land and their culture are treated with respect (Keen 2011:104). To put the Yolngu’s relation to Country in terms for western understanding, some scholars call this connection a “tenure” residence of the land and the waters (Keen 2011:110). Tenure means the land belongs to the Yulgnu in the sense that they occupy it currently and historically. The Yolngu do not conceptualize their relationship to the land as personal ownership, but as a dynamic where the Yolngu have responsibility to care for the land. Therefore, they are allowed to make decisions on behalf of the land’s best interests (Keen 2011:112).
Songspirals
Books written by the Yolngu, such as Songspirals, provide scholars more accurate perspectives about the group than they would find from outside secondary sources. Accounts from marginalized groups are imperative because history often conceals their point of view. Songspirals are interwoven and complex songs that map the Yolngu land and celebrate the Yolngu’s relationship to their environment. Additionally, Songspirals help the Yolngu transmit their culture to their kin, connect the Yolngu clans together, outline their norms and rules, provide survival instructions, record their creation story and history, and achieve many more purposes (Gay'wu 2019). The Yolngu women, the Gay’wu, who authored the Songspirals book explain the Songspirals have unique meanings to every clan and, furthermore, to every individual. Everything in the life of the Yolngu is connected, including their physical space, their nature, and their culture (Lawson). The Gay’wu explain the Yolngu and their land have mutual ownership with one another, meaning the Yolngu “belong to the land” and the land belongs to the Yolngu (Gay'wu 2019:XVI).
Songspirals book cover
Impacts of Colonialism on the Yolngu
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Yolngu traded and interacted across “cultural boundaries.” These respectful relationships with groups outside the Yolngu occurred because their Law doesn’t allow their kin to marry within their clans (Christie 2008:1). As a result, the Yolngu shared and exchanged their culture and knowledge in return for information from other groups. One example of these peaceful and considerate intercommunal interactions were the Macassans from the present day Indonesian islands. Based on the evidence of the Yolngu’s cooperation and eagerness to branch out, the Yolngu were thriving and engaging in outside affairs without the paternalism of European influence (Christie 2008:1-2). The Yolngu celebrate a time in their history when they were free of colonizer violence, suppression, and government; a time when they were free to take care of themselves and the land through living methods perfected over centuries (Reynolds 2015).
In 1883, the first officially recorded explorer to enter Yolngu territory and intensively interact with them was David Lindsay. By 1885, the first pastoralist cattle station amongst the Yolgnu was established and based out of Queensland. Violent conflict caused this station to shut down soon after (White 2016:323). David Gulpilil explains that when the white men arrived with their cattle, the Yolngu would be shot or poisoned if they did not cooperate with their demands in regards to the land. However, the Yolngu, as mentioned above, did put up a fight and drove the Europeans away. (Reynolds 2015).
Then, in 1923, a mission settlement on Milingimbi Island was founded that Yolngu took an interest in and migrated to from their vast area of residency (White 2016:323). Gulpilil shares that the interactions with missionaries were more successful and peaceful than with the cattlemen because they did not try to harm the Yolngu and they brought the Yolngu resources, like tobacco, tea, and sugar. At this point in history, the systems of living the Yolngu were used to were not altered as much and the Yolngu continued to live off the bush. Gulpilil also mentions the missionaries made an effort to learn the language of the Yolngu and to educate the Yolngu with practical knowledge (Reynolds 2015).
Eventually, the white government forced rules and controls over the Yolngu because they made them move and consolidate into one area of land. This government did not ensure that their relocation assignments did not move clans near others they had conflict with or did not move clans together who spoke different languages. The Yolngu had to give up their ways of living and their traditions and conform to white standards to ensure their survival. The conditions the colonizers imposed caused the Yolngu to depend on them because the government introduced concepts like a system of money (Reynolds 2015). The concepts that the white people forced the Yolngu to adopt do not mesh well with the collectivist nature and the environmentally motivated characteristics of the Yolngu, but the Yolngu have tried to maintain their group and culture for as long as possible.
The Nabalco Case - Land Rights Activism
In 1963, the Yolngu submitted a petition to the Australian House of Representatives in protest against the mining company, Nabalco (Broome 2019:267). The mining leases were granted to Nabalco by the government without Yolngu consent to mine. The Yolngu were reasonably hurt by this because they had “lived, hunted, and maintained connections to sites of significance for thousands of years” where Nabalco chose to mine in the Yolngu territory (AIATSIS). Nabalco confiscated three hundred and ninety square kilometers of Yolngu country for their excavation purposes without the consent of the Yolngu to use their land and extract their resources. The petition the Yolngu created was famous because they used their traditional method of painting on bark on which community members signed. The Bark Petition showed the government the deep cultural ties that the Yolngu have with their land to appeal to the humanity of the legislators. In addition to the Yolngu artwork on the Bark Petition, the creators also wrote in English and Gumatji, their language, on it (Broome 2019:267). As a result, Nabalco did not get their lease nullified, but the government did recommend for the Yolngu to be compensated for the damages. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies identifies the Bark Petitions as the beginning of the modern Land Rights Movement (AIATSIS).
Then in 1968, the Yolngu took their fight against Nabalco further to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. The Yolngu provided evidence of their material culture in connection to the land to prove the significance of that particular area in their lives to the court (Broome 2019:268). Justice Blackburn validated the Yolngu’s connection to the land and that they had traditional law in 1971. However they were not given a title to the land. This case’s outcomes were important because the Northern Territory Supreme Court “acknowledged the Yolngu people’s ongoing relationship with the land and their complex system of laws to govern the land” (AIATSIS). However, the court did not sign onto the Yolngu’s claim because their relationship to the land did not “fit the European concept of ‘property’” (AIATSIS).
Later on in 1971, a second petition was submitted to Justice Blackburn that made him uncomfortable and realize that Aboriginal land disputes were an issue that needed to be addressed and resolved urgently (Broome 2019:269). The efforts from the Yolngu are symbolic because they proved their dedication to fighting for their land rights and their self-determination (AIATSIS). Although these decisions were not entirely satisfying, the results opened a path for future legal outcomes from other cases and provided hope for future progress in native land rights.
In 1969, uranium deposits were discovered in Jabiluka, which sparked great interests surrounding mining in that region. In March 1996, Prime Minister John Howard came into office. He soon promised to support uranium mining efforts beginning with mines in Yolngu territory. Later in the decade, in 1998, the European Parliament condemned the Australian government for allowing these mines to take place (Blair 2021). In the 21st century, a Rio Tinto executive stated that mining would not go on without the consent of the Aboriginal Australians from the region, the Mirarr. In August 2003, the company began to backfill mines and by 2005, Rio Tinto signed a longterm agreement legally probitting their use of Jabiluka without Mirarr consent. In 2021, uranium mining in Kakadu was formally concluded (Blair 2021) but much progress still needs to be made.
Learn More
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia - Yolngu Database Page
Yolngu Country as a Multidimensional Tangle of Relations - Research Article
Art as Action: The Yolngu - Chapter 6 from the book Up Close and Personal: On Peripheral Perspectives and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge written by Howard Morphy
The Yolngu and Their Land: A System of Land Tenure and the Fight for Its Recognition - Book written by Nancy M. Williams
Access to this book is free and this link also has a list of other related papers.
References
AIATSIS. n.d. "Land Rights." Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Retrieved from (https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/land-rights).
Blair, Kirsten. 2021. "The Jabiluka Blockade - 22 Years On." Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. The Commons. Retrieved from (https://commonslibrary.org/the-jabiluka-blockade-22-years-on/).
Broome, Richard. 2019. Aboriginal Australians. Au Academic.
Christie, Michael. 2008. Yolngu Studies: "A Case Study of Aboriginal Community Engagement." Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. Retrieved from (https://doi.org/10.5130/ijcre.v1i0.526).
Gay'wu, G. of W. 2019. Songspirals. Allen & Unwin.
Keen, Ian. 2011. “The Language of Property: Analyses of Yolngu Relations to Country.” Pp. 101–29 in Ethnography & the Production of Anthropological Knowledge: Essays in Honour of Nicolas Peterson. ANU Press. Retrieved from (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h8v0.13).
Mungo National Park. n.d. "Share Mungo Culture - Aboriginal Country." Retrieved from (http://www.visitmungo.com.au/aboriginal-country).
Reynolds, Molly. 2015. Another Country - The Yolngu People. Australia: Ronin Films. Retrieved from (https://www.kanopy.com/en/bradley/video/229855).
National Museum of Australia. 2021. "The Yolngu." Retrieved from (https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yalangbara/yolngu).
White, Neville. 2003. “Meaning and Metaphor in Yolngu Landscapes, Arnhem Land, Northern Australia.” Pp. 187–206 in Disputed Territories: Land, Culture and Identity in Settler Societies. Hong Kong University Press. Retrieved from (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jc63c.13).
White, Neville. 2016. “A History of Donydji Outstation, North-East Arnhem Land.” Pp. 323–346 in N. Peterson & F. Myers (Eds.), Experiments in Self-Determination: Histories of the Outstation Movement in Australia. ANU Press. Retrieved from (http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bgzbk1.22).