ATS1346 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Eddie Mabo, Yothu Yindi, Yirrkala Bark Petitions
25 May 2018
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Week 10 – Popular Australian Indigenous Musics
Yothu Yindi
• Formed in late 1980s
• Big success early 1990s
• Group combined indigenous and non indigenous members
• Music performed: indigenous rights
• Homeland Movement (1989)
• ‘Mainstream’ (1989)
• ‘Treaty’ (1992)
o Attempt to call greater recognition from the government
o Won many awards – album of the year
Impacts of Colonial Rule
• 1788 – first colonial settlement in NSW
• Terra Nullius (empty land)
• Colonial disregard for Indigenous worldview
• Struggle for Indigenous rights
• Link between land, singing and identity
o Can’t care for land – no connection to dreamland/ancestors → no
identity
• Arnhem Land
o Call themselves yolongu
o Northern of Northern Territory
• Yirrkala Bark Petitions (1963)
o Important – to protest against mining
o Way
• Mabo Land Rights Case (1992)
o Meriam People
o Murray Islands, Torres Straight Islands
o Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936-92)
o High Court of Australia overturns doctrine of terra nullius
o Native Title Act (1993)
Yothu Yindi Ideology
• Egocentric perspective
o The self capable of acting independently from others
o Mother child
o Individual – insider viewpoint
• Sociocentric perspecptive
o A view of self that is context dependent
o A child’s clan group and mother’s clan
o A smaller area of land and a larger area of land
• Ganma
o Mixing of fresh and salt water
o Resistance symbolises mixing of lands and identities
o Metaphor used to promote understanding between Indigenous and non-
Indigenous Australians
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