The question is asked “What happens after 2 weeks?” Richard Trudgen and Nikunu Yunupingu discuss a lot of information about the immune system and white blood cells. This information is built on the Yolŋu worldview around their zoological knowledge. This is necessary so that people can see clearly how the immune system works and also how immunisation works.

Please share with your Yolŋu friends and family.

Yolŋu Matha language is spoken by the Indigenous peoples of north-east Arnhem Land, Australia. Our aim is to deliver accurate and in-depth information on a wide array of subjects to Yolŋu in their original Australian language.

The traditional worldview of Yolŋu means they want in-depth, science-based information in order to understand any new topic. This is what Yolŋu call the “dhuḏi-dhäwu” – the deep true story. This full series of videos attempts to answer some of their questions from a Yolŋu worldview, using their linguistic construction of knowledge.

Commonly asked Yolŋu questions about COVID-19 include understanding what a virus is, where it comes from (wäŋa), its shape/size/colour (ganda’), and how it is transmitted, reproduces and causes sickness (gakal).

Also in some communities, disease and sickness are thought to be caused by some form of sorcery, spiritual event or sickness country in the same way Europeans did before germs were discovered (for example the word “influenza” has its origins in “influence of the stars”).

Although germ theory is widely known and understood throughout most of mainstream Australia it has never been properly explained to most Yolŋu people.