tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/yolngu-12309/articlesYolngu – The Conversation2022-11-20T19:04:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914412022-11-20T19:04:43Z2022-11-20T19:04:43ZA Vietnam veteran anthropologist and an Arnhem Land community have worked together for over 40 years. Don Watson tells their story.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494024/original/file-20221108-21-mi4wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C3313%2C1972&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr Neville White at Donydji, 1986</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neville White/Ronin Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/The-Passion-of-Private-White/Don-Watson/9781760855079">The Passion of Private White</a>, Don Watson has written a witty and compassionate book about friendship, Indigenous self-determination and people under stress. </p>
<p>“Private White” is Neville White, an anthropologist and Vietnam veteran who has spent two months a year since 1974 in Arnhem Land, as a guest of Yolngu families residing at the Donydji community.</p>
<p>Watson explains:</p>
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<p>For the last forty years, all the Indigenous people of north-east Arnhem Land (Miwatj) have been known as Yolngu – which means “person” or “people” or “human being”. They number about 3000 and all are members of one or other of several dozen intermarrying culturally connected clans.</p>
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<p><em>Review: The Passion of Private White – Don Watson (Scribner)</em></p>
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<h2>Yolngu self-determination</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bgzbk1.22#metadata_info_tab_contents">Donydji</a> is an experiment in self-determination – that is, in Yolngu choosing the degree and forms of their involvement in Australian institutions. Before his first visit to Donydji, White was told that </p>
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<p>alone among the Yolngu clans, the people living here had never left their lands. Here, and only here, would he find a clan whose traditional knowledge was intact.</p>
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<p>Two policy changes in the mid-1970s afforded a greater margin of choice for Yolngu, including the residents of Donydji. In 1976, the Fraser government’s <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/aboriginal-land-rights-act">Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act</a> gave Yolngu title to the entire Arnhem Land Reserve, including the right to veto mining. </p>
<p>Until 1975, unemployment benefits were not available to remote Aboriginal people (as, in the absence of a local labour market, they were not seen as seeking employment). Without needing a change in legislation, the Department of Social Security decided to make unemployment benefits available to these previously excluded people. </p>
<p>This created a new and substantial income stream for remote communities such as Donydji, and many of them began to avail themselves of it in the form of the <a href="https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/employment/cdp">Community Development Employment Program</a>. This income relieved them of the pressure to say “yes” to economic development.</p>
<p>Donydji became a permanent camp in 1971. Sitting down at Donydji was driven by the desire of certain Ritharrngu and Wagilak families to safeguard Country from exploration – such as test-drilling that had violated a site in the late 1960s. Donydji is strategically located on a road and an airstrip graded to service mining exploration. </p>
<p>So, to preserve their traditional lands, the families at Donydji have modified their way of life. Erecting shelters and demanding basic services such as schooling and access to manufactured goods, they have become sedentary.</p>
<p>You can learn all this by reading White’s <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p331981/pdf/ch16.pdf">history of Donydji</a> – downloadable (free) from Australian National University Press. He describes some of the consequences of Yolngu becoming sedentary. </p>
<p>At Donydji, Yolngu live on a combination of what they can forage and what they can purchase, and they seek whatever material support governments and citizens can offer them. They are gripping their country and they are gripped by it. As well, they are gradually losing some knowledge that had been essential to nomadic foraging. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Homeland Story (Ronin Films) is a documentary about the Donydji community, and Dr Neville White’s work. At time of publication, it can be viewed on SBS on Demand.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paul-daleys-jesustown-a-novel-of-lurid-postcolonial-truth-telling-185498">Paul Daley's Jesustown: a novel of lurid, postcolonial truth-telling</a>
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<h2>An anti-Vietnam War veteran</h2>
<p>What Watson brings to this story is his compassionate, sardonic appreciation of White (an old university friend), his Yolngu hosts and the Vietnam <a href="https://theconversation.com/veterans-have-poorer-mental-health-than-australians-overall-we-could-be-serving-them-better-119525">veterans</a> who have assembled over many dry seasons as Donydji’s volunteer construction gang. White knows these men because he served with them. So this is not only a book about Yolngu self-determination. </p>
<p>Labelling White “an old-school Australian”, Watson explores his own affinity with this cohort of ageing white men whose troubled bond is their service in a war he experienced only through the antiwar movement. At the same time (and from a greater distance), Watson narrates his experience of getting to know Yolngu, through his many visits to Donydji. Watson’s well-honed and affectionate sense of the absurd flavours every anecdote. But the deeper subject of this book is what binds and divides men.</p>
<p>Neville White grew up in working-class Geelong. His father, Leo White, was a champion boxer and trainer of Aboriginal fighters. Becoming Neville’s friend brought young (“sport-addicted”) Don closer to a milieu he had reverently imagined. </p>
<p>Don and Neville could agree, when they met at university in 1968, that Australia should not be committing troops to Vietnam. But by then, Neville had already served. Accepting conscription (in the third ballot, on September 10 1965) while disputing Australia’s commitment, he had spent the second half of 1967 as an infantryman.</p>
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<span class="caption">White’s fellow Vietnam veterans have assembled over many dry seasons as Donydji’s volunteer construction gang, working with Yolngu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Homeland Story/Ronin Films</span></span>
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<p>Bonds forged with other soldiers outweighed – in their moral force – Neville’s rejection of Australia’s policy. “He would hardly be the first,” Watson comments, “to fight a war in which he did not believe.” White’s demobilisation was not of his choosing either. The bitter politics of conscription had made it prudent to limit conscripts to two years of service. </p>
<p>His sudden extraction from the battlefield left White feeling like he had deserted his comrades. Coming home was almost as baffling as the fighting itself. “For Neville’s experience of the battlefield the anti-Vietnam War movement had no affirmative words, or sympathy, or respect.” </p>
<p>That sense of failure still agitated White in a December 2021 conversation recounted by Watson. However, by then White had found a way to remake battlefield mateship – annually mobilising several of his old platoon as a volunteer construction gang at Donytji. A day’s hard work – punctuated by “chiacking” – concluded with mutual solicitations, as the men reminded one another to take the medications required to keep <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-shell-shock-to-ptsd-proof-of-wars-traumatic-history-37858">post-traumatic stress disorder</a> (PTSD) at bay.</p>
<p>Neville White is thus the hinge connecting the two “tribes” (the Yolngu residents and the visiting Vietnam vets) that annually find common purpose at Donydji. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-australian-veterans-who-opposed-national-service-and-the-vietnam-war-158958">The forgotten Australian veterans who opposed National Service and the Vietnam War</a>
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<h2>At ease with anthropology</h2>
<p>But in 1974, when White began to camp and observe at Donydji, he didn’t set out to connect the two parts of his life – soldier and anthropologist/guest – in this way. His early mode at Donydji was respectfully detached, in the name of science. The data he collected included fingerprints (a measure of genetic distribution). Some now revile anthropology as colonial zoo-keeping. </p>
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<p>But Watson is not only at ease with White’s vocation; he admires the ethnographic tradition. His exposition of Yolngu ways draws on White’s predecessors, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-Lloyd-Warner">Lloyd Warner</a> (a US sociologist and anthropologist who visited Arnhem Land in the 1920s) and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/thomson-donald-finlay-fergusson-11851">Donald Thomson</a> (an anthropologist who worked with the Yolngu as an investigator, advocate and mediator, in the 1930s).</p>
<p>Ethnography thrives on partnerships between researcher and teacher. Tom Gunaminy Bidingal, the senior man at Donydji, agreed to walk the Country with White and to answer questions, while remaining “cagey”. White “had always wondered if Tom was unforthcoming because he didn’t want to divulge secrets, or because he didn’t want to simplify matters that were too complex or too ambiguous to settle on definitively”.</p>
<p>Starting his doctoral research in 1971, White asked how physical environments determined Aboriginal social organisation – for example, “the relationship of the dialects to the drainage basins”. This “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/human-ecology">human ecology</a>” approach to Aboriginal practices of social connection and disconnection emphasises the physical determinants (in geography and in human and non-human biology) of a society’s strategy of survival. </p>
<p>Within anthropology, the human ecology approach peaked by the 1980s. It has been displaced by accounts of Aboriginal civilisation that dwell on human agencies (both poetic and political), and that are not limited to reconstructive modelling. </p>
<p>While observing the practices and knowledge that enabled the Yolngu’s long-term survival, White found it impossible to ignore the rapid attrition of his Donytji hosts’ health. His scrupulous non-interference finally collapsed – unravelled by compassion – when he gave antibiotics to a man suffering a gum abscess. </p>
<p>Donytji’s suffering thus compelled White to become an agent of the unprecedented “human ecology” of Yolngu sedentarism. That is, White - his equipment, his knowledge and his capacity to advocate - became one of the resources the Donydji mob now had at their disposal, as they adapted their lifestyle. To ameliorate a pathogenic environment, he became:</p>
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<p>project manager, facilitator, money raiser, go-between, advocate, patron. Benefactor, urger – altruist. </p>
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<p>His diary of ensuing interactions with people and organisations beyond Donydji provides Watson with much material. The sentimental affinities of author and subject are evident in these stories, as no “white functionary” is spared mordant report. </p>
<p>From incidents so deftly told, individuals emerge. White functionaries, visiting volunteers and Yolngu are named. White’s academic publication practice has included giving pseudonyms to some Yolngu. </p>
<p>To name is to take an ethical risk – for while the named visiting veterans are likeable, helpful, humorous blokes, some of the Yolngu are problematic people (from any point of view, including Yolngu) and some are people with problems that they cannot easily solve. One of the named Yolngu (known to all as Cowboy) is opaque and menacing, and a man called Ricky and a woman called Joanne are each depicted as unhappily thwarted. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/you-cant-just-show-up-and-start-asking-questions-why-researchers-need-to-understand-the-importance-of-yarning-for-first-nations-187920">'You can't just show up and start asking questions': why researchers need to understand the importance of yarning for First Nations</a>
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<h2>Surviving pressure</h2>
<p>Watson’s underlying question is: how do people (men in particular) survive pressure? A reader as analytically inclined as White might discern two models of coping in Watson’s tersely humorous, warmly empathetic book. </p>
<p>White and his veteran mates, damaged by their Vietnam experience, reconnect after many troubled years and form a new “platoon” dedicated to making useful things, in a remote place populated by welcoming people. As a “tribe” (Watson’s word), they have no duty to the future – only to each other. In the course of completing finite tasks with material outcomes, they will have companionship for as long as they continue their annual working bees. </p>
<p>The Yolngu “tribe” at Donydji face the more formidable task of preserving tradition while creating a viable future. As a “homeland”, they make claims on a colonising society that seems undecided about how much to help them, and about what “help” honours self-determination. </p>
<p>Among Yolngu, there are competing ideas about how to modernise. Social reproduction cannot be effected without political succession. Experience has taught White that in continuing community, human contingencies weigh more than social rules. </p>
<p>The composition of the Donydji mob has changed over the period of White’s stays. According to his 2018 paper, there are fewer of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritharrngu">Ritharrngu</a> families, none of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawalag">Wagilag</a> clans, and more Guyula families (who have successfully asserted their customary right to sit down at Donydji). </p>
<p>“The Guyulas were taking over,” Watson reports, because they produced more children than the founding lineages – and because some traditional owner males married into other communities, or found their aspirations blocked. The tensions of political succession are on loud and violent display at Tom’s funeral, the climax of Watson’s story. </p>
<p>Watson’s closing “Coda” tells us “worn out” White continues to keep in touch with his Donydji friends, sharing their “dogged hope”. What makes hope realistic, Watson says, is “the place itself”. </p>
<p>In Yolngu cosmology, it simply makes no sense for Country to lack people who use it and look after it. The Donydji mob see their future – not just their past – in what they are making there.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Michael Rowse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthropologist Neville White has spent two months a year since 1974 in Arnhem Land, as a guest of Yolngu families residing at the Donydji community.Timothy Michael Rowse, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1938312022-11-07T07:59:13Z2022-11-07T07:59:13ZLeading economists back federal government action to curb rising gas and electricity prices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493760/original/file-20221107-15-8rc4w4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=119%2C17%2C3874%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s top economists have overwhelmingly endorsed intervention to restrain gas and electricity prices, with only three of the 47 leading economists surveyed believing the best thing the government can do is to leave things to the market.</p>
<p>The 47 economists surveyed are members of a <a href="https://esacentral.org.au/about-poll">panel</a> selected by a committee of the Economic Society of Australia for its expertise in fields including public policy and economic modelling. Among its members are former Reserve Bank, Treasury and OECD officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.</p>
<h2>Previously unpalatable options</h2>
<p>Told that Treasurer Jim Chalmers is examining options that until recently would have “<a href="https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/speeches/address-economic-and-social-outlook-conference-melbourne">not have seemed palatable</a>” in the wake of forecast retail electricity and gas price increases of <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492676/original/file-20221101-20-b0oa9e.JPG">56% and 44%</a> over the next two years, the panel was presented with a list of options and asked to choose the most valuable.</p>
<p>Only three ticked the option titled “government should not intervene”.</p>
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<p>Two-thirds of those surveyed picked options that would cap domestic gas prices, use an extra tax on the profits of gas exporters to subsidise energy prices, or reserve gas that would otherwise be exported for domestic use.</p>
<p>Gas prices feed into electricity prices because gas generators are usually the last to be turned on after cheaper options have been exhausted, meaning they determine the price for which extra wholesale electricity is sold.</p>
<h2>Tax excess profits</h2>
<p>The measure that attracted the most support (13 out of the 47 economists) was increasing the tax of the “resource rents” enjoyed by gas producers, and using proceeds to cut electricity and gas prices. </p>
<p>Resource rents are the <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493713/original/file-20221107-11-nzk91b.JPG">excess profits</a> earned from the sale of resources that flow from the sellers’ exclusive access to the resource.</p>
<p>Australian gas producers already face a special resource rent tax, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-already-has-a-uk-style-windfall-profits-tax-on-gas-but-well-give-away-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-unless-we-fix-it-soon-184938">weaknesses</a> in its design mean that, even at the present unprecedentedly-high gas prices, it is expected to bring in just <a href="https://budget.gov.au/2022-23-october/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-5.pdf">A$2.6 billion</a> in 2022-23, falling to $2 billion by 2025-26.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-already-has-a-uk-style-windfall-profits-tax-on-gas-but-well-give-away-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-unless-we-fix-it-soon-184938">Australia already has a UK-style windfall profits tax on gas – but we'll give away tens of billions of dollars unless we fix it soon</a>
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<p>Innovation expert Beth Webster from Swinburne said the windfall gains to gas exporters flowing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should not go to shareholders, many of whom were foreign, but to national priorities such as price relief for Australians on low incomes.</p>
<p>Independent economist Rana Roy said while energy prices had traditionally been too low to cover the society-wide costs of producing the energy, at the moment prices were, in many instances, “well above” the social cost. </p>
<h2>Help low earners first</h2>
<p>Six of the 13 economists who backed an increased resource rent tax wanted the proceeds directed to assisting lower-income energy consumers before others.</p>
<p>Another six wanted targeted subsidies for low-income consumers even if they weren’t funded by increased resource rent taxes.</p>
<p>Offered the option of picking a measure not on the list, two of the 47 picked “unrestricted cash transfers”. They made the point that lower retail prices would have the unhelpful side effect of encouraging the continued use of gas, whereas cash payments would enable consumers to cut their use of gas while banking the cash. </p>
<h2>Reserve gas for locals</h2>
<p>Eleven of those surveyed wanted the government to reserve gas equivalent to 15% of each eastern state liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project for use in Australia, as happens in Western Australia.</p>
<p>Former senior Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development official Adrian Blundell-Wignall said the requirement seemed to be “tried and tested” and was the best of a list of uncomfortable choices.</p>
<p>Curtin University economist Harry Bloch said while reserving 15% of the output of LNG projects would change the conditions under which they were licensed, the operators applied for the licences at a time when expected prices were lower.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cheaper-gas-and-electricity-are-within-our-grasp-heres-what-to-do-193388">Cheaper gas and electricity are within our grasp – here's what to do</a>
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<p>Ken Clements of the University of Western Australia strongly disagreed, saying Western Australia’s 15% reservation policy should be scrapped. It operated as an export tax and shielded West Australians from the high prices needed to encourage conservation and look after the environment. </p>
<p>Curtin University’s Margaret Nowak said it was “too late” to hit the the eastern state exporters with licence restrictions after the licences had been granted.</p>
<p>The best that could be done was to ask the eastern state exporters to supply more gas to Australians, as the <a href="https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/king/media-releases/australian-government-secures-gas-supply">government has done</a>, and to impose a price cap on those sales that was closer to the pre-invasion price than to the present international price.</p>
<h2>Cap prices for agreed supply</h2>
<p>Six of the 47 economists supported a cap on the price at which producers can sell what they have already agreed to supply domestically, even though several would normally “be hesitant to promote this type of intervention”.</p>
<p>Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood said the magnitude of the internationally-driven price hikes constituted an exceptional circumstance that justified a time-limited fix.</p>
<p>So long as regulators picked a reasonable benchmark for the price cap, such as the pre-invasion price, producers would continue to earn healthy returns. </p>
<h2>Boost supply longer term</h2>
<p>Two of the economists surveyed nominated an item not on the list – encouraging the development of gas fields to boost supply – that would be unlikely to have an immediate impact on prices.</p>
<p>Of the three who picked “government should not intervene” one (Gigi Foster) said measures to restrain prices would get in the way of “basic economics”, which required consumers to cut back on their use of energy as prices rose.</p>
<p>Another (John Freebairn) said he nevertheless supported a higher resource rent tax to increase the government’s share of the above-normal profits generated by corporations granted licences to mine Australian-owned deposits.</p>
<p>Treasurer Chalmers said on Thursday he expected to produce a costed plan for restraining energy prices <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2022-03-11/101585034">by Christmas</a>.</p>
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<p><em>Detailed responses:</em></p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-781" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/781/a31247467149a26443ad0d59879a724892f2b39f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two-thirds of those surveyed back capped gas prices, an extra tax on gas exporters that would subsidise prices, or rules requiring Australian gas to be reserved for Australian use.Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1372472020-04-28T05:19:56Z2020-04-28T05:19:56ZTogether we rise: East Arnhem Land artists respond to COVID-19 with the gift of music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330653/original/file-20200427-145499-y9vme2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C42%2C4007%2C2094&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu sings. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/VisitEastArnhemLand/photos/a.311490989046835/1431484573714132/?type=3&theater">Facebook/Yolŋu Radio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent weeks have been a blur of livestreams as politicians and chief medical officers have taken to Facebook and YouTube to announce Australia’s emergency measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>But on Saturday evening, I eagerly logged onto Facebook, along with more than 50,000 others, to enjoy a livestream of an entirely different kind. It was the first in a series of four <a href="https://www.eastarnhemland.com.au/east-arnhem-live">East Arnhem Live</a> music concerts to be streamed weekly.</p>
<p>It not only offers a welcome respite from the social isolation many Australians are now feeling, but it is also an ingenious way for Arnhem Land’s prolific musicians to share their music with audiences around the world.</p>
<h2>On location</h2>
<p>The Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land is home to dozens of remote Indigenous communities, including the <a href="https://doi-org.proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/10.1111/1467-9655.00024">Yolŋu communities</a> in the far northeast. While there are presently no known cases of COVID-19 in Arnhem Land, the region’s economic stability relies heavily on artists’ income, which is greatly supported by local tourism during the dry season and international touring to festivals all year round.</p>
<p>Streamed on Saturday, April 24 and still available <a href="https://www.eastarnhemland.com.au/east-arnhem-live">online</a>, the first East Arnhem Live concert featured singer <a href="https://www.eastarnhemland.com.au/blog/eight-east-arnhem-land-artists-to-add-to-your-playlist">Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu</a>, the current frontman of rock band Yothu Yindi, with Arian Pearson on acoustic guitar. To showcase Arnhem Land’s natural beauty, the concert was filmed on location at <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/BgrvMi9dobH3478Z8">Gälaru (East Woody Beach)</a> against the sun setting over the Arafura Sea, and incorporated stunning aerial cinematography of Dhamitjinya (East Woody Island).</p>
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<span class="caption">East Arnhem Live with Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu and Arian Pearson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
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<p>At a length of four songs over 14 minutes, it was a tantalisingly brief event that left me wanting more. It stirred deep nostalgia for my own experiences in Arnhem Land over the past 25 years and long collaborations with local musicians there.</p>
<p>Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu’s four-song set exemplified the very best of Yolŋu songwriting, building significantly on the heavy traditional influences of the style developed by Yothu Yindi around 1990. The influence of Manikay, the ancestral song tradition performed by Yolŋu communities in their public ceremonies, is ever-present in Yirrŋa’s own songs. This is evidenced by the <em>bi<u>l</u>ma</em> (paired sticks) he played throughout the concert.</p>
<p>With no more than a few hundred senior Yolŋu Manikay singers alive today, the present threat of COVID-19 brings into sharp relief the rarity and uniqueness of Manikay as a quintessentially Australian musical tradition. This is indeed a national treasure of global significance that deserves to be better supported and cherished in Australia and globally.</p>
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<h2>An anthem for our time</h2>
<p>The concert’s opening song was Sweet Arnhem Land, a balladic ode to the region’s immense beauty that includes a direct quote from the Manikay repertoire of Yirrŋa’s clan, the Gumatj. This Manikay quotation references the great ancestral hunter, Ganbulapula, and its melody should be instantly recognisable to anyone who has attended the Garma Festival and experienced public ceremonial repertoire being performed there by the Gumatj clan.</p>
<p>The second song was a cover of Kind of Life, which was first released by Yothu Yindi on the 1991 Tribal Voice album. It was a fitting homage to earlier pioneers of popular music from Arnhem Land, such as Wi<u>t</u>iyana Marika and the late Mandawuy Yunupiŋu AC of Yothu Yindi, who were the first to gain global acclaim.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/my-favourite-album-yothu-yindis-tribal-voice-83643">My favourite album: Yothu Yindi's Tribal Voice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The third song, We Rise, is nothing short of an anthemic triumph. Its stirring sentiment of solidarity in the face of great change and adversity will readily resonate with many Australians at this challenging time. </p>
<p>Yirrŋa’s final song, Ba<u>n</u>umbirr (Morning Star), pays respect to his mother’s clan, the Rirratjiŋu. Once again, it includes a direct quote from traditional Manikay repertoire, which this time comes from the Rirratjiŋu clan’s iconic Morning Star song series.</p>
<p>With more than 53,000 views on Facebook since Saturday night, this first East Arnhem Live concert has been an outstanding success. While I greatly look forward to the day when I can fly to Arnhem Land again to see dear friends and hear music there in person, this concert series is a most welcome substitute that offers an unexpectedly intimate and poignant experience. And it shares the great beauty of Yolŋu song against the backdrop of the natural environment from which it sprung.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-indigenous-songs-recount-deep-histories-of-trade-between-australia-and-southeast-asia-123867">Friday essay: how Indigenous songs recount deep histories of trade between Australia and Southeast Asia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tradition and innovation</h2>
<p>The Yolŋu people have long engaged with new technologies while retaining their own sense of autonomy. This latest innovation in streaming concerts via social media platforms is in keeping with their pre-colonial exchanges with visiting Asian seafarers. </p>
<p>It was this same longitudinal dialogue between tradition and innovation that made the music of bands like Yothu Yindi possible.</p>
<p>Musicians Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu and Arian Pearson are to be congratulated heartily for this first East Arnhem Live concert, as are the series’ presenters at ARDS Aboriginal Corporation and Yolŋu Radio, and sponsors at Rirratjiŋu Aboriginal Corporation and Developing East Arnhem. </p>
<p>The next three Saturday nights promise to be equally special with unmissable concerts by the Andrew Gurruwiwi Band on May 2 and Yirrmal Marika on May 9, and an unprecedented closing stream of traditional ceremony by the Rirratjiŋu clan on May 16.</p>
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<p><em>The next three East Arnhem Live concerts will stream on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/VisitEastArnhemLand/">East Arnhem Land Facebook page</a> at 6.30 pm ACST on Saturday, May 2, May 9 and May 16.</em></p>
<p><em>Charles Darwin University’s <a href="http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/yolngustudies/gupaappdownload.html">Gupapuyŋu App</a> provides a Yolŋu language pronunciation guide that is free to download.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Readers are advised that this article names a deceased founding member of Yothu Yindi with all traditional Yolŋu mortuary restrictions having been lifted by his family long ago. Aaron Corn receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a Director of the not-for-profit National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia. Aaron Corn explores the music of Yothu Yindi in his book, Reflections & Voices (2009), published by Sydney University Press.</span></em></p>A series of four live-streamed concerts from Arnhem Land offers a welcome break from bad news and a way for Indigenous musicians to share their talents with the world.Aaron Corn, Professor, Elder Conservatorium of Music · Director, Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) · Director, National Centre for Aboriginal Language and Music Studies (NCALMS), Faculty of Arts, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/844382017-09-28T19:04:40Z2017-09-28T19:04:40ZFriday essay: Dr Joe Gumbula, the ancestral chorus, and how we value Indigenous knowledges<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187735/original/file-20170927-24225-1i6zrdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sacred paperbark tree at Djiliwirri, the most sacred homeland of the Indigenous elder and public intellectual, Dr Joe Gumbula, in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aaron Corn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 2001, the preeminent Indigenous elder and public intellectual, Dr Joe Gumbula, spoke to a class of students at the University of Melbourne. In death, he told us, he would no longer be Joe Gumbula. He would no longer need that name, he said, because the ancestors of his most sacred homeland, Djiliwirri, had already named his corporeal body for features of the living environment as recorded in song.</p>
<p>His knees, he said, are the fruit of the native apple tree.</p>
<p>His feet and legs belong to the emu, as does his heart and his stomach.</p>
<p>His front belongs to the ancestral ghost, Murayana, while his back is Murayana’s iconic hollow log coffin. </p>
<p>His spine is the pathway worn through the scrub by the koel cuckoo.</p>
<p>His eyes are nuts of the cycad palm. </p>
<p>His white hair is made of the fine wispy roots of the paperbark tree and the foam they produce in the swamp during the Wet Season at Djiliwirri.</p>
<p>His head and all his knowledge are honeycomb from the hive of the Honeybee ancestor, Birrku<u>d</u>a. His nose is beeswax, and his mouth is the entrance to the beehive. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gumbula with his family receiving his honorary Doctor of Music degree at the University of Sydney in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gumbula, who passed away in 2015, was one of Australia’s greatest thinkers. Now, his name is Birrku<u>d</u>a, <a href="http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol7no2_2008/corn_ancestral.htm">the Honeybee</a>. His voice has joined the ancestral chorus at Djiliwirri, where he dwells for all of time, and there, within the living environment, his songs can still be heard by those who attend to listen.</p>
<h2>Honey from the paperbark tree</h2>
<p>Born in Miliŋinbi (Milingimbi) in 1954, Gumbula was descended from a prominent line of Yolŋu leaders of the Gupapuyŋu clan from northeast Arnhem Land, whose contributions to understanding between Indigenous and other Australians have been influential since the 1920s. Researching the representation of his parents and grandparents in ethnographic and art collections worldwide became the passion of his life’s work. </p>
<p>Gumbula apprenticed as carpenter in his teens, and moved to Galiwin’ku in 1971, where he became a lifetime member of the seminal Yolŋu country and gospel band, Soft Sands. From 1989 to 1996, he served as a sworn officer of the Northern Territory Police Service, retiring with the rank of Constable First Class and a commendation for bravery. </p>
<p>He simultaneously became a recognised master-singer of Manikay, the exquisite Yolŋu tradition of public ceremonial songs. The academy struggles to recognise intellectual expressions outside the medium of text, yet the Manikay tradition perpetuates a body of knowledge that has enabled the Yolŋu to live in Australia for untold millennia. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Manikay as performed in a public ceremony in Ramangi<u>n</u>iŋ in 2008.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I first met Gumbula at his home in Galiwin’ku in November 1997 while undertaking my PhD research on contemporary popular music in Arnhem Land. He adopted me as his child - a common enough occurrence for which Yolŋu law provides.</p>
<p>Gumbula had been composing his own rock songs since 1985, and had recently found new work as a vocational trainer in contemporary music skills for Northern Territory University. He proudly showed me the new music-video that he had just completed for his most-loved original song, Djiliwirri, which celebrates the continuity of Gupapuyŋu clan law from his parents’ generation to the present. Named after the most sacred homeland of the <u>D</u>aygurrgurr Gupapuyŋu clan, it remains a visionary work that incorporated clips from the 1964 documentary film, Dja<u>l</u>umbu, which featured Gumbula’s father, Djäwa, leading a public hollow-log burial ceremony at Miliŋinbi. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lA97fI7sfsU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“Djiliwirri” composed by Joe Gumbula and Fred Dhamarrandji, and performed by Joe Gumbula with Soft Sands in 1997.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In September 1997, just before we met, Gumbula had completed a long and arduous process of learning to become a leader of public ceremonies. He had attained mastery in performing his hereditary Manikay, and had learnt to conduct large complements of singers, dancers and artists in ceremony across a complex array of contexts.
By building his expertise in Yolŋu law, he had accrued sufficient <i>märr</i> (essence) to earn the right to lead public ceremonies, and had been recognised by his elders as one who is <i><u>l</u>iya-ŋärra’mirri</i>: learned and wise.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-remarkable-yidaki-and-no-its-not-a-didge-74169">Friday essay: the remarkable yi<u>d</u>aki (and no it’s not a ‘didge’)</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>As a function of my adoption as his child, Gumbula first taught me how to accompany on <i>yi<u>d</u>aki</i> or didjeridu so that he could sing Manikay whenever we travelled together. He coached me in closely studying the musical and lyrical content of the Manikay series that he regularly performed and the knowledge codified within it. Over the years of this process, I came to understand fine details about Gupapuyŋu clan homelands and ceremonies that I could not have learnt by any other means.</p>
<p>How sulphur-crested cockatoos perch in lofty paperbark trees to cry for the dead.</p>
<p>How emus stomp the earth and soak their feathers as they drink from freshwater streams. </p>
<p>How the poisonous spines of eel-tailed catfish protect the souls of the newly deceased like warriors’ spears. </p>
<p>How tortoises comb through white weeds on the floor of the lake at Gapuwiyak, just as elders comb white clay through the hair of youths being readied for initiation. </p>
<p>These are among the myriad natural phenomena of the Yolŋu homelands that the Manikay tradition records and ascribes ceremonial significance. They are repeatedly observable both in nature and in the ways that Yolŋu engage with them.</p>
<h2>Singing ancestral records</h2>
<p>In Yolŋu epistemology, whenever people sing Manikay, their voices are not their own, but rather mingle with those of the ancestors themselves - all those who have gone before and all those who are yet to be. The Manikay tradition codifies all the observations and strategies for living given to the Yolŋu by the original ancestors who originally named, shaped and populated their myriad homelands in northeast Arnhem Land. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187733/original/file-20170927-24182-1q7xufw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gumbula sings his hereditary Manikay for the archival record at Djiliwirri in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Songs are typically organised into lengthy series of subjects that enumerate intimate details of each homeland and its living ecologies. The natural species and cycles found on each homeland - as observed by the original ancestors - are the substance of these songs. </p>
<p>Together with interrelated repertoires of sacred names, dances and designs, the Manikay tradition informs the logic of ceremonial practices through which the Yolŋu observe and express their law. To be a Manikay singer is to be trained in Yolŋu law, to know how to lead public ceremonies, and to know how the myriad features of the Yolŋu homelands are recorded in song. </p>
<p>For the Yolŋu, the Manikay tradition expresses fundamental truths about the nature of human existence within the greater fabric of the natural order. They understand Manikay repertoires to stand as an evidential record of the Yolŋu homelands that has been passed from the original ancestors to their living kin over successive generations.</p>
<p>Memories of the living fade, yet the agency of ancestors is realised anew each time Manikay is performed. The Manikay tradition is therefore regarded to be a formal medium through which the Yolŋu convey their intimate knowledges of country and its ancestral histories, and consolidate philosophical interpretations of the nature of existence from one generation to the next.</p>
<p>Yet each new performance of any given song item within the Manikay tradition is also deliberately unique to capture the aesthetics of the endless variability found in natural forms. Manikay repertoires are built around stock words and phrases, including strings of sacred names for all things observed by the original ancestors, and stock melodies and rhythms that are constantly varied in subtle ways. Cryptic in tone and replete with archaisms stemming from ancestral times, their lyrics defy narrative linearity, and can be ordered and reordered - interpreted and reinterpreted - quite differently with each new performance. </p>
<p>In these respects, the Manikay tradition is both a creative and an intellectual medium, as well as a sacred one. Singers become seasoned thinkers who curate and extend the contents and contexts of their performances to mediate ancestrally-informed understandings of the nature of existence and theorise their relevance for today. It expresses a balanced interplay between tradition and innovation in thought and practice that Yolŋu typically liken to an ancestral campfire site, where each new generation of the living adds <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1998.tb02678.x/abstract">its own layer of ash</a>.</p>
<h2>Thinking through songs</h2>
<p>I have spent my entire career collaborating with thinkers, such as Gumbula, who come from outside European intellectual traditions. Their relationships with the academy are sardonically illustrated by the Iranian philosopher, Hamid Dabashi, who asks, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/2013114142638797542.html">“Can non-Europeans think?”</a> He questions why the work of European philosophers is just plain philosophy, while they deem their African counterparts to be <i>ethno</i>-philosophers. Why is it, asks Dabashi, that Mozart is a composer of music, while equally-sophisticated Indian musical expressions are the subject of <i>ethno</i>-musicology? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187939/original/file-20170928-24182-1ul2uto.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The source of a sacred freshwater stream at Djiliwirri in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is through this systemic lens of alterity that the academy has typically engaged with the Manikay tradition, and indeed all Australian Indigenous expressive forms. It typifies them as conduits for cultural ideas and values, and perhaps even spiritual and political ones, but rarely intellectual ones. </p>
<p>Clearly, learned exponents of the Manikay tradition, and others like it, should be considered thinkers in their own right. But what of the myriad media through which such thinkers choose to express their ideas? </p>
<p>For most intellectuals within Euro-diasporic traditions, the arrangement of typographical characters on a white page is a tried and familiar medium for communicating theoretical ideas built upon observable evidence with reference to existing scholarly findings. Scholars within these traditions, myself included, are trained from an early age to know that books and other texts can convey facts and, therefore, knowledge.</p>
<p>We know that not all books and texts are factual. Yet this never brings into question the prevailing academic assumption that text is the ideal medium for conveying evidential knowledge that is observable and repeatable.</p>
<p>But what if there were other media that, like text, were so intimately associated with language, that they too could convey knowledge in such ways? Academics routinely entrust text and, to a lesser extent, film with conveying their original contributions to human knowledge. We usually do this unquestioningly on the basis of established precedents. Does not the Manikay tradition, with its own intimate relationship with audible language stretching back to established precedents in ancestral times, exhibit comparable mechanisms for conveying meaning?</p>
<p>The Manikay tradition has been carefully curated over successive generations to maintain an observable and repeatable record of this expansive body of knowledge, while simultaneously being able to accommodate both reinterpretations of old observations and additions of new ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187737/original/file-20170927-24182-16n404r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gumbula working with his brother, Milaypuma Gaykamaŋu, in the University of Sydney Archives in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Learned singers of Manikay constantly reset and reinterpret the themes and meanings of their repertoires in response to arising circumstances of celebration, loss, negotiation and commemoration. Newer influences upon Yolŋu society, such as its lengthy history of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00664670601168385">engagements with Makassan seafarers</a> from Sulawesi, have long been recorded as central themes of Manikay series. Each generation of singers leaves its own new layer of ash upon the same ancestral campfire site. </p>
<p>In this respect, Manikay is an archetypal medium of creative practice-as-research. It synthesises thought and practice to cultivate understandings of the nature of existence that equip people with applicable skills for knowing how to live on country and find its inner meanings. </p>
<p>It locates human existence and agency firmly within the continuum of the natural order, and celebrates the undeniable truth that, as humans, we are all products of countless ancestral unions and deeds over countless generations.</p>
<p>But in Australia, research outputs disseminated via media other than text are <a href="http://era2015.arc.gov.au/s1-9_non-trad-research-outputs.html">officially relegated</a> to othering categories such as “non-traditional”, “applied”, “creative” and “practitioner-based”, and are generally considered secondary to “traditional” textual outputs. </p>
<p>If learned exponents of traditions such as Manikay are truly deserving of our recognition as thinkers, then we should also recognise and value the media they have long cultivated to perpetuate their discourses as being equivalent to the written word. </p>
<p>This is particularly relevant to lexically-rich song forms that convey concepts as sophisticated as any standard scholarly writing. Indeed, with the contemporary academy’s tenuous recognition for formal song forms through which philosophical ideas can be conveyed, Yolŋu intellectuals are frequently left wondering whether scholars in Euro-diasporic traditions can think.</p>
<p>This is not only important for exponents of Australian Indigenous traditions such as Manikay that have become <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08145857.2013.844526">highly endangered</a> in the wake of British colonisation. It also crucial for thinkers across the humanities, creative arts and social sciences all over the world, who work beyond the medium of text in ways that are more germane to their disciplines and approaches. </p>
<p>This entrenched bias serves little purpose other than to privilege Euro-diasporic traditions of knowledge production and dissemination that continue to threaten and displace equally justifiable ways of being and knowing cultivated by other societies. </p>
<h2>Knowledge across cultures</h2>
<p>Gumbula was my most prolific teacher, Yolŋu or otherwise. Driven by his personal quest to trace the extensive legacy of his family’s recorded history, he was adamant from the outset of our relationship that intelligence should flow between us equally in both directions.</p>
<p>He would teach me about Yolŋu music and its centrality to Yolŋu law and knowledge, and I would help him to build networks that would lead him to collections of interest in museums and archives around the world. This grounded our relationship in the ethos of Matjabala, a Gupapuyŋu clan process for forging bonds with other groups to share knowledge and resources through equitable ceremonial exchange.</p>
<p>Gumbula constantly drew on his knowledge of Manikay and its centrality within Yolŋu law to challenge my learnt academic perceptions about what knowledge is, and how it can be manifested. I came to realise that all ethnographic scholarship about the Yolŋu, since its beginnings in the late 1920s, could not have existed without the cooperation of learned Yolŋu leaders who had been willing to engage with visiting academics. </p>
<p>As Gumbula and I taught, wrote and performed together, our aim was not to bring Yolŋu knowledge into the academy, but rather to bring the academy into a more equitable dialogue with equally valid traditions of Yolŋu knowledge production and dissemination. We called our approach not only bi-cultural, but also <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-4280-9780824830052.aspx"><i>bi-intellectual</i></a>.</p>
<p>Gumbula began teaching in Australian Indigenous Studies courses at the University of Melbourne in 2001 and, through his 2003–05 visiting senior fellowship there, embarked on extensive travels to investigate his family’s recorded history in collections around the world.</p>
<p>In association with the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia, he and I worked with his family to make archival recordings of their Manikay repertoires through field trips to their remote homelands. Later, at the University of Sydney, he taught in the Australian Indigenous Studies program in 2005–06, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of music in 2007. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187732/original/file-20170927-24167-q7f24a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gumbula with his wife, Pamela Ganambarr, at the launch of his Makarr-garma exhibition at the University of Sydney in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gumbula led three projects funded by the Australian Research Council on Yolŋu collections. In 2009, he curated an innovative exhibition on Yolŋu knowledge at the University of Sydney’s Macleay Museum called Makarr-garma, and his 2011 book on early ethnographic photographs from Arnhem Land, <a href="https://sup-estore.sydney.edu.au/jspcart/cart/Product.jsp?nID=670&nCategoryID=19">Matjabala Mali’ Buku-ruŋanmaram</a>, received a prestigious Mander Jones Award from the Australian Society of Archivists.</p>
<p>Inspired by photographs found in the Melbourne Museum and in the University of Sydney Archives, his final project was to start the process of producing a rare Makarra<u>t</u>a reparations ceremony at Miliŋinbi after a hiatus of some 80 years. He sadly passed away before it came to fruition in August 2016.</p>
<p>Though charming and charismatic, Gumbula was fearless and unyielding. He took pride in challenging colleagues to think and work in new proactive ways. His research leaves <a href="https://ethnomusicologie.revues.org/1747">an enduring impact</a> upon the ways that scholars and collecting institutions represent and engage with Indigenous peoples, heritage, and knowledges.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This an edited version of the Dr Joe Gumbula Memorial Lecture presented at the 16th Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance at the University of Melbourne in partnership with the 2017 Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium convened by Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker, and the 2017 Australian Society of Archivists Conference convened by Katheryn Dan and Dr Katherine Howard. The author and convenors acknowledge the kind support of Pamela Ganambarr, Farrah Gumbula, Michael Gaykamaŋu and others in Dr Gumbula’s family, and of the Australian Society of Archivists’ President, Julia Mant. A fuller version will be published by MUP in Associations: Creative Practice and Research edited by Dr James Oliver.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Corn receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He volunteers as a Co-Director of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia.</span></em></p>Dr Joe Gumbula was a master-singer of Manikay, the exquisite Yolŋu tradition of public ceremonial song. While the songs contain incredible knowledge, scholars have rarely treated them as an intellectual tradition.Aaron Corn, Professor of Music and Director, Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) and National Centre for Aboriginal Language and Music Studies (NCALMS), University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/311802014-09-20T05:10:44Z2014-09-20T05:10:44ZBirthing on Country could deliver healthier babies and communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59619/original/dgvxjv9c-1411187055.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inuit women carrying their kids in traditional hooded parkas. Indigenous midwifery programs have expanded across Canada and are linked to excellent health outcomes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/weartpix/4077750393/in/photolist-7dkx8g-5Lj5pb-bY1c83-4YDTNQ-4YA3VH-4YDTQ7-4YzCK6-4YzCN2-4YEZMD-afWiDB-dcj9Ub-4YDTRC-5Lj5TN-926jvd-4YDTUN-4YzCMM-4YDTQy-4YDTTE">Spencer/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-20/arnhem-land-leaders-call-for-an-end-to-poison-welfare/5758040">spent most of this week in North East Arnhem Land</a>, part of his <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/abbott-calls-for-new-era-of-engagement-with-indigenous-australia-20130810-2rony.html">long-held hope</a> “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. In the final of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/abbott-in-arnhem-land">Abbott in Arnhem Land</a> series, we asked our experts: what stories does the PM need to hear?</em></p>
<p>Imagine you are 36 weeks pregnant and about to have your third baby. But coming from a small community, you can’t give birth at your local hospital because the maternity ward has closed down. Instead, you’re told you have to go to a hospital in a big city you’ve never been to before, hours away from anyone you know, which feels as foreign as being sent to another country. </p>
<p>Doctors say it’s safer in the big city hospital where they have lots of specialists if anything goes wrong. But your partner, children and other family members are not able to come because you can’t afford to pay their travel and accommodation. </p>
<p>You don’t speak the language. You didn’t choose to come here. You are all alone. You are so uncomfortable and so stressed – so how could this be good for baby?</p>
<p>This happens regularly to Aboriginal women across Australia. In many cases, being sent into a major city a long way from home to birth is equivalent to being sent to a foreign country. </p>
<p>But it doesn’t have to be this way. </p>
<p>We could <a href="http://cfpcwp.com/MCDG/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/CD004667_standard.pdf">reduce</a> the number of babies being born too early and dying before they reach their first birthday. We could make a difference to <a href="http://www.aom.on.ca/files/Communications/Reports_and_Studies/JMWH_Nunavik_Midwifery_VanWagner_JulyAug2007.pdf">every stage of life</a> – reduce chronic disease, improve mental health, reduce drug and alcohol abuse and reduce community violence. </p>
<p>We could <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2961406-3/fulltext">save our health system</a> millions of dollars. And the benefits could extend beyond health, strengthening parenting roles and restoring skills and community pride. </p>
<p>And we know that all that can be done, because it’s already been <a href="http://www.inuulitsivik.ca/healthcare-and-services/healthcare/midwives">shown to work</a> in Canada.</p>
<h2>Having babies closer to home</h2>
<p>In Australia, we call it “<a href="https://www.saxinstitute.org.au/publications/evidence-check-library/maternity-service-delivery-models-for-indigenous-communities/">Birthing on Country</a>”, which is about bringing birth closer to home. Birthing on Country is about real jobs and education. It’s about <a href="http://www.pimatisiwin.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03EpooStonier.pdf">local Aboriginal midwives</a>. It’s about shaping a healthier health system; one that is both medically and culturally safe for all.</p>
<p>Birthing on Country has been recommended in many government reports over 30 years. Even our current <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/maternityservicesplan">National Maternity Plan</a> says that Birthing on Country programs need to be set up and tested. </p>
<p>We need to see if Birthing on Country really can make a difference here, as it has overseas. We can’t keep having Aboriginal mums and bubs being <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=60129545698">two to three times more likely to die in childbirth</a> than other Australians; it’s time for change.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kymu_pW_Z7Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Aboriginal Australians talking about birthing on country, from “The Face Of Birth” DVD. (http://www.faceofbirth.com/)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So why has there been no investment in Birthing on Country? </p>
<p>There is a general <a href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/14/275#">fear</a> of birthing in Australia, with some people concerned about women having babies in places that don’t have 24/7 access to an emergency caesarean operation. Instead, when surgery cannot be provided, we tend to close the whole maternity service. </p>
<p>But the further women have to travel for birth, the worse their <a href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/11/147">outcomes</a>. Establishing birth centres, even in remote areas, could be a <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7400">safer option</a>, yet only 2% of women in Australia give birth in a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19566562">birth centre</a>.</p>
<h2>Learning from the Inuit</h2>
<p>In Canada, what began as the <a href="http://www.inuulitsivik.ca/healthcare-and-services/healthcare/midwives">Inuit “experiment”</a> is now referred to as the jewel in the crown of Inuit achievements. </p>
<p>The experiment started in 1985 in a place called Nunavik. It was in response to a high number of young people committing suicide. </p>
<p>Women, sitting around a sewing circle, linked the social dysfunction in the community to the dislocation that occurred during birth. They agreed they would no longer be flown eight hours away from home to have their babies in a “safe” hospital in Montreal. Instead, they set up a birthing centre in their remote community, without local access to a doctor or caesarean. </p>
<p>Even when people tried to close them down, warning “mothers and babies would die”, they stayed open. The <a href="http://www.naho.ca/inuit-midwifery/documents/2005-07NunavikICMkeynotefinal_000.pdf">elders knew</a> that “to bring birth back to the communities is to bring back life”.</p>
<p>One Aboriginal Canadian doctor was <a href="http://www.naho.ca/inuit-midwifery/documents/2005-07NunavikICMkeynotefinal_000.pdf">quoted as saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Culturally appropriate health care requires respect for the choice of community based child birth and may also challenge the world view of medically trained health professionals who are concerned with access to medical technologies and medico-legal liabilities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, the birthing centres have on-site midwifery training and have expanded across Nunavik and into other remote communities in Ontario, North West Territories and Nunavut. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/44525868" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p></p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/44525868">TV Show Video Clip - Inuit Midwife Apprenticeship Program, Nunavik</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/nataborhealthorg">Inuit Tuttarvingat</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p><p></p>
<p>They have developed as a sustainable model and are <a href="https://fcsktp.ryerson.ca/xmlui/handle/123456789/46">linked to excellent health outcomes</a>, increased education levels, reduced family violence, the restoration of dignity and self-esteem, community healing and greater social functioning.</p>
<p>The model allows inter-generational learning and support while promoting respect for traditional knowledge and building local capacity. </p>
<p>In the words of <a href="http://www.pimatisiwin.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03EpooStonier.pdf">Jusapie Padlayat</a>, elder and chair of the Inuulitsivik Health Board:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can understand that some of you may think that birth in remote areas is dangerous. And we have made it clear what it means for our women to birth in our communities. And you must know that a life without meaning is much more dangerous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When you walk into the birthing centres you can immediately see the impact it’s having on the community. You can see it when watching an Inuit midwife providing care to an Inuit women, in her own language. Better still is the smile on her husband and young children’s faces, knowing she will not be leaving family to have her baby. </p>
<p>The model is so successful it is creeping into the cities, with an Aboriginal birth centre <a href="http://www.torontobirthcentre.ca/">opening in Toronto</a> last year. (You can read more at Canada’s <a href="http://www.aboriginalmidwives.ca/toolkit/nunavik">National Aboriginal Council of Midwives website</a>.)</p>
<h2>Returning birth to Country in Australia</h2>
<p>The first <a href="http://www.qcmb.org.au/media/pdf/Birth%20On%20Country%20Report.pdf">National Birthing on Country Workshop</a>, held in Alice Springs in 2012, recommended we set up Birthing on Country sites here in Australia, including in some remote communities. But to do that, they must be funded for long-term success. </p>
<p>In her closing speech at the event, award-winning Yolŋu elder <a href="http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/honour-roll/?view=fullView&recipientID=415">Djapirri Mununggirritj</a> from Yirrkala in North East Arnhem Land (where the Prime Minister visited this week) declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>birthing is the most powerful thing that happens to a mother and child … our generation needs to know the route and identity of where they came from; to ensure pride, passion, dignity and leadership to carry us through to the future … We need to put together a strong voice, and one of us can report this in Canberra</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59621/original/439w3k28-1411189436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yolŋu elder and Reconciliation Australia board member Djapirri Mununggirritj</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/about/">Reconciliation Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The report from the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265553883_Australian_Health_Ministers%27_Advisory_Council_Birthing_on_Country_Workshop_Report">National Birthing on Country Workshop</a> has gone to Canberra and been given to government – but we don’t yet have Birthing on Country sites.</p>
<p>Queensland is probably the closest, with a state-wide workshop held in December 2013, but sites are yet to be chosen. Funding has not been allocated. We can’t let it stall again. </p>
<p>We know it will be challenging and we know it is controversial. But we know it can be done successfully, across the country. Birthing on Country programs can be set up in urban, rural and remote areas. </p>
<p>As Djapirri Mununggirritj also said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people come together, there is power … We need to create that connection … connection that comes from the grassroots … and I know you around the tables are very very smart people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To quote another wise woman, award-winning Aboriginal health worker and Malabam Health Board member Molly Wardaguga from Arnhem Land (who has passed away): “Hey you mob – it’s time to listen.”</p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Further reading in this <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/abbott-in-arnhem-land">Abbott in Arnhem Land</a> series:<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-my-country-seeing-the-true-beauty-of-life-in-bawaka-31378">Welcome to my Country: seeing the true beauty of life in Bawaka</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pm-for-aboriginal-affairs-abbott-faces-his-biggest-hearing-test-31021">‘PM for Aboriginal Affairs’ Abbott faces his biggest hearing test</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-7-up-the-revealing-study-tracking-babies-to-adults-27312">Australia’s 7 Up: the revealing study tracking babies to adults</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/well-connected-indigenous-kids-keen-to-tap-new-ways-to-save-lives-30964">Well-connected Indigenous kids keen to tap new ways to save lives</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australias-rapid-rise-is-shifting-money-and-votes-26524">Indigenous Australia’s rapid rise is shifting money and votes</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-crowded-homes-can-lead-to-empty-schools-in-the-bush-30971">How crowded homes can lead to empty schools in the bush</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/would-you-risk-losing-your-home-for-a-few-weeks-of-work-30911">Would you risk losing your home for a few weeks of work?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-your-elders-inviting-aboriginal-parents-back-to-school-31300">Listen to your elders: inviting Aboriginal parents back to school</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australians-need-a-licence-to-drive-but-also-to-work-31480">Indigenous Australians need a licence to drive, but also to work</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indigenous-teens-in-school-by-reinventing-the-lessons-30960">Keeping Indigenous teens in school by reinventing the lessons</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-can-a-dna-test-reveal-if-youre-an-indigenous-australian-31767">Explainer: Can a DNA test reveal if you’re an Indigenous Australian?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-indigenous-constitutional-recognition-means-31770">Explainer: what Indigenous constitutional recognition means</a></em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Kildea leads a team who have received funding from the NHMRC to conduct an evaluation of an urban model of health system reform called 'Birthing in our Community' - the Birthing on Country urban model. A partnership between the Mater Health Service, the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Service (Brisbane). She has spent many years recommending government do the things suggested in this article. She regularly applies for funding to improve maternal, infant and birthing services for Aboriginal mums and babies. She is employed by the Mater Health Service and the University of Queensland. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fleur Magick Dennis works for and is affiliated with Gungarrimaa Aboriginal Corporation and Aboriginal Cultural Birthing and Parenting NSW. Gungarrimaa Aboriginal Corporation receives funding from NSW state government and the federal government.</span></em></p>Tony Abbott spent most of this week in North East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. In the final of our Abbott in…Sue Kildea, Professor of Midwifery, The University of QueenslandFleur Magick Dennis, Founder and Convener of Aboriginal Cultural Birthing and Parenting NSW; Aboriginal Cultural Healing Educator at Gungarrimaa Aboriginal Corporation; Master of Indigenous Studies Graduate (Southern Cross University) & Currently a Master of Education Student, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/313782014-09-15T01:39:10Z2014-09-15T01:39:10ZWelcome to my Country: seeing the true beauty of life in Bawaka<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58725/original/wfq3qdfj-1410396274.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Djapana – sunset – at Bawaka in North-East Arnhem Land.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Wright</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Tony Abbott <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-06-23/visit-north-east-arnhem-land">is spending this week in North East Arnhem Land</a>, part of his <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/abbott-calls-for-new-era-of-engagement-with-indigenous-australia-20130810-2rony.html">long-held hope</a> “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories does the PM need to hear while he’s in the Top End?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When <em>ngapaki</em>, non-Indigenous people, come to Bawaka they see the beauty of the blue sea and the white sand, but they don’t see what really makes our land beautiful. They don’t see the stories, the connections, the patterns, the rhythms, the songlines. – Laklak Burarrwanga</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We are Yolŋu people, from Bawaka in North East Arnhem Land, which is more than 600 kilometres east of Darwin and is down the coast from <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-13/abbott-to-camp-in-arnhem-land/5741340">where the Prime Minister is camping this week</a>. </p>
<p>Bawaka is our homeland, our Country. Country means the land, but it means so much more too.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="500px" frameborder="0" src="https://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v4/editorial-team.jgdfm94i/attribution,zoompan,zoomwheel,geocoder,share.html?access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiZWRpdG9yaWFsLXRlYW0iLCJhIjoiQ2dCREhsUSJ9.CH7em9Q5WmOSXAy15sPwng"></iframe>
<p><em>Zoom out on the map to see where Bawaka is in northern Australia.</em></p>
<p>For the past eight years, our research group of five Yolŋu (sometimes written as Yolngu) women and three non-Indigenous academics have been working together sharing the Yolŋu women’s knowledge, especially through the women’s <a href="http://www.lirrwitourism.com.au/">tourism business</a> and the book we wrote together, <a href="http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781743313961">Welcome to My Country</a>.</p>
<p>We want visitors to learn from us, so that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can grow together. We are for unity and for peace. </p>
<p>We are for learning <a href="http://livingknowledge.anu.edu.au/html/educators/07_bothways.htm">both ways</a>. We are for a future where we all learn from each other.</p>
<p>So we invite you now to come with us to Bawaka, to learn a little about what lies beneath the beauty of Bawaka. We invite you, and the Prime Minister, to take off your shoes and walk with us, to feel your feet in the sand and begin to learn. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58451/original/t72gh3tm-1410172740.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The beach at Bawaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandie Suchet-Pearson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When <em>ngapaki</em> come to Bawaka, we ask Bawaka Country to welcome you. Bawaka is alive, it talks to us and cares for us. </p>
<p>We welcome you so that the land and the sea, the tides, the currents, the plants, the animals, the winds, the rocks, the songs and the dreams recognise you. </p>
<p>And <em>we</em> are Bawaka Country too, Yolŋu people, our ancestors and our unborn children, with our Yolŋu languages (<em>dhäruk</em>), our Yolŋu knowledge and our Yolŋu Law (<em>Rom</em>). People are Country too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58452/original/27359jjv-1410173895.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laklak gathering <em>gunga</em>, pandanus, for basket weaving.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandie Suchet-Pearson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Country will welcome you as long as you respect it, as long as you behave well and care for the land and the nature, care for each other as family, as kin. </p>
<p>Country is everything in balance, everything connected as kin. Country nourishes us, and we nourish Country. We can’t be separated from it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58454/original/hqb2zsjv-1410175005.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cutting up <em>miyapunu</em>, turtle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Webb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58400/original/ynr6sj4h-1410142348.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In our most recent book, Welcome to My Country, we share some of our stories and knowledge of Bawaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen & Unwin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Everything at Bawaka has and tells a story. Everything communicates, through its own language and its own Law. </p>
<p>At Bawaka, it is now the season of <em>Rarranhdharr</em>. </p>
<p>It is a hot, dry season, the time of year when your feet burn when you walk on the sand. The fruits are ripening and the <em>warrkarr</em>, the white lily, is in flower. The <em>warrkarr</em> tells us that it is the right time to hunt stingray. It is a bountiful season. Everything is ripening and getting fat. </p>
<p>If we listen to the <em>warrkarr</em>, we know it is time to hunt. Country is communicating with us. We are connected, the fruits, the stingray, our hot feet and the <em>warrkarr</em>. </p>
<p>All these things have their knowledge and their Law. They must be respected. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/58439/original/39xnx5wg-1410161649.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shandi and Shyrell preparing stingray at Bawaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandie Suchet-Pearson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Everything at Bawaka tells a story, and everything communicates, but we must know how to listen. </p>
<p>Remember, Country can’t be pulled apart and people can’t be separated from Country. </p>
<p>We live on Country, we won’t be treated as if we have no strength, no knowledge, no Law, no language. </p>
<p>Country makes us strong. Country cares, Country nourishes, Country is who we are. We are Yolŋu.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the Yolŋu world, we have a library in the land. You can’t destroy it. If you burn it, it grows again. This land is full of more knowledge than you can imagine. – Laklak Burarrwanga</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Further reading in this <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/abbott-in-arnhem-land">Abbott in Arnhem Land</a> series:<br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/birthing-on-country-could-deliver-healthier-babies-and-communities-31180">Birthing on Country could deliver healthier babies and communities</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pm-for-aboriginal-affairs-abbott-faces-his-biggest-hearing-test-31021">‘PM for Aboriginal Affairs’ Abbott faces his biggest hearing test</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-7-up-the-revealing-study-tracking-babies-to-adults-27312">Australia’s 7 Up: the revealing study tracking babies to adults</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/well-connected-indigenous-kids-keen-to-tap-new-ways-to-save-lives-30964">Well-connected Indigenous kids keen to tap new ways to save lives</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australias-rapid-rise-is-shifting-money-and-votes-26524">Indigenous Australia’s rapid rise is shifting money and votes</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-crowded-homes-can-lead-to-empty-schools-in-the-bush-30971">How crowded homes can lead to empty schools in the bush</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/would-you-risk-losing-your-home-for-a-few-weeks-of-work-30911">Would you risk losing your home for a few weeks of work?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-your-elders-inviting-aboriginal-parents-back-to-school-31300">Listen to your elders: inviting Aboriginal parents back to school</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-australians-need-a-licence-to-drive-but-also-to-work-31480">Indigenous Australians need a licence to drive, but also to work</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-indigenous-teens-in-school-by-reinventing-the-lessons-30960">Keeping Indigenous teens in school by reinventing the lessons</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-can-a-dna-test-reveal-if-youre-an-indigenous-australian-31767">Explainer: Can a DNA test reveal if you’re an Indigenous Australian?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-indigenous-constitutional-recognition-means-31770">Explainer: what Indigenous constitutional recognition means</a></em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laklak Burarrwanga established her family-owned tourism business Bawaka Cultural Experiences and through this business she shares her knowledge with tourists, including government staff in cross-cultural programs. She is an Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography at Macquarie University and has been working with academics from Macquarie University and the University of Newcastle for nearly eight years. She is a senior knowledge holder in a Australian Research Council-funded project, working with Kate, Sarah and Sandie.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Banbapuy Ganambarr works with Bawaka Cultural Experiences, a successful Yolŋu owned-and-run Indigenous tourism business. She is also a senior knowledge holder in a Australian Research Council-funded project, working with Kate, Sarah and Sandie.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Djawundil Maymuru works with Bawaka Cultural Experiences, a successful Yolŋu owned-and-run Indigenous tourism business. She is also a senior knowledge holder in a Australian Research Council-funded project, working with Kate, Sarah and Sandie.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Lloyd receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs works with Bawaka Cultural Experiences, a successful Yolŋu owned-and-run Indigenous tourism business. She is also a senior knowledge holder in a Australian Research Council-funded project, working with Kate, Sarah and Sandie.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ritjilili Ganambarr works with her family’s successful Yolŋu owned-and-run Indigenous tourism business, Bawaka Cultural Experiences. She is also a senior knowledge holder in a Australian Research Council-funded project, working with Kate, Sarah and Sandie.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandie Suchet-Pearson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Wright receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Tony Abbott is spending this week in North East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories…Laklak Burarrwanga, Elder for the Datiwuy people and a caretaker for the Gumatj clan; Bawaka Cultural Experiences; Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie UniversityBanbapuy Ganambarr, Author, artist, weaver; teacher at Yirrkala school; Bawaka Cultural Experiences; Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie UniversityDjawundil Maymuru, Bawaka Cultural Experiences and Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie UniversityKate Lloyd, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography; Director of the Development Studies and Cultural Change Program, Macquarie UniversityMerrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Principal of Yirrkala Community School; Yolŋu woman; Bawaka Cultural Experiences; Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography , Macquarie UniversityRitjilili Ganambarr, Elder for the Datiwuy people and a caretaker for the Gumatj clan; Bawaka Cultural Experiences; Honorary Associate of the Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie UniversitySandie Suchet-Pearson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Macquarie UniversitySarah Wright, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Development Studies, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.