Founding documents: ‘Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions’ by Clare Wright

I was very excited to be gifted this big, fat book last Christmas (thank you, Anita!) However, I put it aside for several months because I wanted to be able to give it the attention it was due.

When I finally picked it up I knew I was in for another of historian and writer Clare Wright’s thoroughly researched and compelling stories of Australian history. This is the third in her ‘Australian democracy’ trilogy. The first two (The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and You Daughters of Freedom) tell two earlier foundation stories of modern Australia – the role played by women in the Eureka rebellion on the Victorian goldfields in the mid-19th century, and later, the trailblazing fight for the vote by Australian women.

The Bark Petitions is both a smaller and a much bigger story. Smaller, because of its location. Bigger, because the repercussions of the events echo to this day.

They centre around a group of people from Yirrkala, on the Gove Peninsula in Australia’s far north who, when confronted in 1963 with the takeover and likely desecration of their Country, their sacred lands and their livelihood by a proposed French-owned bauxite mine, presented a unique petition to Federal Parliament – on four exquisite traditional paintings by tribal elders on bark.

Back in the mid 1980s I briefly visited Yirrkala in Arnhem Land, as part of my work for the then Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs. At the time I had never heard of the Bark Petitions. No one in the Department in Darwin where I was based, or at Nhulunbuy, the township at Yirrkala I visited, mentioned them. I learned from Wright’s book that Nhulunbuy was established because of the mine, only thirteen or so years before my visit. Looking back, I am amazed at my ignorance then.

The book relates how the Yolŋu people of Yirrkala, who had lived on their ancestral land for thousands of years, that land having been (under white man’s law) legally reserved for them in 1931, suddenly found themselves forced to defend that same land against commercial interests and mining activity authorised by the Federal government. There was no consultation. No accurate information provided to them. The first the Yirrkala people knew of the imminent threat to their land was the appearance of white survey pegs across a paddock. The leases to a foreign owned mining corporation were announced by then Prime Minister Menzies in a press statement.

Wright describes the cast of characters that populated this story. As with any drama there were protagonists and antagonists; not always neatly lined up along race lines. The Yirrkala Methodist Mission had brought together a number of Yolŋu clan groups who now needed to unite in a struggle to save their land. In this they had some allies from staff within the Mission, particularly Edgar Wells, the Mission Superintendant who early on took on a whistleblower role, to the detriment of his own career and physical and mental health; and his wife Ann, who wrote about much that she observed during that fateful year.

Actually I was surprised to learn that the official policy of the Methodist missions was not assimilation, which was government policy at the time. Methodist missions aimed to equip residents with literacy and other skills needed for survival in the modern world while encouraging the continued use of traditional language and customary practices.

Non-indigenous characters in the story who appear less…sympathetic, let’s say…are those from the halls of Parliament, or heads of government departments in Sydney, Darwin or Canberra. Paul Hasluck, then Minister for Territories, stood out for me as someone who did not cover himself in glory at this time. Perhaps unfair to single him out from a crowd of fellow politicians (and also bureaucrats) for whom political and commercial priorities rode roughshod over indigenous rights; but my heart sank when I remembered that he went on to become Australia’s Governor General just six years later.

There were others, such as Kim Beazley Snr, who was the Member for Fremantle and planted a seed which led to the idea of the petitions being presented in the form they took, and later with Gordon Bryant (Member for Wills) led a debate in Parliament which put forward new principles when considering rights of Aboriginal people: native title; self-determination; consultation. These had been pretty much absent until now (certainly at Yirrkala) but would become part of official policy in future years.

There is so much to admire in Clare Wright’s book. The forensic detail in which she describes events as they took place, from various perspectives – a testament to the thoroughness of her research, involving exhaustive trawls through the official archives, but also deep dives into private journals, letters and also interviews with the families and individuals of many of the people involved.

If there are ‘sides’ in this historical drama the author makes no apology about where she stands. Having lived for a time amongst the community at Yirrkala, her emotional loyalties are clear. Her descriptions, and those of mission staff at the time, of the way Yolŋu conducted their own internal discussions and decision making processes, based on lore and law from time immemorial, are vivid, as are the significance of the Bark Petitions themselves, the processes by which they were created and the ‘momentous double act of diplomacy’ they represented. (p346)

From the Yolŋu : we offer you this gift. Our knowledge. Our stories. Our symbols…Every bark painting…depicted food or a place where food could be found. This food, these places, mirrored the clan identifications that established the right to gather...Together, told in art, the symbols required neighbouring clans to seek permission to enter other than their own privileged food resource area. Established entitlement. Marked the boundaries…
So: we offer you this gift. This gift of our knowledge. The key to our mind maps.
What we ask in return: your respect. This is this second act of diplomacy…
The printed words – the petition – are what you require. In your language and ours. Dharuk.
The paintings that frame the words – the bark – this is what we require. Naku.
Diplomacy, not assimilation. Two sovereign nations, testing the boundaries.
Naku Dharuk. Bark Petitions.

The Bark Petitions pp348-349

It is probably no spoiler to say that the original petitions were rejected by Parliament, and that the bauxite mine went ahead. I knew that, but it still felt like a punch to the belly when I read the actual words of parliamentarians as they attempted to undermine the significance – indeed, the integrity – of the petitions when they were first presented. Paul Hasluck was a main player here. A tried and true tactic, to shoot the messenger and/or the message. Divisive, dirty politics for divisive, dirty gains.

Australia saw it again in 2023 with the defeat of the referendum aimed at establishing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Eighty years after the Bark Petitions, their message has still not been properly heard.

Nevertheless, Clare Wright has made a compelling argument that the Petitions from 1963 represent an important step towards legal recognition of First Nations land rights in this country; but also that they ‘constitute nothing less than the third pillar of a trinity of material objects that, read together, along a historical, political and cultural continuum, constitute Australia’s founding documents.’ (p552)
The others are the Eureka Flag of 1854 and the Women’s Suffrage Banner of the early 1900s.

Flag. Banner. Bark.
Each of these declamatory objects speaks back to power, a creative act of resistance to a perceived political injustice. Each makes a claim for inclusion in the dominant power structures: first of the colonies, then of the nation of Australia.
The Bark Petitions p554

Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions is a hefty book. At 573 pages, it’s not a quick read. But I am very glad I allowed myself the time to read it from cover to cover, absorbing the detail, the characters, the setting, and the aspects of Yolŋu culture and language included throughout. I feel richer for it. I am certain Australia is, and I thank Ms. Wright for bringing us this work. I can’t wait to see which significant event or period in our collective history the author will tackle next.

Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions was published by Text Publishing Australia in 2024