Baniyala

Streaming video - 1996

An archival record film of life at the small Madarrpa clan settlement of Bäniyala on Blue Mud Bay, some 200 kilometres south of Yirrkala. The film is in two parts.. The first part covers everyday events at Bäniyala. The settlement's first corrugated iron house is built. A water resources team discuss their problem of trying to find a site for a fresh water bore with clan head Wakuthi Marawili and his son Miniyawany. We see the little school, a plane arrives, women get water from a leech-infested lagoon, a group fishes at a nearby river.. In the second part, Wakuthi Marawili takes the Bäniyala men, and the film unit, on a ceremonial walk to important sites around Bäniyala, including a great Yingapungapu (an oval-shaped "sand pi...t") ceremonial ground. He then delivers, in Yolngu, a lecture about the significance of what we have seen and about his clan history. No documentation or translation is included in this archival record, but the first part is self explanatory with much of the dialogue in English. more