TY - JOUR
KW - Indigenous Australians
KW - Indigenous heritage
KW - intangible heritage
KW - Macassans
KW - storytelling
AU - Rebecca Bilous
AB - From the eighteenth-century Macassan traders from the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi made regular visits to northern Australia, where with the help of Yolnu, Indigenous Australians living in north-east Arnhem Land, they collected trepang (sea cucumber) for trade. Along with sharing language, technology and culture, the Macassans and Yolnu involved built relationships that are celebrated today in Yolnu art, songs and stories. While the trepang trade had officially stopped by 1906, resonances of this complex relationship continued and still continue today. This paper shares a number of stories told by one particular Yolnu family about this heritage and reflects on the ways in which for Yolnu, the tangible heritage (artefacts), intangible heritage (stories) and the land itself are locked in a symbiotic relationship where each depends on the others to define their existence. Looking after, or protecting this heritage, is therefore about attending to place, and the nature, storytellers, objects and stories contained within it.
BT - International Journal of Heritage Studies
DO - 10.1080/13527258.2013.807399
LA - English
M1 - 9
N1 - Publisher: Routledge
N2 - From the eighteenth-century Macassan traders from the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi made regular visits to northern Australia, where with the help of Yolnu, Indigenous Australians living in north-east Arnhem Land, they collected trepang (sea cucumber) for trade. Along with sharing language, technology and culture, the Macassans and Yolnu involved built relationships that are celebrated today in Yolnu art, songs and stories. While the trepang trade had officially stopped by 1906, resonances of this complex relationship continued and still continue today. This paper shares a number of stories told by one particular Yolnu family about this heritage and reflects on the ways in which for Yolnu, the tangible heritage (artefacts), intangible heritage (stories) and the land itself are locked in a symbiotic relationship where each depends on the others to define their existence. Looking after, or protecting this heritage, is therefore about attending to place, and the nature, storytellers, objects and stories contained within it.
PY - 2015
SP - 905
EP - 918
T2 - International Journal of Heritage Studies
TI - All mucked up : sharing stories of Yolnu- Macassan cultural heritage at Bawaka, north- east Arnhem Land
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84940582349&doi=10.1080%2f13527258.2013.807399&partnerID=40&md5=7c9fcf5f5149e44d41edca0fae5fed4e
VL - 21
SN - 13527258 (ISSN)
ER -