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77. Mabo
Written & performed by Yothu Yindi
From the CD Freedom (Hollywood Records, USA 1994)
‘The pollen and sedimentary record from a coastal backdune swamp on the island of Mua, Torres Strait, Australia, is presented. A 4.55 m core collected from the swamp centre provides a record of vegetation and landscape change spanning the postglacial marine transgression to present. Prior to 6000 radiocarbon years before present (yr BP) results show mangrove vegetation encroaching on the core site, periodically displacing non-mangrove taxa until the establishment of an extensive mangrove forest between 6000 yr BP and 3000 yr BP.
Within the mangrove community a transition from lower-tidal Rhizophora forest to an upper-intertidal Ceriops community is evident. This is followed by the development of the current herbaceous freshwater swamp in the late Holocene. The dryland vegetation record is dominated by sclerophyll and rainforest elements with strongest forest representation occurring around the mid Holocene before a decline in tree density and the establishment of open woodlands in the late Holocene.
The data suggest vegetation change accompanied marine transgression and a humid mid-Holocene climate, before stabilisation of sea levels and the initiation of dominant on-shore catchment processes, signalling drier climatic conditions and possible human activity.’
- ‘Vegetation change following mid-Holocene marine transgression of the Torres Strait shelf: a record from the island of Mua, northern Australia’, by Cassandra Rowe, The Holocene, Vol. 17, No. 7, 927-937 (2007). Sage online journal http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/17/7/927
Terra nullius terra nullius
Terra nullius is dead and gone
We were right
That we were here
They were wrong
That we weren’t here
Liya balburrk bapayili
Liya waltjan bapayili
Liya balburrk bapayili
Liya waltjan bapayili
Mirriam people are dancing
Pastime heroes are dancing too
Mabo’s spirit is sailing
Telling the world a story
Terra nullius terra nullius
Terra nullius is dead and gone
Liya balburrk bapayili
Liya waltjan bapayili…
We were right
That we were here
They were wrong
That we weren’t here…
Mabo’s law is standing firm
Shedding power
For us to be strong
Spirit, law, culture and all
Showing the world
See our law
Terra nullius terra nullius
Terra nullius is dead and gone
We were right
That we were here
They were wrong
That we weren’t here
Liya balburrk bapayili
Liya waltjan bapayili
Bapayili bapayili
Bapayili bapayili
- Mabo, by Yothu Yindi
‘Tasmanian place names elicit some interest: most are straight from the British Isles, or after dignitaries and royal personages of the day. Not as many as on the mainland are after Aboriginal names. Perhaps because of its isolation at the end of the known world, its brutal penal system, or the desperation of the new inhabitants, many place names evoke the scriptures - Lindisfarne, the Pools of Bethesda, the Walls of Jerusalem, Jericho, Paradise, Promised Land - while others describe the hell that some of the first arrivals must have thought they had come to - Styx Valley, Savage River, Devil’s River. Even the unofficial state emblem, the bad-tempered little Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), has an unholy name.’
- Hobart, Australia, in discoverhobart.com – The picturesque gateway to Tasmania’s rugged beauty. www.discoverhobart.com/hobart/about.html
‘Promised Land, Tasmania. Postcode: 7306. Latitude: -41.428. Longitude: 146.203 Locality: Tasmania. Nearest Urban Centre: Launceston, TAS (78km away). Dialling Code: 03 (+61 3 from overseas). Time Zone: AEST – Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10), AEDT – Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC+11). Current Time: 09/09/2008 12:13 am. Nearest Airport: Launceston Airport (85km away). Nearest Train Station: Preston South (also known as Breona) (14km away). Nearest Hotels: Cradle Mountain Lodge (30km away), Best Western Bass And Flinder (31km away), Quality Hotel Gateway (32km away,) Comfort Inn Sunrise (32km away), Best Western Murchison Lodge (47km away), Comfort Inn Beachfront Voyager (47km away)’
- www.postcodes-australia.com/postcodes/7306
‘Since European settlers and convicts arrived in Australia in 1788 the story of the Aboriginals has been a one sided one. It involves the dispossession of land, suppression of language and culture, denial of identity, dispersion and resettlement, the poisoning of water supplies, and as recently as the 1930s, systematic massacres […] Music has become aligned with the struggle for land rights – after all, land is the most meaningful aspect of the Aboriginal heritage [and] Aboriginal artists famously joined together in 1995 to produce a version of We Are The World, an album of songs called Our Home Our Land. […] Established artists such as Yothu Yindi recorded ‘Mabo’, Sunrise Band ‘Land Rights’ and Tiddas, the title track. Yothu Yindi’s song was a celebration of the historic 1992 Act in which the Australian High Court overturned the so-called terra nullius doctrine which regarded the continent as unowned land (meaning that no other colonial power had laid claim to it).’
- ‘World Music’, by Frederick Dorian, Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, Orla Duane, Richard Trillo. Rough Guides [1994]
‘On July 8, the federal Senate passed John Howard’s Wik bill. The bill’s amendments to the 1993 Native Title Act continue a long history of Aboriginal dispossession.
From 1788, the British legal system and colonists treated the land as ownerless and available for acquisition: the terra nullius doctrine.
Since Aborigines had received no grant from the crown, they had no title to the land. Colonial or state reserves for Aborigines did not even give security of occupation, much less title. For example, 800,000 hectares of Aboriginal reserves were confiscated in the four years after the 1957 ILO convention on the protection of indigenous populations was adopted.’
- Aboriginal land rights struggles, 22 July 1998, by Jennifer Thompson. www.greenleft.org.au
‘Despite the obvious presence of Aborigines in Australia, the doctrine of Terra Nullius stood as a legal precept in Australia until 1992 when it was overturned in the Mabo decision. Clearly a reason for celebration among Australia’s indigenous peoples, the Mabo decision became the topic of songs by numerous musicians – Yothu Yindi’s Mabo only one of them. The appearance of the song serves as a pivotal point – it sums up a history of Aboriginal land rights songs, but simultaneously signals the beginning of a second wave of indigenous activity to reclaim the country.
The Mabo case was an action by Eddie Koiki Mabo from the island of Mer (also known as Murray Island) in the Torres Strait, against the state of Queensland. It challenged the non indigenous ownership of lands Mabo claimed were his by right of continued ancestral occupation and use. The findings of the case of Mabo and Others vs the State of Queensland (Bartlet, 1993) were that the Meriam people ‘are entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the island of Mer…’ (Bartlet 1993, 170). The subsequent Native Title Act (1993) responded to this legislation, establishing frameworks for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander access, use and occupation of traditional country, with different applications depending on local conditions. The victory of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Mabo case was celebrated by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, [CAAMA] with the release of a two CD set, Our Land, Our Home’.
- Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music In Australia, by Peter Dunbar-Hall, Chris Gibson: University of New South WalesPress (2004)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0pid1LHuz1sC&dq=Deadly+Sounds,+Deadly+Places:+Contemporary+Aboriginal+Music+In+Australia +by+Peter+Dunbar-Hall,+Chris+Gibson&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=ZbtTSr2EDtm6jAf38-2QCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
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