Sustaining Relations Between Makassans and Yolŋu: Remembering Trade and Kinship

Title: Sustaining Relations Between Makassans and Yolŋu: Remembering Trade and Kinship

Summary: This project brings together scholars who are experts in both Indigenous Australian and Indonesian culture, including senior Indigenous ceremonial leaders from both regions, to better understand cultural and trade relations between Yolŋu and Makassan communities from the 1700s until the early 20th century.

The project will focus on this trade relationship as it was understood by Yolŋu and Makassans at the time by:

• recording and analysing Yolŋu Manikay cycles relating to Makassan contact, and
• examining collections held by museums and at heritage sites around Makassar.

The team will explore modern recollections of Yolŋu/Makassan trade through interviews conducted in both Nhulunbuy and Makassar. They will also conduct workshops in Makassar with staff and students from Universitas Hasanuddin and local Makassan cultural leaders to share and exchange findings.

This project goes beyond the popular political trend of using the history of Makassan/Yolŋu trade as an idealistic metaphor for possibilities in Indonesian/Australian relations, to better understand how this trade was seen by and impacted on both Makassan and Yolŋu populations. It also provides broader contexts for that trade, exploring how it affected and was affected by European colonialism, the local slave trade, the spread of Islam, and other environmental and cultural factors.