Yirrkala | |
|---|---|
  Yirrkala | |
| Coordinates:12°15′10″S136°53′30″E / 12.25278°S 136.89167°E /-12.25278; 136.89167 | |
| Country | Australia |
| State | Northern Territory |
| LGA | |
| Location | |
| Government | |
| • Territory electorate | |
| • Federal division | |
| Elevation | 8 m (26 ft) |
| Population | |
| • Total | 657 (SAL2021)[3][4] |
| Postcode | 0880 |
Yirrkala is a small community inEast Arnhem Region, Northern Territory, Australia, 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of the large mining town ofNhulunbuy, on theGove Peninsula inArnhem Land. It is known for the formermission, established as anAboriginal reserve after being founded by Methodist missionaries in 1935, and for what became known as theYirrkala bark petitions. These were a set of petitions submitted by theAboriginal residents of the mission to theAustralian Parliament in 1963 asking for consultation about their land taken for mining. This marked an important moment in the history ofIndigenous land rights in Australia andnative title in Australia.
Yirrkala's population comprises predominantly Aboriginal Australians of theYolngu peoples. At the2021 census, Yirrkala had a population of 657, of whom 79.8% identified asAboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.
There has been anAboriginal community at Yirrkala throughout recorded history, but the community increased enormously in size when Yirrkalamission was founded in 1935, with people from 13 different Yolngu clans moving to Yirrkala.[5] Around this time, theMethodist Overseas Mission (MOM) was encouraging their senior staff to studyanthropology underA. P. Elkin atSydney University, to learn more aboutAboriginal Australian culture, in particular the Yolngu people who lived in East Arnhem.[6]
Mission superintendents included founding superintendent Wilbur Chaseling, Harold Thornell, andEdgar Wells, who wrote about their experiences there. The residents were free to come and go as they wished, and the interaction was on the whole positive in those early days, with a lack of dogmatism by the missionaries, and the Yolngu people accommodating Christianity within a version of their own beliefs.[6]
MOM received a government subsidy to run the mission, and school classes operated from 1936, at first outdoors under a tree, and later beneath the Mission House. In 1951, a new school building was built, and, by 1952, it had 47 children regularly attending classes there, taught by a Miss Proctor. She was not a trained teacher, but had worked at the mission onGoulburn Island for three years. The mission received child endowment for every Aboriginal child there, regardless of attendance at the school.[5]
During World War II, aRAAF airbase operated close by. Many mission residents worked there, asboat pilots for the RAAF and theRoyal Australia Navy, or assisted thewar effort by other means. The school did not operate during this time, and all "white women" were evacuated in 1942.[5]
Around 1974, control of the mission was passed to the Yirrkala Dhanbul Community Association, and it was no longer was operated as a mission thereafter.[5]
Yirrkala played a pivotal role in the development of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
In early 1963, clan elders came together to paint theYirrkala Church Panels, which documented the Yolnguclaim to the land through ancestral stories. Consisting of two 4 m (13 ft) sheets ofmasonite, eight elders of theDhuwa moiety painted one sheet with their major ancestral narratives and clan designs, and eight elders of the Yirritjamoiety painted the other sheet with Yirritja designs.[7][8]
A series of four petitions, attached to decorated bark panels, were created at the mission in 1963 and sent to theFederal Government to protest the Prime Minister's announcement that a parcel of their land was to be sold to abauxite mining company. Although the petitions were unsuccessful in the sense that thebauxite mining atNhulunbuy went ahead as planned, it alerted non-Indigenous Australians to the need for Indigenous representation in such decisions, and it prompted a government report recommending compensation payments, protection ofsacred sites, creation of a permanent parliamentarystanding committee to scrutinise developments at Yirrkala, and also acknowledgments of the Indigenous people's moral right to their lands. This marked an important moment in the history ofIndigenous land rights in Australia andnative title in Australia.[9]
One of the Bark Petitions is on display in theParliament House inCanberra.[10]
The settlement was funded as anoutstation during the 1980s.[11]
Yirrkala is a small community inEast Arnhem Region, Northern Territory,[12] 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of the large mining town ofNhulunbuy, on theGove Peninsula inArnhem Land.[13]
As of 2026 theEast Arnhem Regional Council is the local government for Yirrkala, which is in the council's Gumurr Miwatj Ward. It consults with Yirrkala Mala Leaders Association, consisting of 12 elected community members.[14]
TheNorthern Land Council is theland council to the community, responsible for matters under theAboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.[14]
At the2021 census, Yirrkala had a population of 657, of whom 79.8% identified asAboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.[15]
Yirrkala is home to a number of leading Indigenous artists, whose traditionalAboriginal art, particularlybark painting, can be found in art galleries around the world, and whose work frequently wins awards such as the TelstraNational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.[16] Their work is visible to the public at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre and Museum[17] and also at the YBE art centre. Pioneer bark painters from this region who theNational Museum of Australia consider old masters includeMithinarri Gurruwiwi,Birrikitji Gumana andMawalan Marika.[18][19]
It is also a traditional home of theYidaki (didgeridoo), and some of the world's finest didgeridoos are still made at Yirrkala.
TheBuku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, formerly Buku-Larrŋgay Arts, is a world-renownedart centre, with well-known artists such asNyapanyapa Yunupingu based there.[20] It is often referred to as Buku for short.[21][22]
There is a stage called the Roy Marika Stage at the centre, which is used for the annual Yarrapay Festival. The festival's June 2021 iteration was directed byWitiyana Marika, and featured theAndrew Gurruwiwi Band,Yothu Yindi,Yirrmal, andEast Journey.[23]
The centre was established by local artists in the old Mission health centre in 1976, after the missionaries had left and as theAboriginal land rights andHomeland movements gathered pace.[24]
The historicYirrkala Church Panels were created in 1963 by Yolngu elders of theDhuwa moiety (includingMawalan Marika,Wandjuk Marika andMithinarri Gurruwiwi), who painted one sheet with their major ancestral narratives and clan designs, and eight elders of the Yirritjamoiety, includingMungurrawuy Yunupingu,Birrikitji Gumana andNarritjin Maymuru, who painted the other sheet withYirritja designs.[25][26][27] They were discarded by the church in 1974, but were salvaged by Buku-Larrnggay in 1978.[25]
As of 2015[update] it represented more than 300 artists from around the homelands, and exhibitions of work by the artists were being shown across Australia and internationally.[28] As of 2020[update], the centre comprises two divisions: the Yirrkala Art Centre, which represents the artists exhibiting and sellingcontemporary art, and The Mulka Project, which incorporates the museum.[24] It is known for its production ofbark paintings,weaving in natural fibres,larrakitj (memorial poles),yidaki, and many other forms of art.[29]
The centre has been a base for several major artists, includingGulumbu Yunupingu,Banduk Marika,Gunybi Ganambarr,Djambawa Marawili, andYanggarriny Wunungmurra.[28][30] Women artists who have worked at the centre include five sisters:Nancy Gaymala Yunupingu,Gulumbu Yunupingu,Barrupu Yunupingu,Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, andEunice Djerrkngu Yunupingu; as well asDhuwarrwarr Marika;Malaluba Gumana;Naminapu Maymuru-White;Nonggirrnga Marawili;Dhambit Mununggurr; andMargaret Wirrpanda.[21][31]
At Yirrkala School, formerly Yirrkala Community School, renamed "Yirrkala Community Education Centre" or "Yirrkala CEC" after it became a location of one of the trial Community Education Centres (CEC) in 1988,[32][33] students undertake a method ofbilingual studies dubbed "both ways", incorporating a cultural curriculum called Galtha Rom, meaning cultural lessons. Despite a 2009Northern Territory Government order to teach English for the first four hours each day, the school continued to teach in its own way, with the child's first language,Yolngu Matha, taught alongside English. The method has proven effective against reducing the drop-out rate, and in 2020 eight students were the first in their community to graduate year 12 with scores enabling them to attend university. Yirrkala School and its sister school, Laynhapuy Homelands School, are now being looked to as models for learning in remote traditional communities.[34]
Artist and teacher-linguistYalmay Marika Yunupingu, also known as Yalmay Yunupingu Marika (sometimes hyphenated)[35] or just Yalmay Yunupingu (bornc. 1955),[36] is one member of the famousMarika family of north-east Arnhem Land, and is the daughter of artistMathaman Marika[37] and the sister of artist, cultural leader and environmentalistDr B Marika. She was married to formerYothu Yindi lead singer and educatorDr M Yunupingu (1956–2013).[38]
She has translated children's books intoYolngu Matha languages, and taught "both ways" bilingual education for her whole career,[38] standing firm againstNorthern Territory Government policies which dictated that NT schools should teach only in theEnglish language[39] in 1998. This was despite the fact that Yirrkala School had been identified as the first to undergo bilingual accreditation in 1980, and bilingual students outperformed the non-bilingual students.[40]
Yunupingu was appointed senior teacher at the school in 2004,[34] and has often been called "mother of the school", and became known for her mentoring of other teachers.[39] She was awarded theNorthern Territory Government's Teaching Excellence Award in the Remote Primary category for her work at Yirrkala, and her artwork has featured in exhibitions in Australia and the US.[37] She has also been anhonorary fellow atCharles Darwin University.[41]
She retired in early 2023 after 40 years at the school, with family, friends, colleagues and other community members gathering to celebrate her contribution.[38] Since retirement, she has been teaching traditional healing withbush medicines.[36]
On 25 January 2024 she was announced as 2024 Senior Australian of the Year and travelled toCanberra to accept the award.[36][41]
Yirrkala has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
Ethnographic filmmakerIan Dunlop filmed extensively over 12 years at Yirrkala, forming close working relationships with leaders and artists there, includingNarritjin Maymuru, Dundiwuy Wanambi, andMawalan Marika. He was respected by artist and land rights activistRoy Marika, who explained the importance of his films to other Yolngu elders. Dunlop left 27 of his films with the community.[43][44] TheYirrkala Film Project was the name given to a series of 22 films, running for 1,271 minutes in total, filmed between 1970 and 1982.[45][46] In 1971, Dunlop madeIn Memory of Mawalan, ablack and white film with cinematography byDean Semler. The background to the film is the story of theDjang’kawu sisters, a Rirratjingu clan creation story that laid out the law for the people, which was ignored when the government gave permission for abauxite mining company to start developing operations in east Arnhem Land. Artist and elderMawalan Marika, who had been a creator of and signatory to the Yirrkala bark petitions, died in 1967. In 1971, his eldest sonWandjuk Marika planned a ceremony as a celebration of his father and as a re-affirmation of Djang’kawu Law, andIn Memory of Mawalan is a film of the ceremony. Wandjuk documented the film for the filmmakers as they were filming.[46][47] The film was released in 1983.[48]
Created: 7 February 2011, Last modified: 8 May 2014
Published online 12 June 2011PDF
Nambara Schools Council Submission to theHREOC Rural and Remote Education Inquiry
...the 68-year-old has been teaching the next generation about traditional healing since her retirement.
Ian Dunlop, Pip Deveson and Dr Peter Thorley, 5 August 2011... This is an edited transcript typed from an audio recording... Date published: 01 January 2018
12°15′10″S136°53′30″E / 12.25278°S 136.89167°E /-12.25278; 136.89167
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