Missing the Revolution! Negotiating disclosure on the pre-Macassans (Bayini) in North-East Arnhem Land

Abstract

By their own admission, members of Charles Mountford's 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land were motivated by a search for the primitive. It is no surprise, then, that the published records show a singular lack of awareness of the sorts of debate raging within Aboriginal circles at that time. For example, so-called missionised Yolngu (as the Aboriginal people of NorthEast Arnhem Land are known) were engaged in a major discussion about whether Christianity was an expression of the Dreaming and thus culturally mandated or whether God gave Yolngu the Dreaming as some missionaries insisted.