Latest news with #Yolŋu
ABC News
09-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Garma Festival ceremonial leader B Yunupiŋu dies after alleged violent attack
A revered Arnhem Land leader of quiet power and dignity, who fought for the rights of his Yolŋu people right into the last weeks of his life, has died aged 70. Note to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: B Yunupiŋu's name and image are used here in accordance with the wishes of his family. Mr B Yunupiŋu was an elder of the renowned Gumatj clan on the Northern Territory's Gove Peninsula. He was also a board member of the Yothu Yindi Foundation (YYF) and a fixture at the annual Garma Festival, where he would lead ceremonies and greet visitors from across Australia, including successive Australian prime ministers. Mr B Yunupiŋu was also a holder of extensive Yolŋu cultural knowledge, a former musician, a rock-and-roll fan, and a brilliant pub storyteller with a ready chuckle and a grin. In a statement, Gumatj leader Djawa Yunupiŋu said his brother was "a strong and decent man who walked tall in all worlds". "Words cannot say how much he will be missed," he said. "He starts his journey now to be reunited with our fathers, mothers and kin, who wait for him now, on our sacred land. "He will be received by our ancestors with great respect and honour." YYF chief executive Denise Bowden described Mr B Yunupiŋu as a "softly spoken family man". "He had great love for his grandchildren — they meant the world to him. "They were the reason he was so passionate about education and schooling. "As a senior ceremonial leader for the Gumatj clan, he has been an intrinsic part of the Garma Festival throughout its history, the master of ceremonies for the nightly buŋgul." The Gumatj Corporation said Mr B Yunupiŋu "oversaw the ceremonies and like a rock, he was always present in the hosting of Prime Ministers and the conduct of important business". Mr B Yunupiŋu hailed from an important family dynasty in Arnhem Land. He was the brother of the clan's former leader, the late Yunupiŋu, and late former Yothu Yindi lead singer, Dr M Yunupiŋu. He was a founding member of the Gumatj Association, who said in a statement Mr B Yunupiŋu had led the clan's drive "to self-determination, economic development and prosperity in the modern world". "Mr Yunupiŋu had a deep love of his family and his land," the association said. "He was a man of loyalty and patient determination. "Schooled at Yirrkala and then Batchelor College, he was a friend to all. "He loved Creedence Clearwater Revival and country music, he was an expert hunter, and he never left his Gumatj homelands." Mr B Yunupiŋu was allegedly beaten in an attack at his home in the community of Gunyaŋara on April 19, after which he fell into a coma from which he would never wake. He died at Royal Darwin Hospital on the night of May 8, surrounded by dozens of Yolŋu family members and clan leaders who travelled from north-east Arnhem Land to farewell the beloved elder. The family has thanked hospital staff and "nurses of ICU who cared for him so carefully and enabled the final ceremonial rites to be performed". A 42-year-old relative has been charged with domestic violence offences over the incident and is due to face the Darwin Local Court on June 18. The NT Police Force said in a statement that an investigation into the incident remains ongoing. Mr B Yunupiŋu had been involved in the social and political affairs of his people up until the last weeks of his life, fighting for a better future for Yolŋu in north-east Arnhem Land. Most prominently, he was involved in the Gumatj's historic High Court victory against the Commonwealth in March, which sought restitution over a long-running land rights dispute in his region.
ABC News
01-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
East Arnhem Land homelands cut off from food and fuel due to NT flooding
Hundreds of people living on remote homelands in the Northern Territory have been cut off from essential services following flooding in remote east Arnhem Land. The situation comes one week after a tropical low passed near the East Arnhem coastline and brought heavy rain to north-eastern parts of the NT. The Aboriginal corporation representing Yolŋu people who live on traditional lands in the region said flooded roads and airstrips were preventing 500 people from accessing fuel, food and healthcare services. The chief executive of Laynhapuy Homelands Corporation (LHC), Glenda Abraham, said while up to eight homelands were at "critical" levels of concern, the Bäniyala homeland was in most urgent need of assistance. "Fuel will be running out next week," Ms Abraham said. " It can take up to three weeks for us to get the road dry enough and with a proper permit to be able to deliver fuel to Bäniyala. " Located 200km south of Nhulunbuy and home to 138 people, Baniyala is wholly reliant on electricity from fuel-powered generators. "No fuel in Bäniyala means we can't run our fridges, our freezers for food security, and obviously the right provision for food safety," Ms Abraham said. " Medical equipment cannot run. Things like Starlink for communication programs can't run. " Ms Abraham said many of the 27 homelands LHC represented had not received food deliveries since mid-April. A tropical low brought hundreds of millimetres of rain to the area. ( Supplied ) As a result, the corporation has been contracting a third-party aviation company to attempt to deliver supplies. "We have a had mass decline in landings for various reasons, and it's at the safety of their pilots as well, because some of the runways are just not open," Ms Abraham said. "We've got massive potholes and wash outs on the sides [of the runway] so planes are not able to land." The Laynhapuy Homelands Corporation is calling for more road funding in the area. ( Supplied ) LHC chair Yananymul Munungurr said some people were risking driving through floodwaters to access food. "If they have an accident, there is no help. This is the same story for many families trying to get food and help in the homelands," she said. "Our people are hungry, need fuel and health supplies. We need the roads to be looked after better because sea and air is not always going to be the solution. "We need government to understand this and support our people, especially in times of need and we are in need today." The NT government has been contacted for comment. Yananyumul Mununggurr says her people need more support from the NT government. ( Supplied: ABC Kimberley )
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Juno Gemes' book Until Justice Comes: 50 years of Aboriginal art and activism
David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil, Yolŋu dancer, actor and cultural teacher, plays yidaki (Yolŋu for the didgeridoo unique to East Arnhem Land) at Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery in Paddington, Sydney, 1986 Eastern Arrernte and Kalkadoon man Charlie Perkins, chair of the Aboriginal Development Commission, with his wife Eileen Perkins at the Handback ceremony, Uluru-Kata Tju, 1985 Wiradjuri tennis champion Evonne Goolagong Cawley wins the White City Women's Tennis Tournament at the International Tennis Tournament, Sydney, 1982 Phillip Langley, a dancer from Mornington Island, at an Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre dress rehearsal at Three Space, Union Theatre, the University of Sydney, 1978 Four generations together: Granny Simpson with a portrait of her mother, Marjorie Peters-Little, her daughter Frances, and Frances's son James Henry at Granny Simpson's house, Sydney, 2005 African American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin on the rooftop of the Athenaeum Hotel, London, 1976 Countrymen elders Norman Brown, Gerry Brown and Billy Kooippa from Aurukun and Mornington Island greet each other before Ceremony on Mornington Island, 1978 Former prime minister Gough Whitlam, Pastor Ossie Cruse (chair of the National Aboriginal Congress) and Michael Anderson (of the Aboriginal Legal Service) before they lobby African nations to boycott the Commonwealth Games, Sydney airport press room, 1981 Kamilaroi Elder Bill Reid casts his vote at the 1981 National Aboriginal Congress election in Redfern Artist and actor Wandjuk Djuakan Marika plays yidaki on the way to the Apmira Artists for Land Rights exhibition in Sydney, 1981 Kids on the Block in Redfern, 1980 Author and historian Ruby Langford Ginibi visits poet Robert Adamson and photographer Juno Gemes on the Hawkesbury River, NSW in 1994 Darren carries the Sacred Fire from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, outside Old Parliament House, before the then prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations, March 2008 Anangu Minyma Law woman Nura Ward, who believed that being collaborative and wanting to share her knowledge with non-Indigenous women would ensure the continuity of her culture Prof Marcia Langton backstage at the 2013 Deadly awards at the Sydney Opera House, where she presented the inaugural Marcia Langton lifetime award for leadership Then prime minister Kevin Rudd invited Stolen Generations members Netta Cahill, Lorna Cubillo and Valerie Day to witness the presentation of the apology in the House of Representatives. They comfort each other after the reading of the bill on 13 February 2008 Anangu Law woman Nelly Patterson, family and community members dance during the Uluru Handback 25th anniversary celebration in 2010 The Sacred Fire is always kept burning at the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, 2014
The Guardian
10-02-2025
- The Guardian
In the 1600s, a Yolŋu girl was kidnapped from an Australian beach. Centuries later her story is a novel
When she was still a girl, one of Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs's grandmothers was kidnapped from the coast of Arnhem Land by foreign traders. 'My grandmother's sister used to tell me that they went down and saw the footprints of her little sister in the mud, and [the prints of] shoes,' the Yolŋu elder recalls. 'And they figured out that the prau [sailing boat] had taken her – because the prau was there, and then suddenly it wasn't.' Ganambarr-Stubbs says there are lots of stories like this throughout north-east Arnhem Land, stretching back across hundreds of years of trade between Yolŋu and traders from the port of Macassar – in present-day eastern Indonesia – who arrived annually during the wet season to harvest trepang (sea cucumbers). One such story is the basis for the new historical novel A Piece of Red Cloth. Co-authored by Ganambarr-Stubbs with fellow Yolŋu knowledge holders Djawa Burarrwanga and Djawundil Maymuru and novelist Leonie Norrington, it represents a pioneering collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal storytellers: pre-colonial Yolŋu oral history, told as western-style literature. Set in coastal Arnhem Land in the late 1600s, A Piece of Red Cloth revolves around a Yolŋu elder trying to protect her granddaughter from foreign traders. The story takes place at a crucial turning point in history: Makassar is under the control of Dutch merchants, and the novel shows how a ruthless new cohort of traders adopted the tools of the colonisers, plying Yolŋu men with alcohol and opium in order to secure access to young women and children – a valuable commodity in the sex-trafficking trade. In the face of this new threat, the elder Yolŋu women eventually take matters into their own hands. 'It's a true history,' says Ganambarr-Stubbs. In the novel's foreword, she details the centuries-deep trading relationship between the Yolŋu and Macassans that precedes the events of the novel, writing: 'They learnt from us, and we learnt from them. Most of the time our interactions were peaceful. There were no wars. They didn't want us to change our religion … We respected them and they respected us.' In the story, as in real life, the kidnapped girl's family retaliates and refuses the Macassans access to their Country thereafter. This history is well known to Yolŋu people, 'sung and told orally from generations to generations,' says Ganambarr-Stubbs, who also teaches it as part of a special bilingual and 'both ways' curriculum at Yirrkala school. Elsewhere in Australia, however, this chapter of pre-colonial history is less known, thanks to western academia's reliance on written sources. Ganambarr-Stubbs hopes the novel will educate a broader audience: 'Wider Australia should learn more about the history – all the histories – because that's how all of us came to be here now.' The novel also offers readers a rare portrait of pre-colonial Yolŋu life: its pleasures, politics and relationships, sustained by a rich culture and cosmology. We experience hunts, harvests and bushcraft; councils, ceremonies and rituals. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Ganambarr-Stubbs is keen to point out that this is how Yolŋu are 'still living now, in the modern world'. (While we're talking over the phone, I hear her grandchildren asking her if she's getting ready to go hunting.) This desire to share culture was the genesis of A Piece of Red Cloth, although it was another Yolŋu woman who spearheaded the project: the late Clare Bush. Bush and her husband adopted Norrington's entire family when they moved to Bamyili/Barunga in the 1960s, formally taking responsibility for their cultural education. Norrington maintained a lifelong relationship with her adoptive mum, who worked with her on an outline for the book before her death about 20 years ago. 'What she wanted most was to represent the Yolŋu as strong, powerful people who were in charge of the weather and the land, and [show that] they could control foreigners,' says Norrington. After Bush died, her sisters, artists Mulkan and Muluymuluy Wirrpanda (the latter's art graces the book's cover), introduced Norrington to her three co-authors, holders of the Macassan time stories in their respective communities in Yirrkala and Bawaka homeland. Together, they supervised the writing and editing of the book and told Norrington what stories and details should be included. Or shouldn't be, including sacred or secret Yolŋu knowledge, words, names or locations. 'Any knowledge that's presented is open knowledge,' says Norrington. 'For the Yolŋu people, the land, the people, the song, the story – everything emerged at the same time. So people don't create stories, they just tell them. And if they come from the right country, then they are able to tell them,' Norrington says. 'It's a completely different way of understanding authorship.' 'I had to make sure that it was the most Yolŋu as Yolŋu it can be,' Ganambarr-Stubbs says, 'and make sure that people in Australia would understand or feel the actual feeling of Yolŋu ways and laws, and food and hunting, and how to behave to others.' Prof Jeanine Leane, a Wiradjuri writer and academic with expertise in Aboriginal representation within Australian literature, says A Piece of Red Cloth sets 'a benchmark in what real collaboration [between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal storytellers] can be'. 'It's not an opportunistic literary exercise,' she says, noting that Norrington's 'long term, deep relationship to place and people' – through growing up with Bush and her family – sets her apart from authors who engage 'extractively' with Aboriginal culture. In her author's note, Norrington writes that her adoptive mum 'was a skilful and prolific storyteller' who believed 'that if people could get to know each other through personal experience, and/or its close affiliate, narrative, they would come to understand and respect each other.' This drives Norrington's work too. Reflecting on the power of narrative, she points to the personal stories contained within the 1997 report on the stolen generations, Bringing Them Home: 'Had everybody read those stories, it would have changed the way we understood that whole business of taking the children away. But instead, people started arguing academically or historically about it, which meant that it became a 'them and us'. We lost this huge opportunity for healing,' she says. 'And I think it's the same with [the Yolŋu stories]: if we listen, we can maybe change our minds a little bit, have a bit more respect. Aboriginal people, since the first invaders came, have been trying to say, 'Look, we have a really wonderful way of understanding the world, and you can learn from it.' Nobody's really listened yet.' A Piece of Red Cloth is out now through Allen and Unwin ($34.99)
