Adapting to change is something Yolngu are good at, senior Rirratjingu songman Witiyana Marika says.
When the coronavirus first started making news, community leadership met to plan how they would manage if Covid-19 arrived in eastern Arnhem land. Senior men and women met with the emergency taskforce, the local Miwatj health service and the Laynhapuy homelands organisation to take the most vulnerable people further away from risk.
Laynhapuy services 30 homeland communities of around 1,100 Yolngu people in the region.
The first thing they decided was to get the elders out of town – Nhulunbuy, a former FIFO mining hub – and onto outstations and homelands, like the Rirratjingu clan estate at Yalangbara, a few hours’ drive south.
Now, Marika says, they’re “waiting it out in paradise”.
Witiyana Marika is one of the founding members of Yothu Yindi and is a ceremonial leader of the Rirratjingu clan at Yirrkala. He’s one of the many accomplished children of Roy Dadaynga Marika, known as the father of Yolngu land rights.
Marika’s brothers and sisters – now revered elders – have made major contributions to the visual and performing arts, language and education. His son Yirrmal is also a singer.
“A lot of the old people are out on the homelands, especially my mum,” Marika says. “My brother is still here [in Yirrkala]. We are all just waiting, waiting.”
Marika says they’re considering airlifting people to Bremer Island, about half an hour’s flight from the mainland. Bremer is a Rirratjingu homeland known as Dhambaliya, where there’s a small community of a few dozen family members and an eco-retreat, now closed to visitors.
“But for now, everything here is about washing our hands, standing 1.8m apart, and we wait. We’ve had no cases yet but the waiting is stressful,” he says.
Social distancing restrictions have added another layer of complexity to the management of important cultural responsibilities. A family funeral, which in the Yolngu tradition would normally be a ceremony lasting a week and a half involving people from several east Arnhem communities, had to be heavily modified.
“Last month, my brother’s funeral was successful. Some of the family came in from Elcho [Island] and Ramingining and we made a wise decision, we made it really simple and no one got a case here.
“We went from morning to afternoon, and half a night, going through the [song] cycle. It took a lot of organising, it was a major change, but ever since we have been through the funeral, we told our young generation that we should stay apart.”
Marika is also waiting for the release of his next project, the much-anticipated film High Ground in which he stars alongside Simon Baker, Jack Thompson and Aaron Pedersen. The story is based on massacres of Yolngu which happened in Arnhem Land in the early 1900s.
High Ground had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February and was scheduled to open in Australia this July, but is now delayed, with a new date yet to be set.
For now, everybody is as far away from town as they can be.
“The homelands are maybe two or three hours’ drive away. It’s very, very nice. And clean. And beautiful. We are just waiting, just living in paradise. We are away from distraction.
“People are fishing, catching mud crabs, oysters, stingray, mangrove worms – yummy! It’s their season now. We don’t need Woolies any more.”
“Being there brings peace and power. We can feel freedom there, peace and power.
“Whenever you feel tired from the day to day, that’s where the power is to regenerate your spirituality.
“We might not come back to Yirrkala,” Marika says.
This week, recognising the NT’s success in minimising the number of Covid-19 cases, Chief minister Michael Gunner announced restrictions will be eased in stages.
Territorians can now do outdoor activities again, provided social distancing can be adhered to. Parks, reserves, playgrounds and pools are open, and limits on the number of people attending outdoor weddings and funerals have been lifted.
From Friday 15 May, food courts, restaurants, cafes, pubs and bars will all be allowed to serve food to sitting customers, and gyms, libraries and churches will open.
But internal border controls and restrictions on travel between remote communities will remain until at least mid-June, and the territory’s borders are still closed to outsiders.
“There are no cases here – yet,” Marika says. “But we can’t relax until it’s all over.
“I’d say to the people in the world, keep trying to live like normal. We are not thinking about anything else, but just wait, our time will come.
“On your country is the best place to be.”
Read part one of Old knowledge for the new normal
