NAISDA pays tribute to Dr J. N. Gumbula who sadly passed away on Elcho Island on 19 August.
Dr Gumbula was a senior Gupapuyngu Yolngu Mala leader from Milingimbi and Elcho Island. He was recognised as a leading authority on Yolŋu law, knowledge and material culture. He was an artist and cultural ambassador whose passions contributed much to Australian art and music culture and museums around the world.
Dr Gumbula was also renowned for his award winning song writing as member of the important Yolngu band, Soft Sands, which influenced the development of Yothu Yindi and the Saltwater Band.
Dr Gumbula worked with Museum Victoria and the National Museum of Australia examining and studying records from Arnhem Land and returning digital copies of theses to the Yolngu community. He was the first ever Indigenous Research Fellow of the University of Sydney in 2007. There he identified and contextualized the photographs and sound recordings taken by early missionaries and anthropologist. These included records of his own family.
He travelled internationally with his work in developing understanding and preserving of Yolngu culture. He contributed to preserving and interpreting audio and visual materials and documents concerning Yolngu dances, songs and traditional law. His work has had a lasting impact on the preservation and management of important collections of indigenous records throughout Australia and internationally.
He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the University of Sydney in 2007.
Dr Gumbula loved NAISDA and generously shared his knowledge with staff and Developing Artists both at the College and during the Cultural Residencies on Elcho Island. He will be greatly missed.
NAISDA sends sincere condolences to Dr Gumbula’s family at this sad time.
The University of Sydney
Champion of reclaiming the past: Vale Mr J. N. Gumbula
27 August 2015
Obituary – Aaron Corn (originally published in The Australian, 27 August 2015, reproduced with permission of the author)
- Mr J. N. Gumbula
- Elder, scholar and artist
- Born Milinginbi, November 5, 1954.
- Died Galiwin’ku, August 19, aged 60.
It is with great sadness that Australia mourns the passing of preeminent Indigenous elder and public intellectual, Mr J. N. Gumbula — scholar, artist and cultural ambassador.
J. N. Gumbula was descended from a prominent line of Yolngu leaders from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, whose influential contributions to building understanding between Indigenous and other Australians
date from the 1920s. His parents’ and grandparents’ representation in museum and art collections worldwide would later become Mr Gumbula’s passion and the subject of his life’s work.
Mr Gumbula was raised at Milingimbi. As a teenager, he apprenticed in carpentry and, in 1971, moved to Galiwin’ku to start a family with Pamela Gawura Ganambarr. Between 1989 and 1996, he served as a sworn officer of the Northern Territory Police Service and received a Commendation for Bravery, and in the early 1990s and early 2000s, he sat on the Galiwin’ku Community Council.
On moving to Galiwin’ku, Mr Gumbula also became a life member of the seminal Yolngu band, Soft Sands, which was an influential precursor to Yothu Yindi and the Saltwater Band. Through the 1970s and 1980s, he toured Australia with Soft Sands, and composed award-winning songs in endangered Yolngu languages.
Alongside these achievements, he also trained to become a leader of traditional Yolngu ceremonies and became a mastersinger of Manikay, the Indigenous song tradition of North-East Arnhem Land. In this capacity, he led two large-scale expeditions with his family and invited colleagues to his ancestral homeland, Djiliwirri, on Point Napier, and directed numerous performances of traditional music and dance at major venues around the world including the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land, Womadelaide, Sutra House in Kuala Lumpur, and the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
In the mid-1990s, Mr Gumbula refocused his life’s work on investigating the legacy of his family history in museum, university and art collections worldwide. In 2003, he accepted a Visiting Senior Fellowship at the University of Melbourne to explore the Donald Thomson Collection at Museum Victoria and the Ian Potter Museum of Art. He became a Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and was a founder of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia.
In 2007, the University of Sydney awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music in recognition of his professional generosity and contributions to knowledge. His collections work continued at Sydney University through two consecutive Australian Research Council (ARC) fellowships, which made him the first Yolngu Australian to lead any project funded by this prestigious body.
Mr Gumbula’s career went from strength to strength, and he became a preeminent advisor on Indigenous collections to museums, universities and public galleries all over the world. In addition to his work in national collections such as the National Museum of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive, he also advised and lectured at many international institutions including the Museum der Kulturen in Basel, the Musée et Institut d’Ethnographie in Geneva, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the Hearst Museum in Berkeley, the Peabody Museum in Massachusetts, and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in Virginia.
Mr Gumbula’s intensive work with the Sydney University Museums and Archives yielded two extraordinary outcomes. His 2009 exhibition, Makarr-Garma: Aboriginal Collections from a Yolngu Perspective, in the university’s Macleay Museum offered unique insights into Yolngu heritage that combined natural science and cultural heritage artifacts with artworks to holistically exemplify the fullest scope and beauty of Yolngu knowledge and way of life. His book of 2011, Mali’ Buku-Runganmaram: Images from Milingimbi and Surrounds, 1927–1962, received a Mander Jones Award from the Australian Society of Archivists for the best interpretation of an Australian archive in an individual publication.
Mr Gumbula’s career of 44 years was one of immense contributions to cross-cultural understanding, peace and human knowledge. He was a consummate authority on Yolngu law, knowledge and culture, and his generosity of spirit, leadership, creativity, and community service shone through effusively in every circle of relationships that he entered.
At the time of his death, Mr Gumbula was working as a research fellow at the Australian National University on a third ARC grant aimed at making historical collections available to Yolngu communities via everyday mobile devices such as smart phones. He was also working with colleagues from ANU and collecting institutions around the world to mount a traditional reconciliation ceremony at Milingimbi for the first time in 60 years. He is survived by his wife, Gawura, three children and 11 grandchildren, and leaves behind an international cohort of colleagues, whose work and lives are all the richer for his friendship and counsel.
Mr J. N. Gumbula — the honeybee man eternal. Follow the waters home and rest with the old people.
Aaron Corn was a student of Mr Gumbula and co-authored numerous writings with him on Yolngu culture and collections.
Mr Gumbula’s book of historical images from Arnhem Land, Mali’ Buku-Runganmaram, is published by Sydney University Press.