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An incredible Australian preserving indigenous language and culture

Margaret Ambrose reports on the recipient of the 2012 senior Australian of the year award, Laurie Baymarrwangga.

At the Australian of the Year Awards Ceremony on the eve of Australia Day 2012, as dignitaries mingled with the Prime Minister and the Governor-General, and sporting legends chatted with Australian of the Year, Geoffrey Rush, there was one noticeable absence. Ninety-five year old Laurie Baymarrwangga, an Indigenous Elder from Arnhem Land, was too frail to travel to Canberra to receive her award as Senior Australian of the Year.

Yet, as Australians learn of her lifetime of achievement and her incredible personal integrity, this remarkable Australian senior is inspiring a nation.

“Laurie Baymarrwangga is a woman of spirit, language, culture and wisdom,” says Carla McGrath from the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence. “She is a symbol of inspiration and resistance for her people.”

Ms Baymarrwangga was awarded Senior Australian of the Year because of her work in preserving the environmental and cultural heritage of her country, a tough job under any circumstances, but an unimaginably difficult one for a woman with little formal education, no English, no financial assistance, and very few resources.

Ms Baymarrwangga was born on the island of Murrungga, one of the Crocodile Islands, north-east of Arnhem Land, 95 years ago, and she continues to live there today. Due to its geographical position and abundance of natural resources, Murrungga has had a turbulent and often violent history. In her lifetime, Ms Baymarrwangga has seen the arrival of missionaries, the exploitation by Japanese and European fishermen, and war.

With so many foreign competing interests in the island, Indigenous issues and the quest to preserve culture and heritage were doomed to sink to the bottom of the priority list of those in power. Yet, remarkably, and primarily due to the persistence and dedication of Ms Baymarrwangga and her mob, that’s not what happened.

Her first significant breakthrough occurred in the 1960s, when Ms Baymarrwangga orchestrated the establishment of a housing project on her homelands that has benefitted generations of Indigenous people since.

It has provided safety and shelter for the local population, as well as created a space where people can share stories, history, dance and song, the means by which Aboriginal culture is traditionally passed down through generations.

Ms Baymarrwangga always felt that the preservation of language was integral to the preservation of the culture of her people, and part of the housing project included a school, although it didn’t look like any school most Australians attend.

There were no books or blackboards, in fact there was no classroom. The school consisted of a group of children and Indigenous Elders gathered beneath the shade of a tree, where only the local Yan-nhangu language was spoken and taught.

The Yan-nhangu dictionary project One of Ms Baymarrwangga’s most enduring legacies will be the establishment of the Yan-nhangu Dictionary Project, which she began working on in 1994.

The Yan-nhangu Dictionary Project was established without any funding, resources, expertise nor the ability of Ms Baymarrwangga to speak English.

“At this time only 300 words of Baymarrwangga’s language were documented,” explains Dr Bentley James, anthropologist and linguist on the Yan-nhangu Dictionary Project. “With her, a team of volunteers continues to struggle to sustain the conditions promoting Yan-nhangu language.”

The Yan-nhangu data-base now contains over 1,000 proper nouns and 600 verbs describing the history, movements and lives of these islands and their people. According to Dr Bentley James, the language actually links them to the Argonauts who sailed to the island around 60,000 years ago!

According to Ms Baymarrwangga: “Nhangu dhangany yuwalkthana bayngu bulanggitj Yolngu mitji marnggimana dhana gayangamana mayili mana dhangany wanggalangabu mana limalama ganatjirri wulumba (maramba).” – We continue to pass on the stories of our land and sea country for the good of new generations.

(Out of respect for Ms Baymarrwangga’s work to preserve her language, The Retiree Magazine has chosen to print this quote in the Yan-nhangu language, with an English translation following, rather than an English translation alone.)

Crocodile Island rangers
The local Yan-nhangu people have a rich and vibrant cultural and ecological knowledge, which is linked to their sacred ancestral sites in the seas and across the islands.

In the 1990s, Ms Baymarrwangga helped establish the Crocodile Islands Initiative, whose purpose it is to protect the environmental and cultural heritage of the islands.

Crocodile Islands Rangers patrol and protect the almost 250 square kilometres of sacred sites and 10,000 square kilometres of sea country, safeguarding the songs, ceremonies and language of the Yan-nhangu people.

The work of Ms Baymarrwangga has not only saved her language, culture and environment, it is ensuring its continuation. “By running the Crocodile Island Program and by producing Indigenous dictionaries for kids of the island, she is ensuring her people and land have a future,” says Carla McGrath.

A woman who keeps giving
Since 1945 Ms Baymarrwangga had been engaged in a legal battle for back-payments of rent that she was owed as the beneficiary of her father’s estate. Showing the persistence and fight for which she has become known, Ms Baymarrwangga refused to give up, and in 2010 was finally granted the payment of around $400,000.

She immediately donated the entire sum to a program that creates employment and educational opportunities on Murrungga.

The funds were also important in helping establish a 1,000 square kilometre turtle sanctuary.

A retiree with a busy future
Although just five years short of a century, Ms Baymarrwangga shows no signs of lightening her workload.

She still firmly believes that language preservation is the key to reaffirming the culture and dignity of Indigenous people everywhere. In conjunction with the Crocodile Islands Rangers, Ms Baymarrwangga is helping develop an online version of the Yan-nhangu Dictionary.

Ms Baymarrwangga is planning to continue her work with the Crocodile Island Rangers, using education to open the eyes of Indigenous children to career paths in conservation, cultural and natural resource management. She is currently working on a Junior Crocodile Rangers program, which aims to instill in the young a sense of cultural pride and responsibility through experiences on the land.

Another goal, says Ms Baymarrwangga, is to help maintain the 1,000 square kilometre turtle sanctuary in her sea country to preserve the sea environment and all the life forms it supports.

The legacy of Ms Baymarrwangga will be the continuation of her culture, says Carla McGrath, from the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, and Ms Baymarrwangga will be remembered for having achieved it at a time when her homeland was under significant cultural threat from foreign commercial and political interests.

“There can never be another Laurie Baymarrwangga,” she says. “A remarkable woman, who has lived through remarkable times.”

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Alana Lowes

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