Yirrkala bark petitions

The Yirrkala bark petitions 1963 are historic Australian documents that were the first traditional documents prepared by Indigenous Australians that were recognised by the Australian Parliament, and are thus the first documentary recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law.

Wali Wunungmurra, one of the 12 signatories to the petitions, describes the background to the petitions as follows:

"In the late 1950s Yolngu became aware of people prospecting for minerals in the area of the Gove Peninsula, and shortly after, discovered that mining leases had been taken out over a considerable area of our traditional land. Our response, in 1963, was to send a petition framed by painted bark to the Commonwealth Government demanding that our rights be recognised."

The Yolngu people of Yirrkala sent the bark petitions to the Australian House of Representatives where they were tabled on 14 and 28 August 1963. The petitions were written in the Yolngu language, together with an English translation. They are on permanent display at Parliament House, Canberra.

The bark petitions asserted that the Yolngu people owned the land and protested the Commonwealth's granting of mining rights to Nabalco of land excised from the Arnhem Aboriginal Land reserve. The son of one of the Yirrkala plaintiffs, a Gumatj clan leader, Munggurrawuy, was Galarrwuy Yunupingu who assisted in drafting the petitions.

The petitions stated that "the land in question has been hunting and food gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial" and "that places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land". They expressed the petitioners' "fear that their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past". The petitions called on the House of Representatives to "appoint a Committee, accompanied by competent interpreters, to hear the views of the people of Yirrkala before permitting the excision" of the land for the mine and to ensure "that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people". Thus, the petitions are the first formal assertion of native title.

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