By Ruth Skilbeck
The induction of influential
Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi into the ARIA (Australian Record Industry Awards)
Hall of Fame, at the 2012 ARIA awards ceremony, at the Sydney Entertainment
Centre, is a just and well deserved recognition not only of the band’s powerful
emotive music that marries traditional Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal rock-dance
sounds, but also of the wide-reaching social and cultural influence the band
and its members have had, in influencing Australia’s cultural life, and
politics, through their music and political advocacy since the 1980s.
In the award ceremony the band played
a rousing version of their landmark song Treaty (1991) and were joined on
stage by singer-songwriter Paul Kelly
(co-writer of Treaty) and Education minister Peter Garret, who before he became
a politician had a career as former frontman of band Midnight Oil.
The song was written by Paul Kelly and
Yothu Yindi members, prompted by band leader Mandawuy Yunipingu and his older brother
Galarrwuy’s desire to write a song to highlight lack of progress on the proposed
treaty between Aboriginal peoples and the federal government, following
Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke’s visit to the Northern Territory in 1988
as part of the Bicentennial celebrations for the Barunga festival where he was
presented by a statement of political objectives by Galarrwuy Yunuuupingu. Hawke responded by
promising that a treaty would be concluded with Aboriginal Australia by 1990.
In 1991 when no treaty had eventuated, the song
Treaty with its sardonic lines “Well I heard it on the radio. And I saw it on
the television” was Mandawuy Yunupingu’s response - which expressed Aboriginal
feelings about the lack of action; this was a phrase that was later echoed by Aboriginal
activist and academic Marcia Langton, in her book on Aboriginal media and
cultural studies.
Twenty-one years later, the song’s call for
Reconciliation is as relevant and as much needed as it was then.
Formed in 1986 and still going strong, the
band comprises Aboriginal members from the Yolngnu homelands in Arnheim Land in
the Northern Territory, and balanda non-Aboriginal
members; and their music combines influences of Aboriginal and western musical
cultures. The founding members include
leader, Mandawuy Yunupingu on vocals and guitar; Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu on
keyboards, guitar and percussion; Witiyana Markia on manikay, traditiuonal
vocals, Cal Williams on lead guitar; and Studat Kellaway on bass guitar.
The name of the band Yothu Yindi means ‘child
and mother’, in Yolngu language of the Northern Territory homelands where some
of the band members come from, and signifies the importance given to the
relation between mother and child in the music and outlook of the band who
represented the struggles of Indigenous peoples against colonial assimilation,
and provided a powerful emotional voice, and some deadly dance tracks, in political
protest songs. The subliminal reference in their name is to healing the pain of
the Stolen Generations where for over 60 years- from 1906-1967 – it was
official policy part of the White Australia policy, following Federation to
forcibly remove Aboriginal children from their mothers, and place them in
mission homes, in state homes, or into adoption, in a self-justifying policy
that promoted the view that Aboriginal peoples were a ‘dying race’.
The band helped to found the Yothu Yind
Foundation in 1990 to promote Yolngu cultural development, and from 1999 have
produced the annual Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures.
“I’m dreaming of a brighter day,
When the waters will be one” Yothu Yindi, Treaty
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