Click here for the transcript.
Note: Due to lack of resources and time, the complete Yolngu Matha (ym) translation of this series has not been finalised. This translation is done at our own time and cost. Because of the important nature of this subject we will update this as soon as possible.
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In this podcast series, Maratja Dhamarrandji and Richard Trudgen discuss the ongoing confusion about who the real landowners are, and who are the TOs, as the Lands Council calls them, or the ‘Traditional Owners’. One of the big problems is mainstream Australians (Balanda) think Yolŋu law is just some little thing, rather than a very complex legal system full of its own witnesses, evidences and checks and balances. Even anthropologists do not understand the complexities of Yolŋu law, and some Yolŋu people don’t believe or understand it is Yolngu law that everyone should be following. So they ask Balanda lawyers from Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne etc., to tell them who the traditional landowners are, thinking it must be the Balanda who say who the TOs are.
Some Balanda genuinely want to help, but some are doing it for their own gain. They’re being paid money, so they want to believe they know the true story or say it’s the true story, but they don’t properly understand it. They only know what amounts to, as Maratja calls it, ‘a five minute job’, rather than ‘a lifetime job’. Yolŋu people should not rely on Balanda to tell them because, according to the Land Rights Act, Yolŋu have the authority and power. Yolŋu need to learn the English terms to be able to talk about their law in a way that Balanda can understand it. For example, they can’t just say we have Märi witnesses, they’ve got to say we have witnesses on the ‘grandmother’s people on the mother’s side’. And we have witnesses who are ‘the grandchildren and the mother’s people and the children that are born from those mothers’, meaning that across five clans there are witnesses to this land ownership, not just the clan who are the landowning clan.
This podcast series is vital for Yolŋu to understand the truth and complexities around Yolŋu law. And to learn the English terms in order to teach Balanda about it. If Yolŋu remain quiet, then the true story can’t come out. They need to say ‘hey, this is the true story, the true way of establishing evidence around land ownership’, and we all have to start telling that story together.
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Click here for the transcript.
Note: Due to lack of resources and time, the complete Yolngu Matha (ym) translation of this series has not been finalised. This translation is done at our own time and cost. Because of the important nature of this subject we will update this as soon as possible.
There are 4 Stories in this podcast. Please see time stamps below –
- Story No. 1 Search for consistency between laws over land ownership 00:00
- Story No. 2 Our relationship & landownership are the same 11:36
- Story No. 3 Lawyers now naming who are land owners 22:46
- Story No. 4 Some Yolngu now just after the money not following law 32:34
