The Yunupingu aboriginal leader, recognized as a “living treasure” by Australia and a pioneer in defending the rights of his people, died Monday at the age of 74, the government announced.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mourned the loss of “one of Australia’s greatest” and “a statesman”.
Yunupingu played a crucial role in the Aboriginal struggle for recognition of ancestral land rights in the 1960s and 1970s.
For decades he campaigned for Aboriginal people, people who were in Australia before the arrival of European settlers, to be recognized under the Constitution, an issue that will be put to a referendum later this year.
Hailing from Arnhem Land in the far north of the country, Yunupingu rose to prominence in the early 1960s when, together with the Yolngu people, they petitioned Parliament, made from tree bark, to protest a mining project in the land.
Arnhem Land is a region of almost 97,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 16,000, located in the northeast corner of the upper end of the Northern Territory, about 500 kilometers from the territorial capital, Darwin.
The leader, who died of illness, was also a “master of ceremonies and guardian of the chant lines” through which the Yolngu people perpetuate oral memory, according to the Yothu Yindi Foundation. In 1998, it was recognized as a “living treasure” by the Australian government.
“Yunupingu moved between two worlds with authority, power and grace and worked to make them one, together,” Albanese said.
Aboriginal people have inhabited Australia for around 65,000 years according to various estimates, but have been subjected to various forms of discrimination, oppression and dispossession since British colonization began in the 18th century.
Source: TSF
