‘All mucked up’: sharing stories of Yolŋu–Macassan cultural heritage at Bawaka, north-east Arnhem Land

Abstract

From the eighteenth-century Macassan traders from the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi made regular visits to northern Australia, where with the help of Yolŋu, Indigenous Australians living in north-east Arnhem Land, they collected trepang (sea cucumber) for trade. Along with sharing language, technology and culture, the Macassans and Yolŋu involved built relationships that are celebrated today in Yolŋu art, songs and stories. While the trepang trade had officially stopped by 1906, resonances of this complex relationship continued and still continue today. This paper shares a number of stories told by one particular Yolŋu family about this heritage and reflects on the ways in which for Yolŋu, the tangible heritage (artefacts), intangible heritage (stories) and the land itself are locked in a symbiotic relationship where each depends on the others to define their existence. Looking after, or protecting this heritage, is therefore about attending to place, and the nature, storytellers, objects and stories contained within it.