Barunga Stories
Once again a work of Aboriginal art is at the
center of a controversy involving culture, politics, and
history.In the week following
Australia Day articles have appeared in the press, including
The Age and the
National Indigenous
Times, detailing Galarrwuy
Yunupingu’s call for the Federal government to return the painting known
as the Barunga Statement. He proposes to take the painting back to Barunga and
bury it in a larrakitj, the traditional log coffin, in a symbolic act that
proclaims the failure to achieve the goals set forth in the Statement's text,
and to symbolically bury the hopes of achieving a treaty between the government
and its indigenous
citizens.Serendipitously, I was
finishing up Andrew McMillan’s An
Intruder’s Guide to East Arnhem Land
(Duffy & Snellgrove, 2001) this week, which tells part of the story of the
Barunga panel’s painting that I had not heard before. The coincidence
prompts me to assemble the story
here.Like so much in the recent
history of relations between the Aboriginal people and the Australian
government, the roots of the Barunga Statement lie in the closing days of the
Whitlam government in 1975. At that time the Senate passed a resolution calling
for recognition of the prior ownership of the continent by the indigenous
population and legislation that would compensate them for the loss of their
country. The Aboriginal Treaty Committee, chaired by Nugget
Coombs, was established in 1979 and tried unsuccessfully to promote such
legislation. In 1983 the Committee was disbanded; in their final statements
they asserted their progress in influencing public opinion to support greater
recognition of the importance of addressing issues relating to indigenous
peoples and perhaps eliminating the need for the Treaty.
The shot to the heart, however, was
the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs' rejection of
the Treaty on the grounds that the Aboriginal people were not a sovereign
entity, and therefore could not be party to a treaty with the Commonwealth. And
there it lay, in shades of Justice Blackburn's reasoning in his decision on
Milirrpum v
Nabalco (that Australian constitutional law
did not recognize indigenous customary law), until the run up to the
Bicentennial celebrations, when Prime Minister Bob Hawke once again raised the
issue of negotiating a treaty.After
the bicentennial celebrations of January 1988 and the protests that accompanied
them in Sydney, there were politics aplenty in the air across the country and in
the Northern Territory in particular. In June, the various threads came
together at the Barunga Sports and Culture Festival. Barunga, which lies
southwest of Katherine, was known as the one festival among many where
Aboriginal culture received more than a perfunctory nod amidst footy
competitions and other sports events.
So it was perhaps most appropriate
that a group of men gathered together there to address issues of Aboriginal
culture and politics. Among the leaders present were Galarrwuy Yunupingu, then
chairman of the North Land Council, Mr Rubuntja (who passed away in 2005), his
opposite number in the Central Land Council, Prime Minister Hawke, and Minister
for Aboriginal Affairs Gerry Hand.The
Barunga Statement itself (see the full text below) was the product of several
years of negotiations between Galarrwuy and other indigenous leaders across
Australia. Taking inspiration from the Yirrkala Bark Petition created twenty
years earlier, the Statement took the form of a typed set of demands surrounded
by painted designs and affixed to a large (120 by 80 cm) piece of hardboard. It
called for compensation for lands that had been lost forever to Aboriginal
people coupled with a national framework for asserting and insuring Land Rights,
the fulfillment of the promise of self-determination, and full participation for
the indigenous population in the civic life of Australia, including economic,
social, and cultural rights.
The
painting combined several clan designs from Yolngu country in northeastern
Arnhem Land on the left with a large design featuring traditional Central Desert
iconography on the right. As such it visually affirmed the unified demands of
the indigenous people of the Northern Territory and the Land Councils that
represented the interests of those who had already attained the first measure of
self-management promised by the Land
Rights Act (NT)
1976.The
Barunga Statement was signed by the several representatives present, although,
despite Hawke’s signature, it did not represent a legally binding document
on the Federal Government. There is a sad irony to that fact once again, as
happened with the Yirrkala Bark Petition, the concepts of the white man's law
were used to invalidate the demands that black man's law be honored in
Australia. It is sadder still in that one of the points in the Statement calls
for a "justice system which recognises our customary
laws."What happened next, ironically,
was the eruption of a dispute about land rights—not between the indigenous
population and the government in Canberra, but in an intramural conflict that
led to dire predictions of “war” in Arnhem
Land.One section of the Yolngu portion
of the painting on the Barunga panel had been executed, apparently under
Galarrwuy’s direction, by a Munyuku man named Dhula Ngurruwuthun. The
design depicted
Barnggitj,
or bush honey, at a site sacred to the ancestor Wuyal. This land was the
traditional territory of the Manatja clan, which by 1988 was nearly extinct,
with only two elderly women representing the end of the
lineage.When such a situation occurs
in Yolngu country, responsibility for the land of the extinct clan is typically
taken over by another clan that stands in the proper relation to the dying clan
to have the requisite knowledge of the songs and designs of the country to
continue to perform the ceremonies of the country. By painting the design in
such a public manner, Dhula was in effect asserting the claim of the Munyuku to
the country.This action angered
Gawirrin Gumana, leader of the Dhalwangu clan, which is based at Gangan in
Yirritja country. Gangan is a site of almost supreme importance for the
Yirritja moiety, for it is from there that the creator ancestor Barama sent his
emissaries out across Yolngu country to instruct the Yirritja people in the true
Law. Gawirrin asserted his rights to the
Barnggitj
design; Dhula’s appropriation of it in such a public fashion was an insult
of the highest order.Gawirrin
expressed his outrage by claiming that the particular depiction of the
Barnggitj
design was an inside or sacred one, and that exposing it publicly in this
fashion threatened women and uninitiated men with the gravest dangers.
Furthermore, since Galarrwuy had sanctioned it use, and since Galarrwuy further
had been representing the Yolngu in his role as President of the Northern Land
Council, it was Galarrwuy and not the artist who bore ultimate responsibility
for the transgression.Under
traditional Law, the penalty for such a transgression was death, and with
feelings in the Yolngu community running high, by the end of September 1988
Galarrwuy had retreated to his island home of Butjumurru, where McMillan says
that he was protected by a spear-carrying guard of men standing watch on the
causeway that linked the island with the
mainland.To make matters worse, the
NT
News got into the act. As President of the
Northern Land Council, Galarrwuy was a natural target for those in the Territory
who were angered by what they perceived as a wholesale giveaway of the
Territory’s land to Aboriginal people. When they heard that death threats
were circulating, they made no attempt to conceal their delight, and splashed
the news in bold headlines across the front pages of the paper. This led to
further distress among the Yolngu, and prompted intervention by Roy Marika. Roy
was head of the Rirratjingu clan and the man who, through his leadership in the
Gove Land Dispute and the lawsuit against Nabalco that followed on the federal
government’s failure to respond to the Yirrkala Bark Petition, was widely
regarded among the Yolngu as the father of land rights in the Territory. In
Darwin, he made a public appeal to the media to stop discussing what was, after
all, a proper Yolngu matter and rightly no concern of theirs. It should come as
no surprise that this call went unheeded as
well.On September 24,YothuYindi,
performing in concert at the Festival of Aboriginal Rock Music in Darwin,
dedicated their songs to Galarrwuy, who had founded and directed the band.
Three days later a council of elders met at Galiwin’ku to discuss the
dispute and decide Galarrwuy’s fate. Perhaps recognizing that the
internal disagreement among the Yolngu threatened the broader issues of
indigenous self-determination in the North, the council exonerated Galarrwuy, a
decision that was announced with much excitement on ABC’s
7.30
Report.This
was not the end of the matter, however, and over a year later, Gawirrin was
still claiming that sacred inside designs were being publicly displayed, with
the Barunga Statement now in the collection of Parliament House in Canberra. To
quell this protest, Dhula Ngurruwuthun flew to Canberra and painted over the
offending design with another version of the story that was appropriate for
display to "outside" audiences. (From my reading of the description of the
original, it appears that the controversial section of the painting occupies the
middle of the left-hand side of the panel.) Doing so seems to have settled the
dispute in favor of the Dhalwangu.
Hawke, to his credit, and perhaps
acutely aware of the 1983 failure to realize the treaty, nonetheless decided to
pursue the goals put forth in the Barunga Statement. By early 1991 the legal
wrangling over the concept of a "treaty" was laid aside with the introduction of
the concept of an "instrument of reconciliation." Perhaps taking their cue from
the Aboriginal Treaty Committee's recognition that changes in attitudes were of
primary importance to the goals of social justice, the then incumbent Minister
for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert Tickner, noted that "the process of
reconciliation may be as important as the final outcome and the initial focus
would be on the process rather than on the document." (The full text of
Walking Together: the first steps
is available
online.)Now in 2006, the promise of
Barunga remains unfulfilled. The
National Indigenous
Times quotes Galarrwuy Yunupingu as saying,
“Sovereignty became treaty, treaty became reconciliation and
reconciliation became nothing. ... We will dig a hole and bury it. It will be a
protest but I also hope that it can represent a new start for Aboriginal
people.” The focus of the government seems to have reverted to the
documents rather than the process, and legalisms, "practical reconciliation,"
and empty words have won the day again.
NIT
reports that the Howard government has not
responded to Galarrwuy's request, although they quote Amanda Vanstone (at that
moment still occupying the post of Indigenous Affairs Minister) declining to
comment: “We’re not aware of any formal request besides what has
been made in the media, therefore there is no comment I can make.”
It this context it is worthwhile
considering Hawke's remarks as he finally hung the Barunga Statement in the new
Parliament House as his last official act, ten minutes before handing over the
government to Paul Keating.
When the Barunga Statement was presented to me in 1988 by [Rubuntja] and Galarrwuy I said something then that in retrospect seems a little prophetic. I said, my friends, that I would display the Barunga Statement in Parliament House and I quote myself - it’s not something you should do too often but I do it on this occasion - “that for whoever is Prime Minister of this country, not only to see, but to understand and also to honour”.
So it is indeed, I think, very, very fitting indeed that my last official act as Prime Minister is to hang the Statement in Parliament House.
This is no ordinary ceremony because what we are about is symbolising the commitment of my Government - and I have got ten minutes in which I can use that phrase. It symbolises the commitment of the Hawke Government to the indigenous people of Australia and its presence here calls on those, and let me emphasise this as strongly as I can, its presence here calls upon those who follow me, it demands of them that they continue efforts to find solutions to the problems, the abundant problems which still face the Aboriginal people of this country.
...And what we’ve got to understand is that, if you’re really serious in this country as you come to the end of this century, the first century of our existence as a nation, and you want proudly to take Australia into the 21st Century there is no chance that you’re going to be able to do that unless you do have a reconciliation.
...We’ve got from 1991 through to the end of this century. We have very good people amongst the Aboriginal people and amongst the non-Aboriginal Australian community who’ve said that they will commit themselves to the task of educating us all so that we will, on the part of the non-Aboriginal people without being silly about it - just simply accept the accumulated guilt that we must all bear for what has happened in the past but in having said that say, that is the basis upon which together we’ll go forward. And on the part of the Aboriginal people that will mean, because there are obligations on both sides, it will mean on the part of the Aboriginal people saying, yes we accept that you understand that we are truly a part of the total Australian nation and we accept your commitment to address the accumulated wrongs of the past. Now that’s all that’s involved. It’s not very difficult for decent people to do that. And there is, in my judgement, nothing more important than that should be done.
Vanstone's refusal to acknowledge the
demand for the return of the Barunga Statement, in one of
her
last acts as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, speaks to what the Howard
government has chosen "to understand and also to
honour."Text of the Barunga
StatementWe, the Indigenous owners
and occupiers of Australia, call on the Australian Government and people to
recognise our rights:• to
self-determination and self-management, including the freedom to pursue our own
economic, social, religious and cultural
development;• to permanent
control and enjoyment of our ancestral
lands;• to compensation for the
loss of use of our lands, there having been no extinction of original
title;• to protection of and
control of access to our sacred sites, sacred objects, artefacts, designs,
knowledge and works of art;• to
the return of the remains of our ancestors for burial in accordance with our
traditions;• to respect for and
promotion of our Aboriginal identity, including the cultural, linguistic,
religious and historical aspects, and including the right to be educated in our
own languages and in our own culture and
history;• in accordance with the
universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant on economic,
social and cultural rights, the international covenant on civil and political
rights, and the international convention on the elimination of all forms of
racial discrimination, rights to life, liberty, security of person, food,
clothing, housing, medical care, education and employment opportunities,
necessary social services and other basic
rights.We call on the Commonwealth to
pass laws providing:• A national
elected Aboriginal and Islander organisation to oversee Aboriginal and Islander
affairs;• A national system of
land rights;• A police and
justice system which recognises our customary laws and frees us from
discrimination and any activity which may threaten our identity or security,
interfere with our freedom of expression or association, or otherwise prevent
our full enjoyment and exercise of universally recognised human rights and
fundamental freedoms.We call on the
Australian Government to support Aborigines in the development of an
international declaration of principles for indigenous rights, leading to an
international covenant.And we call on
the Commonwealth Parliament to negotiate with us a Treaty recognising our prior
ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights
and freedom.
Posted: Wed - February 8, 2006 at 12:02 PM
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A collection of personal reflections and readings on the art of the indigenous people of Australia, their culture, anthropological studies, the art market, and whatever else strays across the cultural horizon.
If you don't wish to leave comments on the blog itself please fee free to contact me directly. Will Owen
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Published On: Jul 22, 2007 09:19 AM
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