Yunupingu trailblazing giant of Aboriginal land rights dies

The revered Elder and leader of the Gumatj clan was a master of the ceremonies and a keeper of the songlines of the Yolngu people.

Yunupingu at the Garma festival in 2019. Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation

A forefather of the land rights movement Yunupingu has passed away at his northeast Arhnem Land home in the Northern Territory aged 74.

Yunupingu died this morning after a long battle with illness.

The revered Yolngu Elder and leader of the Gumatj clan spent his last days surrounded by family, friends, and ceremony.

He dedicated his life to the land rights movement and improving the lives of his people.

His passing was announced in a statement by the Yothu Yindi Foundation.

Yunupingu as a young man.

“The Yothu Yindi Foundation mourns the passing of Gumatj leader, Yunupingu.”

“Yunupingu was a master of ceremonies and a keeper of the song lines of the Yolngu people. He held the deep backbone names of the country and the sacred knowledge of his people.

“His totems were fire, rock and baru (saltwater crocodile) and his name means the sacred rock that stands against time.

“He starts his journey now to be reunited with his fathers and his kin, who await him in the earth of his sacred Gumatj country.”

Born on June 30, 1948 Yunupingu grew up around the small community of Yirrkala, 18 kilometres from the Northern Territory mining town of Nhulunbuy where he attended the community mission school.

He was just a teenager when destiny beckoned.

Vast reserves of bauxite, a rock rich in aluminium, were discovered on the Gove Peninsula, and in 1963 the Australian Government sold off hundreds of square kilometres of land without consulting the Yolngu people.

Yunupingu with Anthony Albanese at Garma 2022. Credit: Melanie Faith Dove/Yothu Yindi Foundation

The mining rights went to a company called Nabalco which was formed to exploit the reserves.

Enraged by the selloff Yunupingu’s father Mungarrawuy and his uncle, Djalalingba Yunupingu asked him to help draft the Yirrkala Bark petitions, considered to be the founding documents of the Aboriginal land rights movement.

Written in the language of the region, Yolngu Matha and in English, the petitions asserted Aboriginal ownership over the land.

Yunupingu viewing the Yirrkala Bark petitions with Silas Roberts in 1976.

They were the first traditional documents recognised by the Australian Parliament and the first documentary recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law.

In 1966 Yunupingu was sent to a Methodist bible college in Brisbane for two years to complete his education.

In a personal essay entitled Rom Watangu – My Backbone - published in the July issue of The Monthly in 2016 Yunupingu recalled his time in the Queensland capital.

“Sent to Brisbane for a purpose, and that purpose was to arm ourselves with knowledge and education for the future: not just for ourselves but also for our people. And that was a lifelong commission.”

Yunupingu with Gumatj boys at Garma. Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation

He returned home to join his father and acted as an interpreter in the landmark “Gove land rights” case against Nabalco in the NT Supreme Court – it was the first time the idea of native title was argued in court.

While the Yolngu lost the case in 1971, he had become a land rights leader in his own right, joining the Northern Land Council he became an advisor to Sir Edward Woodward in the Whitlam Government’s Royal Commission into Land Rights in the Northern Territory.

In 1976 the Northern Territory Land Rights act was passed by the Federal Parliament becoming the first attempt by any Australian Government to legally recognise Aboriginal ownership over land.

More than half of the Northern Territory has been handed back to its traditional owners under this Act providing freehold title to land and allowing Aboriginal Territorians to maintain and re-establish cultural identity by establishing out stations on ancestral Country.

Yunupingu with Djunga Djunga Yunupingu and Balupalu Yunupingu at Garma in 2019. Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation

The Yothu Yindi Foundation described Yunupingu as, “a pioneer of the Land Rights movement and Aboriginal rights more broadly, he spoke for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people when they were voiceless, working with leaders from throughout the country to return Indigenous people to their rightful place.”

With Yolngu leaders, Yunupingu led the revival of the homeland’s movement in the 1970s and the emergence of the land rights movement throughout Australia.”

In 1977 Yunupingu was elected the first chairman of the Northern Land Council where he headed up negotiations for the establishment of the ranger uranium mine in Kakadu.

Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton with Yunupingu at Garma in 2018. Credit: Melanie Faith Dove/ Yothu Yindi Foundation

A year later the Northern Territory attained Self-Government and a conservative Country Liberal Party led by Paul Everingham came to power.

Hard-won rights were under threat, placing Yunupingu and the new government of the NT on a collision course to conflict that lasted decades.

Yunupingu in his 2016 essay said:

It was disgraceful and wrong but attack us the Northern Territory Government did. Year after year they ran legal cases against us, trying to stop the important work we were doing in the land councils. And when we defended ourselves, when we fought back, they punished us in different ways. There were reductions in services to our communities, the taking away or withholding of the services that had been entrusted by the Commonwealth – by the people of Australia – to the new Northern Territory Government to rightly deliver to us.

In 1978 Yunupingu was recognised for his devotion to Aboriginal rights and given one of the nation’s highest honours - Australian of the Year.

In accepting the award, he delivered one his most famous quotes: “We are at last being recognised as the Indigenous people of this country who must share in its future.’

A big man with a broad grin and a sharp wit he also described how the prestige of such an award might help him in future negotiations.

‘Governments and mining companies don’t normally deal with just any ratbags and radicals.’

In 1988, Yunupingu co-signed the famous Barunga Statement - a series of painted documents from the Northern and Central land councils.

The Barunga Statement meeting with Bob Hawke. Source: Supplied / Ronin Films

The statement was the culmination of years of engagement and discussion between Aboriginal groups and the Australian Government.

It was presented to then Prime Minister Bob Hawke at the Barunga sport and cultural festival held on Jawoyn Country south of Katherine.

The statement called for aboriginal self-determination, a national system of land rights, and an end to discrimination.

Bob Hawke co-signed the statement and set a deadline for a treaty at the end of 1990, no such document has ever been signed, and the moment was immortalised in Yothu Yindi’s smash hit anthem “Treaty”

Yunupingu continued to negotiate with national governments over their response to the landmark Mabo high court decision and in 1993 presented the Eva Valley Statement to Prime Minister Paul Keating calling for Commonwealth legislation and a Native Title Act.

In 2004 he retired as Northern Land Council Chair and stepped away from the national spotlight but returned to speak out against the federal intervention when the army was sent into Northern Territory aboriginal communities by the Howard Government in 2007.

“He met Prime Minister Robert Menzies with his father in the 1960’s when Cabinet met to announce the Gove Bauxite Mine and dealt personally with every Prime Minister since Whitlam.

Yunupingu with Bob Hawke at Garma in 2014. Credit: Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation

Many promises were made, but none were delivered in full. As a sovereign man of his clan nation, he was left disappointed by them all.”

With his brother the late Dr M Yunupingu, the enigmatic frontman of Yothu Yindi, he started the Yothu Yindu Foundation and the Garma Festival.

Held over three days it’s the biggest aboriginal cultural showcase in Australia and attracts Prime Ministers, industry leaders and everyday Australians alike.

He continued to fight for a greater say over mining and set up Australia’s first Aboriginal owned and run bauxite mine.

Always with an eye on the future, he also established the Gulkula space station in partnership with NASA where a number of rockets were launched last year.

Yunupingu was there when Australia’s latest Prime Minister Anthony Albanese chose Garma to unveil his plans for a voice to parliament.

He also watched the recent press conference when an emotional Anthony Albanese announced the question that will put to Australians at the referendum - the prime minister rang Yunupingu later that day.

“In 2022 he responded to Prime Minister Albanese’s commitment to the Voice asking whether his commitment was “serious”. He was told it was. This promise has been kept.”

Many weeks of mourning are expected to continue as clans from across the Arnhem Land region gather to honour one of the greats of the land rights movement.

In a statement, the Yothu Yindi Foundation said:

"He lived and died in the arms of his family, and they in his arms. He is Yolngu first and Yolngu forever... Always in our hearts. Rest in peace."