Testimonies of Yanyuwa Law and Kincentric Order

Abstract

In this chapter we present a demonstration of Indigenous Law in practice at a local level, a detailed account of an oral testimony given by Yanyuwa elder Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru (Old Arthur). This example demonstrates how key individuals within the Yanyuwa community would come together to make collectively agreed-upon decisions, in alignment with the practice and continuation of Law. The story as outlined in this chapter was shared with one of the authors (Bradley) by Old Arthur himself, at the request of his niece, and co-author Annie a-Karrakayny, a senior Yanyuwa Law woman. The testimony relates to matters of the Dreaming, kinship, succession, land and sea rights and political decision-making processes. In the first part of this chapter, we present this account of Law piece by piece, first in Yanyuwa language and then in translated English.

This chapter shows the many ways in which Law has complexity. This is a vision of Indigenous cultures and their Laws as highly adept at accommodating, resisting and negotiating internal pressures, but even more so the external pressures that distinguish settler colonial and Indigenous relations.

In this chapter we present a demonstration of Indigenous Law in practice at a local level, a detailed account of an oral testimony given by Yanyuwa elder Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru (Old Arthur). This was shared with one of the authors (Bradley) by Old Arthur himself, at the request of his niece, and co-author Annie a-Karrakayny, a senior Yanyuwa Law woman and her classificatory mother’s brother Old Tim Timothy Rakawurlma (Old Tim Rakawurlma). Old Arthur was Annie’s ‘full’ mother’s brother (kardirdi) (that is, her mother and Old Arthur were direct siblings, by blood), an important relationship often linked to the sharing of knowledge and mentoring in Law. This occurred as part of the process of Old Arthur explaining and stating his rights to, and political oversight for, particular parts of Yanyuwa Country. The testimony relates to matters of the Dreaming, kinship, succession, land and sea rights and political decision-making processes. In the first part of this chapter, we present this account of Law piece by piece, first in Yanyuwa language and then in translated English.

In the second part of the chapter, we engage with a retelling of this oral testimony by a younger Yanyuwa man Philip Timothy Narnungawurruwurru in 2000. This occurred in the context of a land claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Australian Government 1976), again at the urging of Annie a-Karrakayny (who Philip called ardiyardi—niece). Confronted with having to provide evidence to the Federal Court of Australia in the course of this legislative land claim, Philip had the responsibility to retell Old Arthur’s story in order to reinforce continuing relationships, and to perform a public and political act aimed at asserting his, and more broadly Yanyuwa, kincentric rights to Country. This event was stressful and stands to illustrate the tensions that often exist between Indigenous Law and western law. This case demonstrates that Australian Commonwealth Law stands to challenge matters of orality and thus the legitimacy and maintenance of Indigenous Law (Kearney 2022). The event of a land claim compels a deeper discussion of the communal pressures and challenges which emerge over time for Indigenous practitioners of Law.

Old Arthur was Phillip’s classificatory paternal grandfather—murimuri, a formal kinship term given to the older brothers of one’s actual or classificatory paternal grandfather. These two men shared a wunyingu—bush name, Narnungawurruwurru,¹ and both were of the Rrumburriya clan and thus shared Law. Let us start by painting a picture of Old Arthur’s life and, drawing on the explanation of Yanyuwa kinship and Country presented in the previous chapter, explain the socio-cultural context in which he told this account of the Law.

Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru

Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru was born on Vanderlin Island in the early 1900s (see Fig. 3.1). His father Lithi was the senior ngimirringki for North Island, Centre Island, Skull Island and the Black and White Craggy Islands. This group of islands and sea Country are known by the overarching name of Barranyi. Old Arthur’s ardirri (spirit child) came from Winalamba, a very important site on the central west coast of North Island. Oral tradition speaks of his father Lithi being called Bujarinja (the Bushranger) because he never came into the township of Borroloola; he remained on the islands, despite the colonial pressures to relocate. Lithi’s canoe was called a-Jawarndima (the lying one) because Lithi would often say he would follow people into Borroloola but he would never come (Steve Johnston, in conversation with Bradley 1987).² Old Arthur’s mother was a-Walwalmara, a Wurdaliya woman from Country to the south and south east of Vanderlin Island. His sister was Darby a-Muluwamara the mother of Annie a-Karrakayny.

Fig. 3.1

Senior Yanyuwa man Old Arthur Narnugawurruwurru, with warnu (chewing tobacco) at Doomadgee, in Queensland, northern Australia (Photograph: David Trigger c.1980). Warnu is the Yanyuwa language term for a ball of chewing tobacco that is mixed with the ash of bark from the Coolibah tree – ma-warlan. The ash itself is called ma-mungkul, and when added to the tobacco reduces its pH levels, thus increasing absorption, whilst also adding a distinctive taste. Martin and Trigger (2015: 284) note that in Garrwa the term for a ball of chewing tobacco is Bundija

Old Arthur went through his first initiation at a place called Liwurriya on the western side of the Wearyan River, to the far east of Borroloola, where the present day Manankurra pastoral station is located. He went through the higher-level initiation ceremonies of a-Kunabibi and Kundawira in the same area. During his youth he moved through the coastal area of the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, traveling with family as they worked on pastoral properties across the region. It was during this time he met his wife Emily Peter, a Garrwa woman whose Country was the area around the mouth of the Calvert River.

Garrwa is a language group whose Country is located to the east of Yanyuwa Country. Old Arthur and Emily continued to move eastwards towards the Queensland border staying for a while on Wollogorang Station. They moved into Queensland and family oral tradition has it that Old Arthur was critical to helping establish Old Doomadgee (Dumaji) Mission at Bailey Point in 1933 and then the subsequent moving of this Mission in 1936 to its present location on the Nicholson River (Akehurst 2006). This mission run by the Open Brethren became home to large numbers of Garrwa, Waanyi and Ganggalida people and some Yanyuwa men, who like Old Arthur had married into Garrwa families. Domadgee is 400 kilometres southeast of Borroloola, in Queensland. Old Arthur was to spend the majority of the rest of his life at Doomadgee.³ In Doomadgee he was known as Big Arthur.

Due to protection policies that were in place in the state of Queensland at that time, Old Arthur was unable to return to his home Country in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, and the township of Borroloola for over 50 years (see Trigger 1992).⁴ It was only in 1980 that he came to return to Borroloola, travelling in the company of anthropologist David Trigger. He came to Borroloola to visit his family, including Annie a-Karrakayny, his classificatory brother Old Tim Rakawurlma and other family members, who he had not seen for many years. At this time, Annie mentioned to John Bradley (author), who lived in Borroloola and worked closely with families as a local school teacher, that Old Arthur was a man who held many important stories. In 1981 Old Arthur again travelled back to Borroloola from Doomadgee, this time accompanied by his nephew Graham Friday Dimanyurru. Graham’s mother Larrlya was a classificatory sister of Old Arthur. Travelling with Old Arthur at this time was his oldest son Keith Arthur Burrayi. Old Tim Rakawurlma had told Graham to bring Old Arthur across to Borroloola to be present for the a-Kunabibi ceremony which was to soon commence.⁵ He was intended to stay for the entire ceremony which was approximately three and half months; however, Bradley was later informed by co-authors Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi and Annie a-Karrakayny, as well as senior Yanyuwa woman Eileen McDinny a-Manankurrmara that Old Arthur would not be able to stay for the duration of the full ceremony. He had thus given permission to a group of Rrumburriya clansmen, with close kinship bonds to Vanderlin Island, to perform the rituals on his behalf, and for his specific Country of North Island, Centre Island and Black and White Craggy Islands.

The Rrumburriya clan of Yanyuwa families comprise two distinct patrilineal groups. While these two patrilineal family groups consider themselves to be of the same Yanyuwa Rrumburriya clan overall, they are distinct from one another in that they hold ancestral ties to distinct areas of Rrumburriya territory within Yanyuwa Country. On the one hand, there is the ‘island Rrumburriya’ patrilineal group to which Old Arthur belonged associated with the island Country described as—North, Centre, Black Graggy and White Craggy Islands. On the other hand, there is the ‘mainland/Vanderlin Island Rrumburriya’ patrilineal group to which Old Tim Rakawurlma belonged, associated with Vanderlin Island and Rrumburriya Country in the vicinity of Borroloola. The island Rrumburriya group has ties to important sites associated with the White-bellied Sea Eagle Dreaming, while the mainland/Vanderlin Island Rrumburriya group has ties to important sites associated with the Tiger Shark Dreaming. However, both groups find a point of unity in their mutual association with the Dugong Hunter Dreaming Ancestors, whose journey crosses through all Rrumburriya island Country (see Bradley with Yanyuwa Families 2022). In addition, the Tiger Shark songline (kujika) that travels from Manankurra on the mainland northward to Walala (Lake Eames) on Vanderlin Island is also shared between these two distinct Rrumburriya patrilineal groups.

Over the years in the absence of the Arthur family from Borroloola, it was Old Tim Rakawurlma’s family who had taken responsibility for the management of all Rrumburriya Country on the islands and all ceremony associated with it. However, in 1981 senior Yanyuwa men were insistent that Old Arthur and his sons return for ceremonial duties and perform the necessary rituals.

During this time at Borroloola (1980/1981) issues surrounding the partial success of the 1976 Yanyuwa land claim were still being discussed. Integral to many of these discussions was Annie a-Karrakayny, who had been left extremely disappointed by the legislative land claim process. She had been denied the opportunity to give evidence as a woman claimant, with only male claimants being invited to give testimonies to the court. Further, while the Rrumburriya Country of Vanderlin Island had been granted Aboriginal title by the Federal Land Commissioner Justice Toohey (1979), Annie’s mother’s Rrumburriya Country on North and Centre Islands had not been granted. People felt that their land had been split and broken apart by Justice Toohey’s decision, and there was much discussion about how these things might be remedied. At the core of these discussions was the right of the island Rrumburriya group to be also able to speak for mainland Rrumburriya Country in the vicinity of Borroloola (see Fig. 3.2). There was emerging debate amongst Rrumburriya clan members and Rrumburriya people associated with Borroloola as to who had the right to claim this part of Country. The land claim process generally had bolstered the island Rrumburriya group’s position at the expense of the mainland/Vanderlin Island Rrumburriya group, partly fuelled by the legislative process through which evidence is documented and decisions made, by lawyers, barristers, land councils and anthropologists, about who can talk for which parts of Country. The outcome also often reflects who has the whitefella political acumen to garner the greater attention of the lawyers, anthropologists and other ‘experts’ throughout this process. This contention set into play a political ruckus around Rrumburriya clan Country, and rights to assert ownership over the islands in the north of Yanyuwa Country (including North and Vanderlin Islands) and the mainland Rrumburriya Country at Borroloola.

Fig. 3.2

Map showing details of Rrumburriya clan Country

For Annie, the return of her kardirdi Old Arthur to Borroloola had provided her with the opportunity to seek out knowledge about the Law for the Country for which she was jungkayi and from which she had been denied full restitution under the land claim. Deeply incensed by this situation she sought to ‘straighten up’ the Law by asking this old man to tell the story of succession as it related to mainland and island parts of Rrumburriya Country. Annie sought clarification on the events that had transpired to ensure that certain families, linked to particular lineages of Rrumuburriya clan Country, had come to be the rightful claimants to areas of island and mainland Country. More specifically she sought to learn the Law behind how island people had come to hold authority over mainland Rrumburriya parts of Country including Borroloola and parts of the McArthur River downstream. She knew the story in brief, but she and her mother’s brother’s son (marruwarra) Johnson Timothy and Whylo McKinnon wanted to know the details of how these events came to be. Further Old Tim Rakawurlma was not comfortable in telling this story without the presence of Old Arthur. This was in part due to whispers of gossip that certain island Rrumburriya people were taking over mainland Rrumburriya Country to which it was perceived they had no right, that they were “just putting themselves in” and thus “making a troubled Country”. This rumour still prevails in Borroloola today and remains a catalyst for flair ups of tension in this community from time to time. Legislative land rights processes are known to have ‘buggered up’ (confused) the story for many parts of Yanyuwa Country (and are known to have had the same impact on the Country and Law of other Aboriginal claimant groups), and this exercise in iterating the Law was designed to straighten things up. This was how Law was always practised by old people and illustrates the political nature of Law, and its vitality as expressed through orality and kinship.

Old Arthur Narnungawurruwurru’s Telling of Yanyuwa Law

One evening at Old Tim Rakawurlma’s home, Old Arthur arrived with Annie and other family members to tell this story. Annie had invited John Bradley to record Old Arthur’s story, having grown increasingly mindful of the power of ‘writing things down’, in the aftermath of the land claim. At the time, Annie told Bradley that “whitefellas will never hold this Law”, meaning that the white people who had made a mess of the Law through the land rights system could never understand what Old Arthur was about to say. Old Tim Rakawurlma was a classificatory brother to Old Arthur, and both men had been present at the events that lead to a group of island Rrumburriya people being brought in to be responsible for mainland Rrumburriya Country. In regard to the narrative that Old Arthur would share on this occasion, it is distinct in terms of the Yanyuwa language term given to this speech act. It was not described using the Yanyuwa verbs ‘to talk’ or ‘to tell’, rather the word wirajkalmantharra was used on this occasion. This is a very particular expression that is used when a specific kind of knowledge is to be transmitted. It is the kind of language used to describe instances when people would be given instruction in how a ceremony must be performed, or when talking about the path of songline. Wirajkalmantharra could be described as the verb that is used when matters of Law need to be told or narrated.

As Old Arthur told the story of how these relationships and bonds came to be, his words were affirmed by both Old Tim Rakawurlma and other senior men who had specific links to mainland Rrumburriya Country, Old Borroloola Willy Mundumundumara and Old Gordon Lansen Milyindirri.⁶ Both of these men were classificatory brothers to Old Tim Rakawurlma and Old Arthur, and in attendance on the evening this story was recorded. At a later date, Annie described the actions of her kardidi, Old Arthur as “keeping the Law straight”,

…he [Old Arthur] knew what was happening, everything was changing, but there still have to be boss for Country. That ceremony now (Kundawira) from the islands, made sure, there would also be boss. That ceremony now and that other one (Kunumbu) from this place Borroloola made sure everything was made straight, we have to remember that.

The two ceremonies mentioned here by Annie, the Kundawira and Kunumbu, are both high-level sacred ceremonies of the Rrumburriya clan. Kundawira is associated with the lineage of Rrrumburriya clan people that trace kinship to the White-bellied Sea Eagle Dreaming Ancestor and Dugong Hunter Dreaming Ancestors of the islands, and Kunumbu is associated with the mainland Rrumburriya clan people who share kinship with the Hill Kangaroo Dreaming Ancestor in the vicinity of the immediate Borroloola area.

The scope and reach of Old Arthur’s narration on that evening was extensive and detailed, as perhaps it needed to be, for it was a long time since these matters had been discussed so publicly. It was also a demonstration of how actions firmly fixed in past actions of Law continued to be important in the present moment. Old Arthur’s words convey a deeply held conviction of kincentric orientation; of ancestral Law, ceremonial potency, place empiricism and responsiveness to change. A thread that runs through the narrative is one which bonds the politics and authority of naming persons, naming of places in Country, and demarcating relationships between people and place as a mechanism by which individuals and groups are included and excluded.

Old Arthur reaches out to all manner of presences in the Yanyuwa lifeworld, to bring them into line with this thread of Law. This very act pulls together a tightly woven fabric of interacting elements. With his testimony became a legacy which continues to infuse political decision-making among Yanyuwa families, the granting of permissions and access to Country and the authority to speak about Country. In fact, the story of Old Arthur’s testimony re-emerged as a point of community discussion in 2019, 2020 and 2021 due to the ongoing tension between some Rrumburriya families as to the rightful owners of island and mainland Country. These tensions reignite each time a senior Rrumburriya person passes away, and became revived in recent Facebook posts which triggered aggravation and disputes among some Rrumburriya people living in Borroloola. The need to assert and reiterate the Law through the telling of Old Arthur’s narrative is made clear time and again in Borroloola. So let us now then turn to Old Arthur’s narrative of Rrumburriya clan Country and learn how island people became bosses for mainland Country, through an artful interpretation of Law and political decision-making among senior Law holders.

We present each passage of this testimony in the original Yanyuwa text and then follow with its translation into English, as overseen by Mavis Timothy a-Muluwamara and John Bradley. We do this because Law holds its integrity through language and because the old people and Country only know Yanyuwa language. As Yanyuwa say, Country does not hear English.

Wabarrangu kiwa-ninya Burrulula malbu na-wini Jilbilyijibilyi kulu nyarrku barra na-wini Mundumundumara, Yanyuwamulu kulu nungka Binbingkamulu. Nya-mangaji malbu jibiya Burrulula, na-ngalki Rrumburriya . Jibiya Burrulula kulu bajarnu wayka Mirnngarra nankawa barra kulu wayka mili Jawuma baki Lhuka. Yiwa barra ka-arri wirdi ki-yarrambawajawu Kunumbu barra kurdukurdu nganjirra barni-ngantha barra nangurrbuwala nya-mangaji. Nya-mangaji wunala ka-wingka kariya nakari Mandungubu kulu kumba-yibanda Mabunji kulu kilu-wundarrba nankawa Burrulula, baji barra kilu-lhurruma Kunumbu , kilu-lhurruma kulu nyikungu yirriny kiwa-nbayaninya baji nya-mbangu wurnda ja-alarrinji baji nya-mbangu wirninymarr nyikungu yirriny nyuwu-mangaji ki-wunalawu.

A long time ago there was an old man at Borroloola and his name was Jilbilyijibilyi and he had another name Mundumundumara,⁷ he spoke Yanyuwa and maybe he also spoke Binbingka,⁸ he belonged to Borroloola. His clan was Rrumburriya. He belonged to Borroloola and also to Mirnngarra lagoon and down river to Jawuma (the Landing) and to Lhuka (Batten Point). He was the leader for the Kunumbu ceremony, it is secret and sacred and belongs to the Hill Kangaroo Dreaming. That Hill Kangaroo that came from the west from Mandungubu and he arrived at Mabunji [place name] and he named the lagoon at Borroloola and he danced the Kunumbu ceremony and his shredded feather body decoration fell to the ground the white barked gum tree around the lagoon are the shredded feathers.

Jilbilyijilbilyi kiwa-ninya alinda andaa a-nhanawaya a- Wuyaliya a-jibiya na-lukuluku na-manangka Wiliyurru nanda-wini a-Alanthaburra narnu-munanga. A-Kitty, anda barra a-ambirrijingu wukanyinjarra munanga wuka kandumba-yangama wuka yurrngumantha nya-alunga liyi-wajwajbalawu kanda-alarri rarra aluwa linji-wajbawajbalangku yangamantharra wuka kurda a-durijiwiji waraba rru-madamadawu biwali barra.

Jilbilyijilibilyi’s wife was a Wuyaliya woman who came from the Crooked River, we call [that place] Wiliyurru. Her name was a-Alanthaburra, her English name was Saltwater Kitty, she was the first woman to speak English. She would stand amongst the white people and she would translate words from English to Yanyuwa and from Yanyuwa to English. The poor thing she would stand there in a dress, not a possum fur apron.

Wula barra kawula-wingka waykaliya waliyangu barra linji-malarngula, kawula-wingka ambirri ki-yarrambawajawu, walyangku barra nguthundakari waliyangu kulu arnindawangu yurrngumantha.

Those two [Jilbilyijibilyi and Saltwater Kitty] they would go down to the sea to hunt dugong with all the family. They would travel for ceremony and then again dugong, they were always on the coast and the islands.

Bawuji wabarrangu li-jakarda kala-ninya akarru Yulbarra . Awunga ngamalakarimba, nungka yarrambawaja ka-arri baji li-jakarda kala-ninya baji li-malbumalbu li-bardibardi li-yumbuwarra marda. A-kurdukurdu a-muwarda Rrumburriya nya-mangaji awara, wula barra kawula-ninya baji barra. Mili nyarrku wuka jirna-nanji kujika ja-walanymanji Yulbarra ja-wingkayi kariya nakari Manankurra ja-wundirrinji barra kujika ki-adumungku barra.

So, it was a long time ago and there were many people there at Yulbarra (on the south-central west coast of Vanderlin Island). There was a ceremony there, there were old people and young people and many canoes. That Country is Rrumburriya and those two were there [Jilbilyijibilyi and Saltwater Kitty]. There is just another small story I will tell you at this point, the songline [kujika] is coming out of the sea at Yulbarra it has been coming from the southwest from Manankurra and it is climbing out of the sea at Yulbarra, it is the songline for the Tiger Shark.

Kawula-arri baji Yulbarra nya-mangaji malbu Jilbilyijilbilyi kulu yikurra-wangu a-Alanthaburra. Kawula-arri kawula-ninya barra, kulu yiwa almirrmantharra almirr ka-arri yilaa yiwa kilu-almirrngantha ardu, buyi ardu ka-arri wulumantharra nyungkarrku ki-awaralu baji barra ngunthundakari waliyangu kila-ka lama kurdardi barra lama bujayi janyka bujayi wankala wuka kila-ka barra yuwu bujayi ki-wanakalawu na-jumanykarrawarda nya-mangaji ardu buyi wungkuwungkuwarda barra kalngi. Jina barra ardu ardirri kumbu-ngka baji Yulbarra ka-wajba ki-malbungku ngaliwa ka-arri baji almirr. “Biyi! Biyi! Bawuji jirna-wakaramanji karna-yanjarrila nakari jina awara anthawirriyarra barra”. Bawuji wungkuwungkulamba malbu ka-lhuwarri ka-arri mirdan ki-ardungku, ka-arri anku “Ngabiyarra ardirri ka-wingka ngathangkalu wundururra, baku barra nya-ngalinga ardu ka-yanjarrila”. Bawuji a-mangaji a- Kitty kanda-arri a-walkurru, kulu malbu kalilu-yalbanga alunga li-jibiya nguthundakari li-malbumalbu barranamba li-ngatha wunyatha Vanderlin Island Jack, Rrakawurlma na-wini nyiki-biyi ki-Old Tim wunhaka ngatha, Banjo kulu Old Leo Yulungurri jibiya Manankurra nya-mangaji, nyarrku barra malbu Jack Baju nyiki-biyi ki-Musso mili nyarrku Jack Buyinymanda bawuji kalinymaba-wukalwukanyinjaninya yurrngumantha yiku ki-ardirriyu. Baku barra baku nya-mangaji ardu ka-yanjarri nyiki-ardu ki-malbungku, mili yurrulu Jilbilyijilbilyi kulu li-mangaji li-wirdi nyuwu-mangaji ki-awarawu nguthundakari kalinyamba-wukalwukanyinjaninya kulu wakara kalilu-lhaa nya-mangaji ardu bardarda barra jibiya nguthundakari yiwa barra ka-arri nyiki-wayarungu barra kumbu-ngka baji Yulbarra yiwa barra ka-arri wurranganji aluwa li-wirdiwalangu li-anthawirriyarra. Li-mangaji li-malbumalbu kalilu-ngunda na-wini na-wunyingu barra kalilu-wundarrba Lhawulhawu ki-adumungku barra baku barra li-wajbala kalilu-ngunda Pharaoh kalu-wundarrba nganinya.

So those two were there at Yulbarra, that old man Jilbilyijilbilyi and his wife a-Alanthaburra. They were there and that old man [Jilbilyijilbilyi] had a dream and in the dream, he saw a young boy with long black hair and he was running with a stone axe and he called out, “Daddy! Daddy! I have found you and I will be born from this Country, from this saltwater Country!” So early in the morning that old man knew a child was to be born and he said to his wife, “A spirit child came to me last night and a child will be born for us”.⁹ Saltwater Kitty was there and she was pregnant and the old man went and spoke to the old men who were the owners of the Country, Vanderlin Island Jack, the father for Old Tim, Banjo and Leo who came from Manankurra and Jack Baju father for old Musso and Jack Buyinymanda. So, they talked and talked about that spirit child. Later, much later that child was born, it was a son for that old man Jilbilyijilbilyi and then all of the senior men for Vanderlin Island knew then that the child had come from their Country, that he belonged to the water of that Country, from Yulbarra. He was a child belonging to the saltwater people. The old men they gave that baby boy a bush name Lhawulhawu, it belongs to the Tiger Shark Dreaming, in English he was known as Pharaoh.

Nya-mangaji malbu Pharaoh ka-yirdardi Rrumburriya anthawirriyarra mili nyarrku barra wuka yurrulu ka-arri mayangku marda kangka nyiki-murimuri jibiya Burrulula nangurrbuwala barra, nya-mangaji malbu Lhawulhawu jibiya Burrulula baki jibiya nguthundakari waliyangu kanymarda awara. Awara nyiyiki-murimuriyu Burrulula, wayka wulanginda Jawuma , Lhuka barra kulu nya-mangaji nankawa Mirnngarra, a-Marndiwa rriku kanda-arri akarru Liwurriya , Manankurra akarramba li-malbumalbu jalu-yinbayi kanymarda kujika nyikungu nya-mangaji jibiya Manankurra nya-alunga liyi-Rrumburriyawu ki-waliyanguyu kulu nya-mangaji ki-mardumbarrawu jibiya Yalku kariya nyala waykaliya ja-wingkayi ngaliba Nguwangkila.

That old man Pharoah he grew up on the islands. He was a saltwater man but he also belonged to the mainland because his father’s father was from Borroloola and a Hill Kangaroo Dreaming man. So that old man Pharaoh Lhawulhawu he also belonged to Borroloola, but he also belonged to the island Country to the north. The Country for his father’s father was Borroloola downstream to Jawuma and Lhuka and Mirnngarra. The Marndiwa initiation ceremony for that old man [as a young boy] was held at Liwurriya, Manankurra is on the east bank of the Wearyan River, and Liwurriya on the west. The old men sang two songlines for him, they sang the kujika for the islands, the Tiger Shark and the kujika from the mainland, the Saltwater Crocodile Dreaming that comes from Yalku Gorge downstream all the way to Nguwangkila (on the Batten Creek).

Wurrbi barra nya-mangaji malbu kiwa-ninya wirriyarra nguthundakari barra ki-yarrambawajala ki-kujikala kilu-manha barra nya-mangaji malbu ka-arri mulungka yilaa ki-anthawu ki-ankawangu.

Now truly through the Law that old man [Lhawulhawu – Pharoah] belonged to the islands and held the ceremonies. The kujika also sat on his tongue for the islands and mainland.

Ka-arri wanjilirra bajingulaji Wulkuwulku , bajingu li-malbumalbu li- Rrumburriya li-jibiya nguthundakari kalu-arri, “Barra bawuji kanilu-rdumala jina mirningiya kulu kanilu-ngundala yiku barruwa ki-Kundawirawu nya-nganunga yarrambawaja warriya arrkula mirningiya kiwa-ninya alanjila wunumbarra mungku-alakalangka kiwa-ninya kulu ka-wajba akarru “kuyu wurrwilhi kuyu wurrwilhi wayi jamarndarrka” kulu nalarrku barra li-mirningu kalu-lharnangantha karakarra nakari ambirri “waraba waraba” kurda yurrngumanthalulu warriya. Barra bawuji kanilu-ngunda yiku ki-malbungku yumbulyumbulmantha, kurdukurdu nya-mangaji nganjirra barra, wurrbi barra anthawirriyarrawu ngayamantharra liyi-mirningu waraba barra nalarrku liyi-rdurduwarrawu kalu-yinba kujika wundarurra kalu-lhurrama ngabungabula nya-mangaji yarrambawaja nya-alunga liyi-maramaranjawu kulu rruwu-mangaji rru-karnkarnkawu rraja-murimuri rra-ngatha ngarna wirriyarra.

The old man [Lhawulhawu – Pharoah] was an a-Kunabibi [ceremony] initiate at Wulkuwulku, that place on Kangaroo Island, and then from there the old Rrumburriya men from the islands said, “Alright we will give him the ceremony marks from our Kundawira ceremony, that is our ceremony the poor thing, it is that ceremony that began when one old man would sit in a platform in the camp and called out, ‘Hey! Hey! White-bellied Sea Eagle do you have any white shredded feather body decoration?’ And those other men on the ceremony ground would call out”, No! No! All the way like that, all day they would call out. It is only for proper men that ceremony, it is totally restricted, it is not for newly initiated young men. They would sing kujika [songlines] at night and dance in the late afternoon, it was the ceremony for the Dugong Hunter Dreaming and the White-bellied Sea eagle. She is my most senior paternal grandmother, she is my spiritual essence, I am her spiritual heir.

Ngalalu li-welfare ka-wingka marnajinju kalalu-jukujukuma li-jakarda li-wulu, li-bardibardi, li-ardibirri marda li-jakarda li-anthawirriyarra. Kalalu-jukujukuma kari-nguthunda, karakarra, kari-wayka barra kulu kalalu-darlbirrantha Burrulula warriya! Li-mangaji li-malbumalbu li-jibiya waliyangu kala-ninya Burrulula akarrimba baku barra Malarndarri akarrikarimba. Nya-mangaji malbu Jilbilyijilbilyi ka-malburri malbu kiwa-ninya kurdandu kanilu-ngunda nyiki-ardu Kunumbu ka-arri yiku bawuji kumba-mirrala yinda wirdi barra kirna-ngunda barra yinku walakurrawala kurdukurdu barra.

When welfare came to this place¹⁰ [southwest Gulf of Carpentaria] they rounded everyone up, many men, old women, middle aged people and children and all of the saltwater people. They rounded them up from the north, from the east and from downstream and they dumped them all at Borroloola, the poor things! The old men from the islands now lived at Borroloola, some sat on the west bank at Borroloola while others lived on the east bank at Malarndarri. That old man Jilbilyijilbilyi he was really old and he had given his son the Kunumbu ceremony from that Country before he died, he told him he was also boss for the Borroloola Country and he gave to him all the Law for that Country.

Bawuji ngala wula malbu wujara Old Tim kulu Banjo malbu kawulamba-kajakajama li-ardubirri kalu-yanjarri Burrulula nya-mangaji malbu jibiya Burrulula Jilbilyijilbilyi kulu nyiki-ardu Pharaoh barra kawula-arri wulanga, “Marnalu li-mangaji liyiwulanga-ardubirri li-jibiya marnajingulaji Burrulula jalini likili-wayurungu barra bawuji kanawula-ngunda yimbalanga Kunumbu kulu bawuji yirru li-jibiya nguthundakari kulu nganu li-jibiya marnaji mayangka kanu-wunumbarrirrijala kulu kana-nmala arrkula barra bawuji bajingu jalini arrkula likili-nganji barra ki-yarrambawajala marda ardirri kangka”.

So when Old Tim and Old Banjo had children and they were born at Borroloola that old man who belonged to Borroloola – Jilibilyijilbilyi, and his son Pharoah they said to them, “Here they are, your children, they belong to this Country Borroloola, their spirits have bathed in the water of this Country, we will give to you the Kunumbu ceremony [for mainland Rrumburriya] and you people from the north [island Rrumburriya] and we people from this Country will be kinsmen, we will be as one for the ceremonies of this Country, this is because of the actions of the spirit children”.

Bawuji barra ngalalu li-ardubirri nya-alunga li-mangaji li-jibiya nguthundakari kalu-yanjarri baji Burrulula li-wirdiwalangu li-jibiya Burrulula kalalu-ngunda na-wini na-wunyingu barra nya-mangaji kajakaja Johnson kalu-wundarrba Ngayijbungayijbulama nangurrbuwala nya-mangaji na-wini nakari waliyangu nyiki-biyi kilu-nganda Babarramila liyi-maramaranjawu kulu nyarrku na-wini ngaliwa ardu Mananjana , warriyangalayawu ki-kujikala nya-mangaji.

When the children belonging to the men from the islands were born at Borroloola, they also belonged to Borroloola and they were given names from that Country, just like my classificatory son here Johnson – Ngayibungayijbulama is his name, that is from the Hill Kangaroo Dreaming. But his name from the islands was Babarramila, for the Dugong Hunter Dreaming. And he has another name from the islands Mananjana that is for the Hammerhead Shark, that is a kujika name.

Jina barra wankala wuka narnu-yuwa barra narnu-Yanyuwa na-yuwa ki-awarawu yarrambawajawu yarrambawaja baki ardirri wunungu barra barranamba ngabiya ngabiya barra politics ki-wajbalawu narnu-munanga narnu-yuwa na-nganunga politics wurra ki-awarala jiwini ki-kujikala ki-yarrambawajala wurrbi bajuwarnu barra na-yuwa ki-awarawu jiwini yulurr.

This is a story from the old days, it is a story of Law. Yanyuwa Law for the Country and ceremonies, the ceremony and spirit children are strong. It is like…what would you call it? Yes, it is like politics for the white people, it is like the law for white people, well this is our politics and it lives deep in the Country, in the kujika, in the ceremonies. Truly this is the Law for the Country for all time.

Old Arthur’s narrative makes no concessions for western conceptions of law; rather, the nature of the subject matter is constructed for a Yanyuwa audience, and many subjects are referred to in terms that sound, at least to western ears, vague. This is because people in small, culturally homogenous communities often have much shared knowledge and do not need to be continually explicit about such things. It is assumed that the listeners will be able to infer what the speaker is talking about. When matters such as spirit child conception, ceremony or kujika are being discussed and, by extension, subjects of a sacred nature, then people often use cryptic or indirect expressions to convey knowledge. This was the case with Old Arthur’s testimony. The challenge, then, in this recollection of Law is how to decode this narrative for the benefit of an interested readership without compromising the delicate nature of this knowledge embedded as it is in the land, sea and kinship that contextualises its sharing. It would be easy to read this text and overlook the potency of political rhetoric that it contains due to an untranslatability which separates western and Indigenous, specifically Yanyuwa, understandings.

Kinship operates as the primary organising principle throughout Old Arthur’s testimony, but the kind of kinship he details goes well beyond human-to-human relations. It has relational scope to link all living and non-living presences in Country and to specifically orient people through relations with spiritual beings, Dreaming ancestors and places (Bradley with Yanyuwa Families 2022; Kearney 2021). Names are very important, as seen in the act of giving Pharoah the bush name of Lhawulhawu. He is a mainland person and he is given a name from the islands; he is both a Hill Kangaroo Dreaming person as well as a Tiger Shark Dreaming person. Pharoah’s bush name Lhawulhawu ties him to the saltwater Country of Vanderlin Island from which his ardirri (spirit child) originated. This name, drawn from the Tiger Shark Dreaming, illustrates an inseparable link between him and that place Yulbarra on Vanderlin Island that has substantial ramifications for his right to hold and wield the ceremony and Law for that Country. A similar practice of giving two names also happened with Yanyuwa elder Johnson Timothy. Johnson was the father of Philip Timothy Narnungawurruwurru, the young man who gave the next iteration of this Law in 2000, to which we will soon turn our attention. Johnson’s spirit child came from Borroloola so he was given the bush name Ngayijbungayibulama (a name associated with the Hill Kangaroo Dreaming place at the river crossing in Borroloola), but he also had a bush name for the islands, Babarramila, which is a name relating to the Dugong Hunter Dreaming. These names speak to the reality and bonds between mainland and island Rrumburriya people, born of these specific moments in the continuation of Yanyuwa Law.

Yanyuwa have navigated and sustained the continuity of their Law over lifetimes in which change has occurred. At times this change has been recognised and accommodated through political decision-making, and a reaching of consensus amongst elders, as illustrated by Old Arthur’s recollections of Law in action. In other times Yanyuwa have had to work incredibly hard to make sense of the external intrusions into their cultural life which have prompted reformulations of their world and the praxis of Law within it. Few have been so significant as the demands brought about by legislative land rights.

The making and unmaking of Aboriginal land claimants has a complex history reflected in the evolution of statutory declarations, and legislative instruments themselves. These complexities are also evident in the juridical interpretations and applications of British common law, the scrutinising of evidence, the receipt of Indigenous testimonies and the subjecting of Aboriginal claimants to cross-examination on their identity and existence. Presented with this as the only pathway to assert their right to Country, an act that is required and in accordance with their Law and standing as ngimirringki and jungkayi, Yanyuwa have both urgently and patiently sought restitution on these western legal terms, but it has been hard and at times heart breaking. Annie’s experience of having rights to her Country denied in the first legislative land claim and only partially returned through a subsequent retrial demonstrates this elongated hardship. The specific design of legislative land rights, the mobilising of legal definitions of aboriginality, traditional ownership, ongoing connection and the evidentiary demands placed upon Aboriginal people are what turn Law people into ‘claimants’ (see Kearney 2022). These are processes that construct and hold in place fundamental social classifications through which individuals are known by officials, and potentially, over the long term, themselves. As Adgemis (2017: 209) writes,

…there is a growing separation between those who have the capacity and knowledge to navigate and negotiate legal and technical forums for land management and those who are knowledgeable about Law. This situation is an enabler for those who do not necessarily know the relevant Law or have the right to speak for places in question to become influential beyond what was previously possible.

These become the conditions which determine how people are allowed to act and potentially how they choose to act and they are also the conditions in which Yanyuwa must find ways and means to hold strong in their Law. The motivation to continue to try is strong, and this next part of this story of Yanyuwa Law must be read for its expression of Law as realpolitik.

Yanyuwa Law and Legislative Land Rights

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory conducted by Justice Albert Edward Woodward between 1973 and 1974 lay the foundation for Australia’s first legislative land rights redress scheme, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) (Australian Government 1976). The ALRA has provided Aboriginal people with an avenue to seek restitution of lands and some waters, in the form of freehold title, based on legal determinations of traditional ownership and enduring connections to Country. Under the ALRA claimants are required to present evidence to a Commonwealth-appointed judge (a Land Commissioner), supported by anthropologists, lawyers and other ‘experts’. The Land Commissioner then makes a final recommendation on the validity of this evidence for traditional ownership.

Yanyuwa launched the first claim ever to be heard under the ALRA (Avery and McLaughlin 1977; Bradley 1992, 2000; Seton and Bradley 2005; Kearney 2018), and did so for several reasons; firstly, because they are resolutely li-Anthawirriyarra—that is saltwater people whose ancestors come from this Country (Bradley 2008); secondly, because they had no choice but to pursue this legal avenue for any restorative justice; and thirdly, because they had been denied their ancestral right to their Country through processes of colonial theft. Describing the land claim experience, Billy Miller Rijirrngu (2002, in Kearney 2018: 195) recalls:

I was feeling you know that I was fighting for the land that should be mine… I was getting more and more involved in the fight for Country where I come from and I tell him the Land Commissioner about my grandfather’s country and my Country… We got long list of brothers, two fathers we had, and all the young fella coming up behind too, they got Country too…you know most of those people who were at the meeting [land claim] have all gone, there’s only a few of us left…most of the people have died and it’s a sad thing for me to see cause they been there and fought for it and then you know its taken so long to be handed back.

The decision to claim lands and waters under the ALRA was made collectively by Yanyuwa women and men in 1976. This was the beginning of what remains one of the longest running Indigenous land rights cases in Australian history (Kearney 2018, 2022). The 1976 land claim resulted in only a partial granting of claimed land to the Yanyuwa claimants. Women were largely excluded from the claim process, reflecting the bias of a western legal system. In 1992, a subsequent land claim was lodged for the lands not recognised as Yanyuwa lands in the 1976 claim. This claim was met with substantial delay and resistance from the Northern Territory government and other private white interests, and was only finalised in 2015 (see Young 2009; Kearney 2018 for detailed explanation of the reasons for such a substantial delay). In 2000 Yanyuwa embarked on one of “the most radical moves to restitute sea Country in recent Australian settler colonial history” (Kearney 2018: 195). They sought title to over 120 km of intertidal sea Country. While the Land Commissioner determined that Aboriginal title ought to be vested in the claimants, the land claimed was never granted. This can occur because, although the Land Commissioner can find that Aboriginal title ought to be granted to claimants, ultimate discretion lies with the Northern Territory Minister to sign off on such grants and approve the vestige of freehold Aboriginal title as recommended.

Aboriginal people frequently find participating in the processes of land claim evidence and testimony difficult, infuriating and upsetting. Claimants are often invited or asked to give evidence in regard to their community’s Law or ceremonies in ways that demand they explain something over which they have no right to speak. Deborah Rose (1995, 1996, 2000) writes of these issues with great clarity. For example, Rose (1996: 38–39, 2000: 114) describes the difficultly faced by women claimants in the Jasper Gorge/Kidman Springs land claim,¹¹ where they ultimately decided that they could not share a secret/sacred women’s ceremony with the male Land Commissioner and overwhelmingly male legal staff. A senior woman explained, “From Dreaming right up till now no man been look that thing. We can’t lose that Law”, carrying with it the consequence of women being unable to combat the anthropological and western legal presumptions of patrilineal control and knowledge of their own lands.

Aboriginal claimants are often made to draw boundaries between one another and in doing so sow social division within communities through the land claim process. For Yanyuwa many of these acts also feel like a breach of Law, as they do not follow rules of succession, and proper kincentric lines for knowing and speaking about Country and Law. Rose (2000: 87) also points to an analogous example of senior Yarralin woman Dora Jilpngarri,¹² who vigorously rejected answering questions about patrilineal sub-categories of Yarralin identity, and who declined to participate in land claim proceedings for the same reason. From this Rose (2000: 87) concludes that:

[l]and claims required that at some level people sort themselves into those who will act as claimants, will assert primary responsibility for the country, and will, if successful, receive title to land. The process of sorting necessarily means that some people will be excluded.

Further discussion of gender bias and discrimination against women in the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 legislation and process is provided by Toussaint et al. (2001: 163–164), who make a case for the need for female Land Commissioners, of which there has never been one. There has never been an Indigenous Land Commissioner either.

Phillip Timothy Narnungawurruwurru’s Story: Speaking About Law in 2000

The next time the details of Rrumburriya clan ownership across the islands and mainland stretches of Yanyuwa Country would become a point of public discussion and debate was during the 2000 Yanyuwa sea grass beds and riverbanks land claim. This claim, again under the ALRA, is referred to as the Lhungkannguwarra—People of the Mangroves: Sea Country Claim (2000). It brought together a collective of multi-generational Yanyuwa claimants (Bradley 2000; Kearney 2018: 195–196; Seton and Bradley 2005: 37–38). The elders among the claimants were well versed in the production that is an on-Country land claim hearing,¹³ having been part of the previous ALRA claim in 1992, while others were stepping into adult claimant roles for the first time in their lives. Mid-generation Yanyuwa, and those aged in their early 30s, were encouraged to stand up before the Land Commissioner and give evidence for the first time, of their traditional ownership and genealogy as woven into Country and through clan membership. The 2000 sea Country claim is ongoing due to governmental reluctance on behalf of both the Northern Territory and Federal Governments to accept the findings of the Land Commissioner. These legislative efforts chart a period in Australian social and legal history, revealing the uncomfortable tension at the basis of two laws that operate in this part of Australia.

Philip Timothy, aged in his early 30s at the time, was listed on the claim as a senior Rrumburriya clan member and was called upon to give testimonial evidence regarding who held responsibility over a certain area of intertidal sea Country in the Gulf. He was also instructed by Annie a-Karrakayny and his senior father’s brother Whylo McKinnon to explain how it was that he was an island Rrumburriya man who could speak for mainland Rrumburriya Country. To support him in this process was Annie a-Karrakayny who raised the point of the historical processes as described by Old Arthur in 1981. By 2000, many senior men had died, including Philip’s father Johnson Timothy. Philip’s classificatory father’s brother Old Whylo McKinnon was present at the hearing, but very ill. Philip carried the same bush name as Old Arthur, Narnungawurruwurru. In Yanyuwa kinship terms, Annie called Philip her kardirdi, her classificatory mother’s brother (uncle), which is the same kinship term she used for Old Arthur. In the context of the bush camp set up for the duration of the land claim hearing on-Country, Annie spoke to Philip and told him the story of how the union between the mainland and island Rrumburriya groups had taken place. She explained to him that it was he, in the absence of the old men, who must now tell the story to the Land Commissioner so as to be sure to straighten up the Law.

John Bradley was in attendance as the consulting anthropologist on the land claim for Yanyuwa families. While Philip was identified by senior Yanyuwa men and women as the right person to speak for that Country, Bradley recalls that Philip was daunted by the prospect of having to explain, in English for a western legal audience, a complex transfer of authority and responsibility for Country from one Rrumburriya lineage to another. In the lead up to having to give this evidence in the land claim, Philip expressed his doubts to Bradley about his capacity to relay this depth of Law in front of the Land Commissioner and his Yanyuwa kin, remarking “How am I going to do this?”. Nonetheless, with the support and assistance of Annie and fellow Yanyuwa elders Billy Miller Rijirrngu, Whylo McKinnon and Steve Johnston Jnr, Philip recounted a version of Old Arthur’s story in front of the judge, lawyers, anthropologists and a large group of Yanyuwa families.

Justice Olney, the Land Commissioner at the time, asked directly how it was that the island Rrumburriya group to which Philip belonged were able to speak for and give evidence on mainland Rrumburriya Country. Philip had listened intently to the elders, and they had talked him through what Old Arthur had explained in 1981. What is ultimately recorded in the transcript from the land claim hearing is a very cursory version of what happened. The details of what was spoken of behind the scenes was not etched into the legal record—land claim evidence rarely engages with the depth of intellectual insight that defines Indigenous Law. Evidence is often quite laconic and is forensic only in regard to matters upon which a well-developed and extensive body of literature exists, which itself speaks to the intersection of ethnography, anthropology and legal practice (Sutton 2003; Burke 2011; Trigger 2004; Trigger et al. 2013; Glaskin 2017). The formal court process requires that Aboriginal people be scrutinised, questioned and examined in English, by a judge and legal councils, in regard to their own Law. This places the onus upon Aboriginal people to respond in sufficient detail, sophistication and translational clarity in order to assert the place and knowledge of their own Law, while simultaneously accounting for the lack of cultural and linguistic knowledge held by the non-Indigenous people involved in these legal processes (Cooke 1995; Walsh 2008, 2011; Nash and Henderson 2002).

The transcript from Phillip’s evidence to the judge, given via questioning by council assisting the Yanyuwa claimants, gives little indication of the pressure that Phillip was under and what was being demanded of him in the context of a very public hearing. Nor does it give any indication of the background support that he was being given by his elders who were speaking to him in language and affirming what he was saying. There is an additional evidentiary burden here; Philip is being asked to speak to ritual and ceremonial matters that he himself had never been initiated into and yet this evidence was central to progressing a truthful account of the legislative land claim. Phillip had been through a-Kunabibi but not Kundawira and was thus having to articulate Law which he was not initiated into himself.

What follows here is a transcript from the proceedings of the Lhukannguwarra land claim from 21 June 2000 relating to Philip’s right as an island Rrumburriya clansperson to speak for mainland Rrumburriya Country in accordance with the Law that Old Arthur had explained 19 years earlier in 1981. Note that Mr Parsons is the barrister representing the Yanyuwa families:

Mr Parsons::

All right then. Now Philip Timothy, you have got that thing [microphone] – I might as well speak on – Philip, now, David (Rrumburriya man, David Roper a claimant to Borroloola Country down to the Batten Point through his father, Borroloola Willy) we have got as ngimirringki and he is the last one, the last- and brother- he has got a brother there- for ceremony, what does that mean if there’s only that many ngimirringkis as young as he is? Can he do the- can he perform the role himself for that Country?

Philip Timothy::

Yeah. Well, you see, before – long time ago, maybe before dad was alive, when grandfather, they used to carry this under Law which was on top of that Kunabibi,¹⁴ it was real sacred, and not many people talk about it you know. Before we used to be separated, like that island Rrumburriya mob, out on the island, and we’d left all the mainland Rrumburriya there. We all used to be separated first before, a long time ago.

Mr. Parsons::

Right

Philip Timothy::

Yeah, because that eagle (White-Bellied Sea Eagle [Dreaming Ancestor] – which I can’t call the name because I’m not Jungkayi, I might get Billy (Billy Miller is jungkayi) to call the name of the bird.

Billy Miller::

a-Karnkarnka

Mr. Parsons::

a-Karnkarnka

Dr. Bradley::

a-Karnkarnka. White-bellied Sea Eagle

Philip Timothy::

And kangaroo. They had separate business, real strong sacred business. The kangaroo had his and that bird has his. Then later on all the tribes, all the mainland Rrumburriya mob and island Rrumburriya mob, got together and shared the same business because the kangaroo was Rrumburriya too, and that bird. Rrumburriya, but they’d been separated before but they got – everybody got together now and we all share the same ceremony today.

Mr. Parsons::

Right. Who told you that?

Philip Timothy::

Well, by my father, Billy and my grandfather

Mr. Parsons::

That’s kangku for you, your father’s father

Philip Timothy::

Yeah

Mr. Parsons::

Right, all right. So what is – can you explain to the judge how it is – is that the reason why you – the island Rrumburriya come into this Country for mainland and share?

Philip Timothy::

Yep

Mr. Parsons::

Is there any other reason that you mob come in or is it through that….?

Philip Timothy::

Well it’s through that now.

Mr. Parsons::

Right

Philip Timothy::

Through that ceremony.

The details that Philip managed to convey were rather oblique, which of course is the norm when talking about matters of real sensitivity. Even though brief, Philip’s telling of the events spoke to a demand for the expression of relationality in regard to Country and kin. Tragically Philip would pass away in 2007, rendering memory of his testimony and participation in the 2000 land claim with a potent sense of loss for his future as a Law man in this community. It also brings pride for his family and members of the Rrumburriya clan. The retelling of both men’s testimonies is central to the workings of oral traditions; where knowledge and insights are emplaced from the moment a person begins to speak. Philip’s telling is therefore laconic, as it needed to be. There was much that could not be said, but in the way of oral traditions in small-scale communities, all of the Yanyuwa listeners of his testimony understood what was going on.

Even as recent as February 2021 Graham Friday Dimanyurru asked for a further retelling and reading of all the events described above, and other people have requested to hear both Philip’s and Old Arthur’s stories retold, embracing the fact that this Law was written down, thus now cannot be easily disputed, and can also be mobilised through retelling as time and circumstances demand. Yet, the very process of ‘writing down’ the Law changes the story; an event that was embedded in deep orality and particular praxis as demonstrated by Old Arthur is transformed. Through the land claim process and the demand of transcripts for legal analysis, and even Annie Karrakayny’s demand for the recording and transcription of Old Arthur’s testimony, all lead to the representation of Law in forms and mediums which betray its substance. Old Arthur’s telling of the events and Philips’s retelling of these same events still however demonstrate that individuals and communities privilege knowledge according to their own criteria, taste, proclivities and, importantly, contemporary needs.

Both texts are highly political as to the nature of assertions to Country. Disputes over the right to speak for Country remain such that disputes continue to emerge around who is a proper Rrumburriya saltwater person and a proper Rrumburriya mainland person despite the circulation of knowledge attached to these testimonies. It would seem that the matter of contest never rests in this close and kincentrically bound community, and this is the realpolitik of identity and belonging as bound to Law. There is a persistent sense of urgency in this community to write things down, and most importantly to write them down properly, in language and in translation to mitigate against confusion and misrepresentations that might take hold among those who do not fully know the Law or do not remember Old Arthur’s and later Philip’s iterations of this Law.

A Word on Pushing Orality into Written Forms

The story we share here demonstrates the falsity of the often-held misconception that there is always a literal translation of words in Indigenous languages such as Yanyuwa in English; a misguided assumption that different cultural perspectives are bridgeable by related concepts in English, word-for-word (Bradley with Yanyuwa Families 2022). As Niranjana (1998: 134) explains, colonised peoples are faced with the subtle yet devastating necessity of translating their political frameworks into the languages of their colonisers,

…language of what we may call capital and community, where we experience a permanent lack of fit, given these languages never mesh together smoothly…There are different – often mutually unintelligible – languages of the political (as also languages in the ordinary sense of the word) which inhabit our space and configure our questions and interests.

Vazquez (2011: 27–28) frames language as delineating the borders of “a given system of meaning and more generally, of a given epistemic territory”, and the translation of non-western language, and therefore knowledge, into Eurocentric languages is modernity’s enforcement of western metaphysical principles and thus enforcement of western parameters of legibility and mutual recognition.

The demise of oral traditions and the institution of a scriptural economy of knowledge comes hand in hand with the erasure of the past… The notions of memory (ancestors/memoria), land (tierra) and language (palabra) represent examples of the untranslatable, namely that which is erased by translation and replaced by the modern notions of chronology, space and writing… Coloniality has performed this uprooting of the “non-western”, this un-naming, in order to inscribe them in a system of classification as the other, the backward, the savage, the primitive other. Translation is here revealed as erasure.

The Practice of Law

This chapter has told a story of Yanyuwa Law by sharing the testimonies of two Yanyuwa men, born decades apart, but who carried the same name and belonged to the same clan Country. These testimonies were given in vastly different contexts and situations, in the first instance, in the company of a small group of family and close kin, and in the second, although still in the company of family, to a white audience of legal and other ‘experts’. The two situations are made distinct by the particularities of audience, language, generational expressions of knowledge, colonial pressures, lifestyle changes and the positionality of each speaker, yet the content of both testimonies, in many respects, follows the same rules of conduct and expression. These are rules which have always underpinned Yanyuwa Law. The first is a kincentric orientation. The second is that there remains an empiricism in Country that comes from ngalki, an essence which cannot be extinguished. The third is that both testimonies express fundamental rules as to the realpolitik that is expressed in Yanyuwa orality, collective decision-making practices and the value of reaching consensus. Let us briefly recap the practice of Law, relative to these adherences.

Kincentricity

As the testimonies of Old Arthur and Philip illustrate, the orientation of all life and Law is towards kin, human and non-human. This is shown through the relational linkages which are repeated again and again in their recollections, including references to relationships between people and their non-human ancestors, between husbands and wives, between brothers, fathers and mothers and their children, spirit children and their places of origin, and between people and ceremony. Law has a way of artfully putting into practice relations prefaced on degrees of closeness and distance between people and all parts of Country, achieving a sense of emplacement where everything is at once in relation, but determining also that not just any kind of relation will do.

There is specificity in the connections that are made and the Law ensures that people know their own relationships and how these shape interactions with all other phenomena found in Country. The success of this is that once connection is known, it cannot be denied or disavowed, and if it is, there are corrective steps which can be taken to straighten things up. Because everything in Country is connected through specific lines of descent, this means then that the scope of responsibility does not lie solely with human life or to a person’s biological kindred but expands out into a vast world of things and presences to which a person must be responsive. This expands the field of respect and acknowledgement of deep importance to all aspects in Country. Such networks of connection might be understood as nested, like in a ‘nested ecology’, which distinguishes interrelations between realms, those of the personal, social, environmental, cosmic and spiritual or ancestral (see Wimberley 2009). Yanyuwa know the benefits of these kinds of connections, none more so than the benefits which come from considering relations as necessary to maintain and sustain the order, health and well-being of Country and kin.

Law is a strategy to mitigate against separation, isolation and disconnection. These are considered dangerous states in the Yanyuwa lifeworld, resonating as they do with forms of strangeness and unknowing, threatening ill health for that or those which are unknown, unrelatable, unrecognised and unresponsive. Habits of individuation and selfishness do not thrive within a kincentric world governed by Law. This is why elders work so hard to ensure that people know the Law which keeps them connected and willing to respond to the needs of others in Country.

Empiricism in Country Through Ngalki

Law speaks to and solidifies the empiricism of Country. Country and the places that distinctively mark the land and sea, such as sites of spirit children, or the bodies and marks of ancestral beings (Dreamings), water sources, old time camping sites, burial caves and present-day outstations where families live on their clan Country, exist as the do because of the Law. They were created by the Law, the ancestors, and people’s presence there today is determined by rules of kinship, gendered access and familial closeness. In Yanyuwa Law there is absolutely nothing random about the organisation of Country and who moves through it. If behaviour is adopted which does not follow this Law, then the community often undergoes a process of sense-making, dispute resolution and debate as to what has happened, why this has occurred and then what must be done. The business of relating properly to Country is a topic of almost daily discussion in this community.

The character, rhythm and distinctiveness of Country is held as Law by many of the old people and some mid-generation Yanyuwa. Younger Yanyuwa are often still learning the rules, yet through communal debate they are often privy to the tensions which can emerge when Law is not followed. Law can therefore be accessed through conversations and disagreements, some of which take place on social media platforms. Knowledge is actively being transferred each time dispute is raised and consensus reached on what happens next. Underpinning these aspects of Law is the fact that ngalki cannot be extinguished, for it is the primal energy and character of Country.

To watch, notice and live with Country that has its own ngalki is to have a certain reverence for the land and sea. The integrity of each place matters. This principle is acknowledged by Yanyuwa and by Indigenous peoples all across Australia. The relational modality this inspires is one that has a hugely important role to play in current environmental and ecological crises that face many parts of the world. Law has a way of putting people into much better relations with their world, on terms that make difficult any tendency to destroy, abandon or devalue the environments on which life depends.

The Realpolitik of Law

As discussed in Chap. 2, coming together to talk and work through conflicts and decisions with the aim of reaching consensus is a key political strategy for Yanyuwa. Again, at the basis of this interaction is kin. Yanyuwa often remark on situations where a person has made an individual decision that impacts others, and will comment on the suspiciousness of meetings which are arranged by non-Indigenous visitors (e.g., mining executives, land council representatives, lawyers, school teachers) to speak with a single Yanyuwa person, rather than choosing to follow lines of kinship and speak to groups of bosses for Country. When people are individuated, they are isolated; this might be when a person self-appoints their authority over others, or when they are given priority by outsiders to speak on behalf of the entire community. This often results in political instability. To speak up without having consulted with others is not the realpolitik of Yanyuwa Law.

The realpolitik of Law lies often in refrain, gathering up groups of ‘proper’ people and acknowledging that knowledge is not freely held, rather is held in accordance with rules that defer to age, clan membership, ceremonial experience, gender and community standing. These aspects of Law are writ large in the events which led to Old Arthur and Philip being the right people to tell their stories of Law to a particular audience and are vividly displayed in the specific events that are detailed in Old Arthur’s testimony, involving the actions and choices of mainland and island Rrumburriya bosses. For Philip there were complicating factors which impinged upon his way of telling his Law, largely because of the artifice created by the setting of a land claim hearing overseen by white ‘experts’ and saturated in a white legal logic. But even amidst these conditions, he navigated his way through a public presentation of Law that retained a commitment to proper practice, deference, consultation, reaching consensus and undertaking collective decision-making before speaking. The way that Yanyuwa navigate and often subvert white structural and relational tendencies is hugely impressive and shows the ways that Law is retained as part of an everyday practice. Law is found in these subtle behaviours and choices.

Law has complexity, that is, an intricacy and people have capacity for negotiation of change and cultural shift. This is a vision of Indigenous cultures and their Laws as highly adept at accommodating, resisting and negotiating the internal, but even more so the external, pressures that distinguish settler colonial and Indigenous relations. Law is not reductionist and in the true nature of realpolitik Old Arthur’s and Philip’s testimonies showcase the realistic, practical nature of Law that gives consideration to circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions.

In the following chapter we pan back our focus, to return to a discussion of Indigenous Law as more than soft power; more than a ‘national asset’ to be exploited or engaged in a piecemeal fashion for tourism encounters, creative arts and entertainment. We hope to have painted a rich picture of Yanyuwa Law and realpolitik, and to have thoroughly unsettled any notions of esotericism and ephemerality that might adhere to presentations of Indigenous Laws. Having dedicated our time to Yanyuwa Law in this chapter and Chap. 2, it might be that some readers have questions, particularly concerning how Law might be engaged in the present to strengthen communities, and how global efforts at reworlding Indigenous Law might provide important insights for intercultural politics and healthy communities.