Traditional Owners research project results in sacred site registration

Traditional Owners have collaborated with Charles Darwin University (CDU) students to register sacred sites with the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (APAA).

The 11 sacred sites are located on the Country of Mawng and Kunbarlang between Arla (Relief Point) and Karrabu (Goomadeer Point), between the communities of Warruwi and Maningrida.

The group has worked together since early 2023 on a project to care for important places on Country and make sure that this inheritance is passed on to the next generation of Traditional Owners from this part of coastal Arnhem Land. As part of this work, Traditional Owners wanted all sacred sites within the region to be registered by the AAPA under the Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act 1989.

All sacred sites are protected in the Northern Territory under the Sacred Sites Act. However, registering a sacred site legally establishes its status with detailed information that enables more effective protection by the AAPA for site custodians.

“This Country is too dangerous, there are many djang (sacred sites)”, senior custodian of sacred sites, Samuel Gulwa, said. “Balanda (non-Aboriginal people) could go to the wrong place and get into trouble. Or they could destroy that Country. We want to keep our Country safe, to look after it. It’s very important.”

“We all want our research to make a difference to the lives of the people we are working with, so it is really exciting to see this long-standing aspiration of my collaborators finally be reached,” Anthropologist, Mr. Williams, said. “The project has involved many hours of conversations, sitting down with senior knowledge holders to document their stories of these significant places.

“While the formal registrations increase protection for these sites under the Sacred Sites Act, it has been just as important for this Country under Indigenous law. We had the opportunity to visit all of these sacred sites with Elders, to camp there together and to make a series of videos of Elders telling these stories to the camera. Elders are now using those videos in Maningrida and Warruwi to help teach younger generations of their families about these places of Ancestral significance.”

AAPA board chair, Bobby Nunggumajbarr, said there is a lot of work involved in sacred site registration and the board welcomes the support from CDU and others to help collect all the necessary, detailed information on these significant sites.

“It is very important for the Territory that these sites are registered and given the full protection of the law,” Nunggumajbarr added.

Work to extensively map the sacred sites was supported by funding from the Australian Government as part of the Our Marine Parks grant program from Parks Australia, and from the INPEX-led Ichthys Joint Venture.

The Bawinanga Rangers also provided critical resources, including vehicles, boats, and helicopter fuel, to help get the group out to this remote part of Arnhem Land to document the sites.

“Well, it’s been a very long time we’ve been trying to make sure these places are protected. We’ve been talking to some anthropologists since the 1990’s, it’s been a long time. But now we’re there,” Site custodian, Mr. Gulwa, said. “We never forget all those things that old people were telling us. That knowledge was in front of us all the time, what our great grandfathers and grandmothers were telling us. So, we know this Country, we know all these places.”

Custodians Henry Imberamana and Jack Marilain said it was important to pass these stories onto the next generation.

“Some young people don’t know this area,” Marilain said. “When they come in the boat from Warruwi to Maningrida, they might get into trouble, upset the Country or go too close to that djang.

“We don’t want that to happen. We’ve been trying to make it safe for them, to protect them. Those Spirits under the water and out from the water, people need to take care of them. That’s why we’re passing on this word for them.”