UQ academic maps sacred Aboriginal law

After 23 years of research, a University of Queensland academic has mapped, for the first time, the sacred knowledge of an Aboriginal community into atlas form.

Forget About Flinders is a 380-page atlas of Yanyuwa country in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria.

“The atlas comprises hand-painted maps, photographs, illustrations and text. It is the work of myself, artist Nona Cameron and the Yanyuwa people,” said Dr John Bradley, an anthropology lecturer in UQ’s School of Social Science.

“It is the repatriation of more than two decades of my field research back to the Yanyuwa people and their country.”

Yanyuwa country is 970 kilometres southeast of Darwin and outside the area of northeast Arnhem Land. It is on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which British explorer Matthew Flinders named when he charted the area in 1802.

The Yanyuwa people live in the town of Borroloola, which has a population of between 600 and 1000 people, mostly comprising descendants of the Yanyuwa, Marra, Garrwa, Gudanji and Binnigka language groups.

“The aim was to map the sacred knowledge of the community into atlas form so future generations of Yanyuwa people could learn, in part at least, some of the knowledge their ancestors used to manage life and affairs on the savannah lands, islands and sea they call home,” Dr Bradley said.

He describes the atlas as equivalent to western common law. It explores indigenous views of geography, weather, landscape and spirituality, with text explaining each map’s story, argument of law and intergenerational wrangling.

It comprises three volumes: Wirdiwalangu Anthawirriyarra (the authority of those descended from the sea), which discusses the five main islands in the area; Wirdiwalangu Mayanguwarra (the authority of those from the mainland), focuses on the mainland; and Wandayarra a-yabala (following the paths of the songs of the country), a pictorial reproduction of five public but sacred song cycles.

“The atlas is not a white man writing about matters Aboriginal, rather a side-by-side collaboration, exploring and finding ways in which the oral can be made visual and still hold its original vibrancy,” Dr Bradley said.

“It’s a unique document because it’s a new way for anthropologists to write and record information.

“Many non-indigenous observers do not understand a spirituality dependent on landscape and on its human component.

“The atlas allows everybody to get a message at an immediate level because it has different layers for different uses.”

Dr Bradley said its title, Forget about Flinders, was not meant as an insult. Rather, it was a comment made by a Yanyuwa elder when viewing one of the atlas’ maps. It had more than 150 places named on it, compared with the three Flinders had named when exploring the area by boat.

He said the idea for an atlas was conceived by a Yanyuwa woman who was visiting Brisbane and saw a street directory being using to help people find their way after getting lost.

“The Yanyuwa people have developed a fearless openness and willingness to assimilate and work with aspects of outside cultures to preserve, as much as possible, the fabric of their own identity,” Dr Bradley said.

He said the atlas was drawn from a moral imperative to survive the pressures created by loss and exile, land rights claims, the need to keep families together and the desire to find ways to identify with and follow the law.

“There are only 10 full speakers of the language left and amid this heartache is an attempt to hold onto things from the past by creating new texts based on the old and by asking whether any text can hope to bridge the gaps between past life ways and the present community,” he said.

The Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies has received a copy of the atlas. It provided 12-months funding for the project last year, which allowed Ms Cameron to finish drawing the maps she had been working on for two and a half years.

Two UQ students who worked on the project received first class honours last year. A further two students have commenced their honours thesis on the Yanyuwa people this year.

Dr Bradley, who has visited the Yanyuwa people every year since he was a primary school teacher there 23 years ago, presented senior clan members with 21 atlases during a visit earlier this month.

He intends to produce an interactive DVD of the atlas and update and publish a Yanyuwa dictionary, the first version of which he completed 10 years ago.

Media: For further information, contact Dr Bradley (telephone 07 3365 2980, email j.bradley@uq.edu.au) or Joanne van Zeeland at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2619).