Voice of a movement

Fresh and salty rock and rollers

Writing in the Sand

By Matt Garrick

Review by Nic Margan

In 1988, representatives of the Northern Territory’s Northern and Central Indigenous Land Councils handed Bob Hawke the Barunga statement, calling for a Treaty between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australia. Now it hangs in an obscure corner of Parliament House, its position a fitting symbol – a history of unfinished diplomacy haunting the corners of the nation’s control centre. Almost thirty years earlier, Australia’s Indigenous people fought for and won their right to vote, and almost thirty years later, in 2017, The Uluru Statement From the Heart asserted Indigenous people’s rights in Australia with renewed vigour. In these we see the turning of a cycle, where the constant simmering work of Indigenous Australians reaches a boil. Each time, we’re a little different, but the big questions remain the same. In the same year that Galarrwuy Yunupiŋu presented the Barunga Statement, his brother, Mandawuy Bakamana Yunupiŋu was starting a band. Bakamana, a brilliant school teacher who pioneered the concept of Two Ways education, appears to have less of the politician in him than his brother, and more of the cultural producer, thinker and outright wild rock and roller. Writing in the Sand is an account of his story and the story of Yothu Yindi – a tale simultaneously riotous, hilarious, otherworldly, devastating and brilliantly powerful – and the legacy of their own boiling point, the writing of ‘Treaty’. This is a big story, spanning more than thirty years and a huge number of band members, industry contacts and friends, international and remote Australian settings and several major events in recent Australian history, but author Matt Garrick appears well-placed to tell it. His ongoing relationship with the band and its surrounding community and position as its authorised biographer are a good start, but even better is the staggering number of interviews with which he pieces the book together. Garrick’s style is mostly defined by minimising his own presence – at times the book reads like a conversation between interviewees, an impressive feat of editing, which gives the effect of collective memory spoken clear and coherent. Yet Garrick’s own laconic voice is there enough to show that he, too, is a character caught up in the fabric of this wonderful collaborative cultural identity. ‘These blokes were doing more than just imbibing magic mushrooms and warm beer at a bush block down the road from a forty-foot statue of a boxing crocodile,’ Garrick explains of Yothu Yindi precursor The Swamp Jockeys, and I say tell me more. While indispensable reading for anyone interested in Australian musical history (Yothu Yindi crossed paths with, among others, No Fixed Address, The Warumpi Band, Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, INXS’s Andrew Farris, Slim Dusty, and of course Gurrumul) the enduring story of the book is Mandawuy Bakamana Yunupiŋu’s philosophy of balance, wherein Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can come together in one song, electric guitar and Yiḏaki at once. This guy was extremely driven to ensure a better future for his people and their culture, and he had the acuity to see that he could do so by bringing both to the future. His tool was adaptation and through it he showed the enduring value of his culture. One account of a former band member from the early 1990s recalls ‘walking through a Manhattan supermarket deli after a show,

alongside Witiyana and Mangatjay, both still streaked in full white body paint and rocking feathers in their hair. The looks these guys were getting was hilarious… Like, “Where are you fuckin’ guys from? Outer space?” ... And [Witiyana and Mangitjay] were completely oblivious, just walking the aisles and doing their shopping, and leaving this trail of aghast and agog people behind them.’ This is what is meant here by adaptation: it’s a wild and uncompromising ride. Mandawuy defined a Yolŋu person as ‘a person who knows how to sing and dance’ and it is song and dance that are at the root of Yothu Yindi’s universal power, but Writing in the Sand shows that the Yothu Yindi story is about the adaptation of many other Yolŋu cultural values too, including hard work and dedication, righteous purpose, collectivism and the adventure of going out on cultural business. Garrick’s account illustrates this with plenty of flair and enjoyment and it’s a pleasure to read. It’s not a book that sits over the topic of adaptation with a microscope, but instead keeps rolling along with plenty of lightness and humour. Garrick doesn’t make an ideological argument, he just tells the story and the story makes it for him. What this account of the Yothu Yindi story does best is reflect the power of Yolŋu culture and philosophy, and in doing so it pulls you, as compelling as a wet season cyclone, to reconsider what a Treaty could be. Reading it, I became aware that my understanding of a Treaty in Australia was merely the government ceding power to Indigenous people as an act of social justice, and that this is an underestimation of the value of the Indigenous voice in this country. Mandawuy explains the concept of gaṉma, ‘a place where two knowledge systems meet… a special place where fresh water meets salt water.’ What Garrick’s account of the Yothu Yindi story shows very clearly is that a Treaty could immensely improve Australia as a nation through something like gaṉma. As he puts it, ‘From out of the foam, new knowledge, new culture and society could form.’ Thirty years on from the release of ‘Treaty’, Garrick has released this accomplished feat of biography and I am prompted to reflect on where we are now. In response to the request of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in 2017 for a referendum on a constitutionallyenshrined Indigenous voice to parliament, the federal government stated, ‘The government does not believe such a radical change to our Constitution’s representative institutions has any realistic prospect of being supported by a majority of Australians in a majority of states.’ Putting aside the question of whether this isn’t just bad leadership, responsibility for progressing the Treaty remains on us as a population. From winning the vote to the Barunga Statement and now the Statement from the Heart, Indigenous work bubbles up again and whether it’s now or in the next cycle, progress depends on who we are. This book, like Yothu Yindi, is a step toward becoming a nation that says yes.

Harper Collins / 432pp / RRP $45