Yan-nhaŋu

The Yan-nhaŋu are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. They have strong sociocultural connections with their neighbours, the Burarra, on the Australian mainland.

The Yan-nhaŋu people derive their ethnonym from the language they spoke, yän meaning 'tongue/speech' and nhaŋu a proximate deictic word signifying 'this'.

Yan-nhangu is a member of the Yolŋu language family.

In his classic survey of Australian tribes, Norman Tindale assigned their modern territory to the Djinang people. He writes that the Yan-nhaŋu (Nango) were indigenous to the Wessel Islands east of Brown Strait (from Jirrgari island to Cape Wessel), Galiwin'ku/Elcho Island and Drysdale Island. Their territory also encompassed the Cunningham Islands. With regard to the Crocodile Islands group, Tindale designated Mooroonga and Yabooma as Yan-nhaŋu, adding that they were also present at Banyan Island, where the Woolen River debouches.

The Yan-nhaŋu were formed of eight clans, belonging to either a Dua or Yirritja moiety:-

Dua moieties (5 clans)

Yirritja moieties. (3 clans)

in 1921, Elcho Island was chosen as the site for a Methodist Overseas Mission. However, oil drilling by the Naphtha Petroleum Company brought about the closure of the proposed mission site, which therefore was relocated to Milingimbi. This mission was established by James Watson in 1922, after that religious organisation had obtained a lease on the site in 1921. Following this twofold usurpation of their key homeland isles, the Yan-nhaŋu then found Milingimbi subject to an influx of other Yolŋu peoples from the mainland, who were drawn to the Mission. Inter-clan fighting erupted, and many Yan-nhaŋu shifted to the less accessible island of Murrungga.

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