By Jack Latimore
Yunupingu, a senior Yolngu lore man, Gumatj clan leader and the keeper of songlines, has died in north-east Arnhem Land after a long illness on Monday, aged 74.
The man, whose name means “sacred rock that stands against time”, was born in 1948 on Gunyangura, an island in the Northern Territory’s Melville Bay, north-east Arnhem Land, to parents Mungarrawuy and Makurrngu.
Yunupingu, pictured in 2019, has died at the age of 74.Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation
He became one of the most prominent and influential Indigenous leaders of the past century by advancing Aboriginal rights, particularly land rights, before more recently focusing on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Yunupingu rose to prominence as a young man involved in the 1960s Aboriginal land rights movement. He was part of the creation of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the historic Gove land rights case, the pioneering homelands movement and a royal commission into Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. Subsequently, he was made chair of the recently formed Northern Lands Council in 1977.
His staunch advocacy and his achievements continued throughout the ’80s and ’90s and over the early decades of the 21st century. His passing brought immediate tributes from national leaders, who praised his passion and dedication to his people.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Yunupingu a great Australian.
“With his passing, consider what we have lost. A leader. A statesman. A painter. A dancer. A singer and musician who always carried his father’s clapsticks and felt the power they carried within them. Australian of the Year in 1978. Member of the Order of Australia. National treasure. A remarkable member of a remarkable family. A great Yolngu man. A great Australian,” he said in a statement.
Yunupingu with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Garma Festival in 2022.Credit: Melanie Faith Dove/Yothu Yindi Foundation
The prime minister wrote of a recent conversation with Yunupingu, where they discussed the Voice to parliament, saying: “When I spoke with him just over a week ago, I told him I was confident we would get there. This brought him some comfort, as did his totems of fire and baru, the saltwater crocodile, which watched over him in his final days.”
Albanese added: “We will never again hear his voice anew, but his words – and his legacy – will keep speaking to us.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton also expressed his condolences, describing the Indigenous leader’s passing as a sad occasion for Australians.
“The news of the passing of Yunupingu today will resonate around the nation,” the Liberal leader said.
“When I visited Arnhem Land in February, the influence of Yunupingu was omnipresent in the community,” he said.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Assistant Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said Yunupingu worked with more than 10 prime ministers and “lived through many disappointments”.
“In his final months, Yunupingu reminded us: ‘the future is our responsibility’, and that we all have a responsibility to show leadership on reconciliation, recognition, and the referendum.”
Yunupingu was invested an honorary doctor of law by the University of Melbourne in 2015.Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation
As a leader, Yunupingu stood ‘firm’, said Greens leader Adam Bandt.
“Yunupingu embodied the strength and heart of his people,” he said. “His legacy deserves a resounding Yes: Yes for Voice, Yes for Truth, and Yes for sovereignty through Treaty.”
Academic Professor Marcia Langton, who heads the prime minister’s working group on an Indigenous Voice, said she knew Yunupingu for more than four decades and described him as “an unwavering friend, a guide and a teacher”.
“He loved his Country and his culture, and held his ceremonial responsibilities as the highest priority,” she said.
“If he had not been such a great leader, not just Aboriginal cultures across Australia, but also Australian culture would have suffered, and been far less rich ... his representations were always for the good of his people and other peoples.”
Yunupingu with Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton at Garma in 2018.Credit: Melanie Faith Dove/Yothu Yindi Foundation
Senator Patrick Dodson, who was the director of the Central Land Council when Yunupingu chaired the Northern Land Council, described him as a “canny and forceful operator”.
“He weathered tempestuous engagements with good humour and was always prepared to defend customary law and the rights of traditional owners.“
Early years
The young Yunupingu, who did not see a European until early childhood, attended Yirrkala mission school at age 11 then, at 17, the Methodist Bible College in Brisbane, more than 3500 kilometres away from his ancestral and spiritual homeland.
His activism began in 1963, when Yunupingu assisted father Mungarrawuy and uncle Djalalingba in drafting the Yirrkala Bark Petitions. The petitions asserted customary law and native title rights over land, including a 360 square kilometre area over which the Menzies government had granted a commercial bauxite mining lease without consulting traditional Gumatj owners.
The historic barks feature traditional art surrounding text in both English and Yolngu and are considered the first traditional documents recognised by the federal parliament.
The Barunga Statement in Parliament House, Canberra.Credit: Andrew Taylor
Although ultimately unsuccessful in getting ancestral Yolngu land rights recognised by parliament or stopping the bauxite mine, the petitions led to legal action in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. That case, where Yunupingu served as a court interpreter, was the first in Commonwealth history in which First Nations people challenged mining company leases by asserting native title rights. The case, along with the barks, contributed to the establishment of the Whitlam government’s Woodward royal commission in 1973. Yunupingu served on the royal commission as an adviser, as the inquiry sought ways to recognise Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory.
Throughout the 1970s, Yunupingu joined other Yolngu leaders to lead the homelands movement in the Northern Territory, which involved small groups of Aboriginal people leaving larger, often mission-run, settlements and returning to their traditional lands.
A man of influence
In 1975, Yunupingu worked with then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser on what would become the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976. He was elected chairman of the Northern Land Council the following year, a position he would hold twice, for a total of 23 years, before retiring from the role in 2004.
He was named Australian of the Year in 1978 and was awarded an Order of Australia medal in 1985.
As chair of the Northern Land Council, Yunupingu handed the Barunga Statement to then-prime minister Bob Hawke in 1988. Three years later, the statement was officially welcomed into Parliament House with an unveiling that included Yunupingu giving a speech alongside Hawke.
The official event was Hawke’s last as prime minister. The Yirrkala Barks and the Barunga Statement remain permanently on exhibit in Parliament House today, occasionally to the dismay of Yunupingu himself.
In the early ’90s, Yunupingu was instrumental in the Eva Valley Statement, which stemmed from a meeting of around 400 First Nations leaders responding to the 1992 Mabo decision that overturned the terra nullius doctrine.
The statement called for veto rights over mining and pastoral leases on native-title land, acceptance that native title cannot be extinguished by leases, and a block on developers accessing Country without permission.
During this era, while serving as either chairman or board member of the Northern Land Council, Yunupingu drew criticism for his enterprising position on mining, employment and business development in Aboriginal communities, and for his perceived lavish lifestyle while clan neighbours and family members continued struggling financially.
In 1993, Yunupingu established the Yothu Yindi Foundation alongside other Yolngu leaders from five regional clan groups. During the ’90s he also continued practising his visual art, contributing to many of the early album covers by musical group Yothu Yindi.
In 1998, the National Trust of Australia named Yunupingu as one of its national living treasures. Before the decade ended, he also founded the Garma Festival with his brother, Dr M Yunupingu. It has since become the nation’s largest and most politically influential Indigenous gathering.
In the new millennium, Yunupingu became active in calling for constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. From 2007 he hosted prime ministers Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull at Yirrkala and Gulkula in north-east Arnhem Land.
In a 2016 essay titled Rom Watangu, Yunupingu wrote that Australia lacked a prime minister to lead and “complete” the task of reconciling the country to the truth, find unity and “achieve the settlement”.
“All the [p]rime [m]inisters I have known have been friendly to me, but I mark them all hard,” he wrote. “None of them has done what I asked, or delivered what they promised. I asked each one to be truthful and to honestly recognise the truth of history, and to reconcile that truth in a way that finds unity in the future. But they are who they are and they were not able or not permitted to complete their task.
“The leader of the nation should accept his or her commission and simply say what he or she thinks is right, and put that forward for the nation to correct, or to accept, or to reject. Let us have an honest answer from the Australian people to an honest question.”
‘Colossus as a leader’
In a 2019, he invited Australia’s first Indigenous minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ken Wyatt, to the opening of the four-day Garma festival.
There, Yunupingu again stressed the importance of unity through constitutional reforms to recognise First Nations, and expressed his ongoing frustrations with the ducking on commitment from Canberra.
“He asked me to bring my booka (kangaroo skin cloak) to Garma and had the Gumatj men take me down to the ceremonial area, and I was asked to lead the elders and the men out to the crowd for the opening ceremony. When I sat beside him, he said, ‘It’s good when our cultures come together’, and we sat side by side,” Wyatt told this masthead.
Yunupingu at the 2019 Garma Festival. He co-founded the annual gathering and regularly attended.Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation
“He then informed me that he was going to threaten to throw the Commonwealth Constitution into the Arafura Sea. That was his sort of humour, but he was also genuinely frustrated with successive prime ministers who had failed to deliver on constitutional recognition and many other matters that had remained unresolved.”
Wyatt said Yunupingu genuinely wanted to see long, sustained and substantial change that would leave a better future for future generations.
“He was a colossus as a leader. He was very considered, very wise. In my time as minister I always appreciated his counsel. His sage approach to outcomes were always more meaningful than symbolic. This was particularly the case when it came to his advocacy for local and regional self-determined models for Voice based on local community decisions – one size does not fit all.”
In 2019, Yunupingu also launched federal court action against the Commonwealth, alleging the 1968 acquisition of Gumatj native title rights for mining was unlawful.
As chair of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, he was outspoken about education and housing availability for Yolngu peoples, established a knowledge centre at Gulkula in 2014, struck a 99-year town lease for Gunyangara in 2017, and established the Gumatj-owned Gulkula bauxite mine in 2018 – the first Aboriginal-owned and operated commercial mine in Australia.
Last year, he oversaw the establishment of the Gulkula Space Base in partnership with NASA.
When the Albanese government committed to implementing an enshrined Indigenous Voice, Yunupingu questioned whether the latest prime minister was “serious”.
Yunupingu has been remembered as “a giant of the nation”.Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation
Two weeks ago, Yunupingu watched on as Albanese announced the final wording of the Voice referendum proposition and the cabinet’s proposed constitutional amendment. The PM called Yunupingu after the announcement, relaying what had occurred. Albanese’s words were translated by Yunupingu’s brother, Djawa, into Yolngu Matha. Yunupingu’s response was concise: “Manymak” – good, OK.
Binmila Yunupingu paid tribute to her father, saying his death was a profound loss to his family and community.
“Yunupingu lived his entire life on his land, surrounded by the sound of bilma (clapsticks), yidaki (didgeridoo) and the manikay (sacred song) and dhulang (sacred designs) of our people. He was born on our land, he lived all his life on our land and he died on our land secure in the knowledge that his life’s work was secure,” she said.
“He had friendship and loyalty to so many people, at all levels, from all places. Our father was driven by a vision for the future of this nation, his people’s place in the nation and the rightful place for Aboriginal people everywhere.
“In leaving us, we know that Dad’s loss will be felt in many hearts and minds. We ask you to mourn his passing in your own way, but we as a family encourage you to rejoice in the gift of his life and leadership. There will never be another like him.”
In a statement, the Yothu Yindi Foundation described Yunupingu as “a giant of the nation whose contribution to public life spanned seven decades”.
“He was first and foremost a leader of his people, whose welfare was his most pressing concern and responsibility,” the statement said.
Yunupingu is survived by a large family, including his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
- Yunupingu’s family have given permission for the use of his surname in this article, along with the photos that appear in the story.
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