It has been my privilege to know Yunupingu, and for our lives to have criss-crossed and intertwined all these years. I think that now – finally – I have answered my own puzzlement about his life’s choices.
I do not intend in these few remarks to chronicle this man’s enormous achievements. That is readily accessible. Rather, I will attempt to give others some feel for his complex and demanding world.
The immortal song Walk a Mile in My Shoes resonates for me.
Listen carefully to the first verse, and then the chorus:
If I could be you
And you could be me
For just one hour
If we could find a way
To get inside
Each other’s mind, mm-hmm
Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Hey, before you abuse
Criticise and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes
(“Walk a Mile in My Shoes“ is a song written by Joe South, and I must honour the work of American singer/songwriter for his deep psychology – he could not possibly have been even remotely aware of my subject. How could he? Human settlement of North America goes back only 18.000 years at most.)
Could I please share another quote:
“The clans of east Arnhem Land join me in acknowledging no king, no queen, no church and no state. Our allegiance is to each other, to our land and to the ceremonies that define us. It is through the ceremonies that our lives are created. These ceremonies record and pass on the laws that give us ownership of the land and of the seas, and the rules by which we live. Our ceremonial grounds are our universities, where we gain the knowledge that we need. The universities work to a moon cycle, with many different levels of learning and different ‘inside’ ceremonies for men and women: from the new moon to the full moon, we travel the song cycles that guide the life and the essence of the clan – keeping all in balance, giving our people their meaning. It is the only cycle of events that can ever give a Yolngu person – someone from north-east Arnhem Land – the full energy that he or she requires for life. Without this learning, Yolngu can achieve nothing; they are nobody.
As a clan we seek that moment in the ceremonial cycle where all is equal and in balance. Where older men have guided the younger ones and, in turn, taken knowledge from their elders; where no one is better than anyone else, everyone is equal, performing their role and taking their duties and responsibilities – then the ceremony is balanced and the clan moves in unison: there is no female, no male, no little ones and no big ones; we are all the same.
My inner life is that of the Yolngu song cycles, the ceremonies, the knowledge, the law and the land. This is yothu yindi. Balance. Wholeness. Completeness. A world designed in perfection, founded on the beautiful simplicity of a mother and her newborn child; as vibrant and as dynamic as the estuary where the saltwaters meet the freshwaters, able to give you everything you need.”
Dr Yunupingu AM penned these words in 2008, and we can be grateful to THE MONTHLY magazine for publishing his manifesto? Tradition, truth & tomorrow. I repeat the words here because it is necessary to give others a glimpse of the astonishing interconnectedness of people, fauna, flora, the land, sea, and seasons. And the richness of traditional Yolngu life in Northeast Arnhem Land.
(He can obviously tell the story far better than me.)
I have had my own glimpses of this world. For example, during 1978 his family and mine would occasionally lunch together. Six kids, four adults, in the bush with sharp knives and salt, feasting on the freshly roasted carcass of a wallaby hunted and cooked by my friend.
In the same year, as Chairman of the Northern Land Council, he led negotiations that resulted in the establishment of the Ranger Uranium Mine. Australia’s first! Uranium mining. In a World Heritage Listed National Park. And then he took the Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser fishing. Somewhere in there he would have also convened traditional ceremonies.
The following year he was named Australian of the Year.
For decades afterwards every new Prime Minister (except one) was drawn to Arnhem Land to meet this man. For endorsement? For approval?
And this:
“I step back to the 1950s. I am a small boy, maybe eight years old, able to tell the difference between right and wrong. An event is to take place at Yirrkala and members of the 13 clans are called together. Every man, woman and child is given clean clothes and dresses for the occasion, and they come together with pretty flowers in their hands, dressed up cleanly. All are told to stand in a line, from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill, to greet the chairman of the board of the Australian Synod of the Methodist Church. And he arrives in a four-wheel-drive with other people who jump out of their cars and are received by the local people. I remember this occasion perfectly well. We just stood there for show, dressed prettily, holding pretty flowers, to give a so-called welcome to the Methodist Church. The vehicles came to rest, the dignitaries got out, they received their flowers, they smiled, then they left and that was that. The clan leaders stood there expecting something that would acknowledge them and respect them, an exchange or a gift in return – but they received nothing. We were badly caught up that day and a poor example was set.
Now it is the early 1960s and a man called Harry Giese, the so-called protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory, stands on a 44-gallon drum at the Yirrkala airport. He has called some people together to give them news – I am one of those people; my father is there also; Roy and Mawalan Marika; the Djapu leaders, too. A mine will be built here at Yirrkala, he tells us. It will mine the dirt that we stand on – our soil. The mining companies are coming and they will mine the land. They will take all the land and the boundary of that land will run to the edge of Yirrkala, and Yirrkala will be badly affected. Giese talks for 20 minutes, then he gets in his car and drives away. This is the first mining agreement on the Gove Peninsula.”
Think for a moment about how all these experiences contributed to the shaping of his world view, the world order, and especially the palpable insensitivity and injustice. The shame.
You may then, like me, reach a very clear understanding about what motivated the Gumatj Native Title compensation claim in the Federal Court in relation to the Government’s granting of mining interests over the Gove Peninsula Aboriginal Reserve in 1968.
When Yunupingu’s father sent him to Bible College in Brisbane, he feared that his son might lose his Gumatj identity, but he always returned to the ceremonies and law –
“On his deathbed, as his spirit started its journey to Badu, the spirit land, my father handed me his clapsticks and his authority. My senior family members saw the passing and told of it throughout the clan nations – it was the news of the day in the Yolngu world. It was 1979 and I was 31 years old.”
Over the last fifty years I have imagined a future in which someone like him might have taken on a national leadership role, whether in business, politics, international diplomacy, Indigenous affairs or in all of them. Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King became household names. But it was never to be. How could it? After all, Canberra ‘is a long way from anywhere, isn’t it?’. You cannot take the Gumatj out of the boy.
Another mate, from another region of the Northern Territory, illustrated this beautifully in the 1970’s during question time after he had just given a lunch time address to public servants in Canberra. He had been separated from his extended family at a young age and institutionalised in the south. The questioner remarked that he now had a university degree, a V8 Holden, a lovely house, a high salary, and that the separation has obviously worked to his advantage. My mate quietly replied that you cannot put a price on loss of language, culture, identity, and extended family relationships.
It has been my privilege to know Yunupingu, and for our lives to have criss-crossed and intertwined all these years.
I think that now – finally – I have answered my own puzzlement about his life’s choices, coming to the realisation that he had no choice really.
I was simply looking on his world through my lens, my values, without properly understanding his.
If I could be you
And you could be me
For just one hour
If we could find a way
To get inside
Each other’s mind, mm-hmm
What an extraordinary life.
Bob Beadman
Bob Beadman
Bob Beadman has worked in Canberra, Brisbane, Townsville, Thursday Island, Darwin, Alice Springs, Geneva and the Federal Minister’s Office. He has worked for both sides of politics in both the Australian and Northern Territory Governments.
Since retirement in 2001 after 43 years’ service, he has taken on the roles of Chairman of the Northern Territory Grants Commission, Chairman of the Swimming Pool Safety Review Committee, Coordinator General of Remote Services, Director for Cyclone Reconstruction and Community Development, Member of the Red Cross Committee for Children, and Public Officer and Treasurer of the Tiwi Bombers Football Club.
He has been closely involved in Indigenous Affairs for the last 50 years.
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