Crocodile Islands Rangers
By Bentley James
The Yan-nhangu people of the Crocodile Islands inherit a rich
and vibrant ritual, linguistic and ecological knowledge
inextricably linked to their sacred ancestral sites in the seas and
across the islands. The Yan-nhangu language is a vehicle for, and
repository of this rich cultural and biological knowledge of the
sea, the reward of generations of intimate coexistence with their
marine and island homelands. The Crocodile Islands Initiative aims
to patrol and protect the almost two hundred and fifty square
kilometres of sacred sites in ten thousand square kilometres of sea
country, safeguarding the songs, ceremonies and language of the
Yan-nhangu people.
The Crocodile Islands Initiative was established by the
Yan-nhangu people who are the Traditional Aboriginal Owners of the
Crocodile islands and surrounding sea country. The aim of the
Crocodile Islands Initiative is to create appropriate life
education and employment opportunities by increasing the use of
Yan-nhangu Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) and Yan-nhangu
language skills in existing training and employment opportunities
across the Crocodile islands. This initiative is paid for by the
Yan-nhangu people out of their unemployment benefits and pension
money.
People want to create opportunities for their children and
children’s children to learn traditional knowledge and skills
by incorporating the use of their ancestral language in the context
of natural resource management activities.
Senior Yan-nhangu say that they want to capture and promote the
use of their language of place through experience on country, using
practical projects like the emerging Crocodile Islands Ranger
(Crocodile Islands Initiative) program. Yan-nhangu are also helping
to develop a Web-based IEK data base and encyclopaedia of local
knowledge. In partnership with researchers the Yan-nhangu are
developing ‘Language Nests’, so pre-school and school
aged children can also access local IEK through modern media.
Time and Tide in the Crocodile Islands
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The urgent need for language maintenance support for the
endangered and unique Yan-nhangu language of the Crocodile Islands
is revealed in this video. What is central is the idea that this
language is linked in complex ways to the culture, human and
biological environments of the islands and that this delicate
linkage is under threat despite our best efforts to continue to
live on the islands and pass on this knowledge.
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Fishtraps of the Crocodile Islands
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Through the refurbishment of an ancient fish trap called the
Betngu on Murrungga--largest of the outer Crocodile Islands--the
complex relations of songs, language and law is revealed. Further,
the work of the Crocodile Islands Rangers is understood to be an
extension of the desire of Yan-nhangu people to pass on their rare
language and knowledge.
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Crocodile Islands Rangers
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This video shows the meaning of the Crocodile Islands Rangers
from the point of view of an indigenous person who is a visitor to
Murrungga Island and records his experience there.
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Researcher
Dr Bentley James has spent the last seventeen years living and
working with Yan-nhangu people setting up projects aimed at
emphasising “continuities and innovations in local knowledge
for Yan-nhangu people struggling to maintain their languages and
livelihoods on their homelands”.
His Ph.D entitled Time and Tide in the Crocodile Islands:
Change and Continuity in Yan-nhangu Marine Identity? depicts
the intimate links of Yan-nhangu people to their Islands in the
Arafura Sea of northeast Arnhem Land. He reveals the enduring
features of Yan-nhangu distinctiveness within Yolngu culture
describing social, mythological, ecological and linguistic
relations in light of historical and more recent engagements,
shaped and constrained by the State. He documented and published a
draft dictionary (2003) in collaboration with senior Yan-nhangu,
which has formed the basis for a family of projects to enhance the
intergenerational transmission of Yan-nhangu language and local
knowledge for livelihoods on country. He continues his research for
the Crocodile Islands Initiative.
