Yolngu (or Yolŋu), IPA: , are indigenous people living in the North-East of the Ground of Arnhem in the Territoire of North of the Australia. Yolngu litéralement means “people” in the spoken language by the people.

Yolngu culture

This culture is among the oldest cultures having existed on Earth, with more than 40.000 years of history. It succeeded in being maintained thanks to the fact that they came into contact with Europeans only tardily.

Laws

The complete system of Loi S Yolngu is called the Madayin - a word for which there is no literal translation.

The Madayin represents the whole of the rights of the owners of the law, or the Citoyen S ( Romanian watangu walal ) which have rights and duties. Madayin includes all the laws related to the people ( Romanian ), the instruments and the objects which code and symbolize the law ( Madayin girri ), the precepts oral, the names and the cycles of Chanson S, the crowned places ( dhuyu nunggat wa: nga ) which is employed in maintenance, the education and the development of the laws.

This law deals with the property of the grounds and water, as well as resources. It regulates and orders the production and the Commerce, the moral law , Social E and religious including/understanding laws for the conservation and the exploitation of the fauna, the Flore and the aquatic life.

Yolŋu believe that if they live in agreement with Madayin, it is about a manner right and civilized to live their life. Madayin creates the state of Magaya , which is a state of Paix, of Liberté and Justice all.

The system of relationships

The Yolŋu groups are connected by a complex system of Parenté ( gurrurtu ). This system control surface fundamental aspects of the life, of which responsibilities for the Ceremony S and the rules for Marriage.

The life Yolŋu breaks up according to two large descents: the Dhuwa and the Yirritja . Each family is represented by the people of various tribes, having each one a territory, a language, totems and philosophies different.

A person Yirritja can marry only a Dhuwa and conversely. If a man or a woman is Dhuwa , then his/her mother will be necessarily Yirritja .

The relations of relationship also take shape on the territories by the means of the hereditary Patrimoine . Thus any thing - each fish, each stone, each river, etc… - belongs either to the Yirritja , or with the Dhuwa .

Proscribed relations

As in almost all the indigenous groups, they exist relations proscribed in the Yolngu culture. The two principal taboos relate to the relations:

son-in-law - mother-in-law

brother - sister

After the initiation of the young boy, the brothers and sisters start to avoid themselves, it is the mirriri . In this type of proscribed relation, the people concerned do not speak each other directly, do not look at themselves and avoid found in the too great vicinity of the other. There exist other relations proscribed like, for example, the relations between of the same people sex, but they are of less importance compared to the two preceding ones.

The language

Yolngu speak a dozen about Dialecte S belonging to the same linguistic group called Yolngu Matha . According to the tribe, English constitutes only the third or it tenth language the most spoken by Yolŋu.

Seasons

Yolngu have six Saison S different: Mirdawarr , Dhaarratharramirri , Rarranhdharr , Worlmamirri , Baarra' mirri and Gurnmul (or Waltjarnmirri ).

History

Pre-European history

Yolngu maintained commercial good relationships with the fishermen Makassar S during several hundred years. Makassars respected the Yolngu territories while in particular avoiding camping on the beaches and by prohibiting any contact with the Yolngu women. They paid annual visits to collect cucumbers of sea and Perle S, by paying Yolngu in kind with goods such as knives, metals, Canoë S, Tabac and Pipe S.

In 1906, the government of South Australia did not renew the license granted to Makassars for the harvest of cucumber of sea. This commercial interruption because of as much more disturbances at Yolngu than they were not with the current of this decision.

Yolngu had trade route established well within Australia, being prolonged to the clans of South Australia and with the other aboriginals. (For example, they did not manufacture boomerangs, but obtained them via the trade with central Australia.

These contacts were maintained by the use of sticks of messages, as well as dispach riders - with men traversing several hundred kilometers to send messages and to relay the orders between the various tribes or nations aboriginals.

First contacts with Europeans

Yolngu knew the existence of Europeans before the arrival of the British , by the means of their contacts with the merchants Makassar S, around the 16th century. Their word to designate an European, Balanda , comes from " Hollaender" (a Dutch).

XIXe century

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Australian white started to use the Ground of Arnhem for the cattle. A series of Battle S between Yolngu and Balanda took place then at the time. Yolngu were indisputably more Guerrier S because, following the example other tribes aboriginals, they had already had to defend their shores of north during hundreds (even of the thousands) of years.

There was also a whole series of Massacre S. One can in particular raise the two principal ones: the first took seat with Florida Station, in 1885, when of Yolngu were poisoned by eating meat of horse, in reprisal to have killed and eaten cattle. Indeed, according to their law, Madayin , it acted of their territory and they thus had the inalienable right eat the animals being there. A second incident proceeded around 1895. Some Yolngu had taken a piece of barbed Fil on an enormous reel, in order to manufacture Harpon S. the men, the women and the children were pursued by the assembled Police and of the riders of the " Eastern and African Cold Storage Company " before being shot.

XXe century

In 1932, certain fishermen Japanese of Holothurie S were transpierced by arrows yolngu after their mother were allegedly violated by Japanese. With the difference of the Makassar S, Japanese did not show the same respect with regard to the yolngu. This event is known under the name of crisis of Bay of Caledon. Several Yolngu were imprisoned in Fannie Bay Jail, current the Darwin.

The Australian government feared that this business can create bad international relations (it was before the Second world war). In certain districts, there were calls “to give a good lesson to the blacks”, in other words, to make beaten in the search of men, women and children to shoot them. It was about a rather current practice in Australia, at the 19th century (with in particular the massacres of Coniston, Myall Creek and Gippsland).

However, Donald Thomson, a young person Anthropologist, could avoid all this while going to live with Yolngu and while making sure of the facts of the business (ironically, the prisoners were released for legal flaw, and not these fact). Thomson lived with Yolngu during several years and carried out some excellent Photographie S and accounts of their lifestyle. These documents proved to be of historical importance at the same time pours Yolngu and Europeans of Australia.

In 1935, with all this publicity, a mission Méthodiste is installed on the territory of Arnhem Land.

In 1941, during the Second world war, Donald Thomson persuaded the Australian Armée to establish an special unit of Reconnaissance (NTSRU), composed of Yolngu, to help to push back the Japanese incursions on the northern littoral of Australia. Contacts took place between Yolngu and the Australian troops and American, to the great displeasure of Thomson which had tried to avoid it. It pays in particular how the soldiers often tried to obtain Lance S Yolngu like memories. These lances were essential with the life of Yolngu and that took several days to manufacture them and forge them.

More recently, Yolngu were seen imposing the construction of large mine S on their tribal grounds, with Nhulunbuy.

Yolngu in policy

Since the years 1960, the Yolngu chiefs were remarkable in the fight for the territorial rights of the aboriginals.

In 1963, caused by a unilateral decision of the government to annex part of their grounds to work a mine of Bauxite, Yolngu de Yirrkala sent a petition to the Australian room of the representatives. The petition drew the attention national and international and is from now on in the Room of the Parliament, with Canberra, thus testifying to the role of Yolngu in the birth of the movement for the recognition of the territories aboriginal.

As the politicians showed clearly that they did not hope to change opinion, Yolngu de Yirrkala carried their complaints near the courts in 1971, at the time of the business Milirrpum against Nabalco Pty Ltd . Yolngu nevertheless lost this business because short Australian were still favorable for it to the principle of Terra nullius . This principle did not take account of the rights former to colonization, of the aboriginals on their territories. However, the judge recognized that the plaintiffs could continue to use the grounds for their ritual and at economic ends, but also that they had already a clean legal system, thus posing the bases of the future territorial rights of the aboriginals.

The song Treaty of Yothu Yindi, which became an international tube in 1989, shows the attachment of Yolngu to the cause of the reconciliation, the territorial rights and the desire of a broader recognition of their culture and their law.

Yolngu arts

The artists and the Yolngu interpreters were in the forefront concerning the recognition of the culture aboriginal and the islanders Torres Strait. The traditional dancers and musicians played in the whole world and had an important influence on contemporary troops, such as the theater of Bangara dance.

Visual art

Before the emergence of the artistic movement in the Western desert, the indigenous art most known was the Yolngu style with its paintings in fine hatchings on barks.

Artists, such as David Malangi Daymirringu, are famous for their work. The work of Malangi appears on the original Billet Australian dollar. The Australian government at the time had used its work without its approval, nor even without informing it. Nevertheless, they tried to regularize the situation later by remunerating Malangi several years.

The hollow logs ( larrakitj ), used at the time of the burials on the territory of Arnhem Land, pursue an important spiritual goal and are also the principal screen of art Yolngu (see the image at the beginning of the article), just as the yidaki/didgeridoo (see below).

Yolngu are also Masters in the art of weaving. They weave sheets of Pandanus which they have dyed to make of the Panier S. They also manufacture Collier S starting from Perle S made of Graine S, of Vertèbre S of fish or Coquillage S.

Art Yongu often takes the form of stories on the creation or the traditional culture of the trade.

The colors are also important in the determination of the origin of artistic work, in particular on the level of the clan or the family which carried it out. Certain drawings and reasons are indeed distinctive of some families or Clan S private individuals.

Music

The Ground of Arnhem is the territory of origin of the yidaki , that Europeans usually call the Didgeridoo. Yolngu became Masters in the art of the manufacture and the music of the yidaki. It can be played only by certain people and there exists traditionally a strict protocol governing its use.

At present, the group Yothu Yindi is an indigenous group of music to success.

Yolngu famous

Among some Yolngu famous, one finds: the indigenous leaders Gatjil Djerrkura and George Rrurrambu, the artist David Malangi, the actor and dancer David Gulpilil, the player of universally known Didgeridoo Djalu Gurruwiwi, the musicians George Rrurrambu and Mandawuy Yunupingu…

Garma festival

Each year, Yolngu gather to celebrate their culture, at the time of the " Darma Festival of the Traditional Cultures ". This festival is opened with all, even with the non-Yolngu, to take part and discover the traditions and the Yolngu laws. This festival is organized by the Foundation Yothu Yindi.

Ethnographic studies

A study of the Deakin University is leaning on the systems of knowledge aboriginal in reaction to the Western ethnocentrism. They advance the fact that the Yolngu culture is a system of knowledge which differs from many ways to that of the Occidental culture. It could be described as a vision of a world like a whole, rather than like a juxtaposition of distinct objects. " Singing the Land, Signing the Land " , of Watson and Chambers, explores the relation between Yolngu knowledge and Western, while making use of the Yolngu idea of the ganma . It is about a metaphor describing two currents: one coming from the grounds (Yolngu knowledge) and the other, of the sea (knowledge of the Occident), which mix in such a way that “the forces of the currents combine and lead to a better comprehension of the truth”.

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