Vincent Lingiari (13 June 1908 or 1919 – 21 January 1988) was an Australian Aboriginal rights activist and member of the Gurindji people. In his early life he started as a stockman at Wave Hill Station, where the Aboriginal workers were given no more than rations, tobacco and clothing as their payment. After the owners of the station refused to improve pay and working conditions at the cattle station and hand back some of Gurindji land, Lingiari was elected and became the leader of the workers in August 1966. He led his people in the Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike. On 7 June 1976, Lingiari was named a

Member of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Go ...

for his services to the Aboriginal people. The story of Lingiari is celebrated in the Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody song "

From Little Things Big Things Grow "From Little Things Big Things Grow" is a protest song recorded by Australian artists Paul Kelly & The Messengers on their 1991 album ''Comedy'', and by Kev Carmody (with Kelly) on his 1993 album ''Bloodlines''. It was released as a CD singl ...

Early life

Vincent Lingiari was born in 1919, according to Australian Government records, but some sources allege his date of birth was actually 13 June 1908. He became a poorly-remunerated stockman at Wave Hill Station when he was a young man. He also played the

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (; also spelt didjeridu, among other variants) is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous Drone (music), drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo wa ...

Wave Hill walk-off

Wave Hill Cattle Station is located approximately 600 km south of Darwin in the Northern Territory. From the late 19th century it was run by the British pastoral company Vesteys. Vesteys employed the local Indigenous people, the Gurindji, to work on Wave Hill. But working conditions were extremely poor and wages were very low when compared to those of non-Indigenous employees. In 1966, Lingiari, a member of the Gurindji, worked at Wave Hill and had recently returned from a period of hospitalisation in Darwin and led a walk-off of indigenous employees of Wave Hill as a protest against the work and conditions. While there had been complaints from Indigenous employees about conditions on Wave Hill over many years, including an inquiry during the 1930s that was critical of Vestey's employment practices, the walk-off had a focus that was aimed at a wider target than Vestey's. Before 1968 it was illegal to pay an indigenous worker more than a specified amount in goods and money. In many cases, the government benefits for which Indigenous employees were eligible were paid into pastoral companies' accounts, rather than to the individuals. The protesters established the Wattie Creek (Daguragu) camp and demanded the return of some of their traditional lands. Speaking on this Lingiari said, "We want to live on our land, our way". So began the eight-year fight by the Gurindji people to obtain title to their land. In 1969, Lingiari co-wrote the song "Gurindji Blues", with Ted Egan.

Land rights act and handback

The Wave Hill strike would eventually reshape the agenda of relationships between

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

and the wider community. Although initially an employee-rights action, it soon became a major federal issue when the Gurindji people demanded the return of their traditional lands. The strike lasted eight years. Over that time, support for

Aboriginal land rights Indigenous land rights are the rights of Indigenous peoples to land and natural resources therein, either individually or collectively, mostly in colonised countries. Land and resource-related rights are of fundamental importance to Indigenou ...

grew as the struggle intensified. The protest eventually led to the '' Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976''. This act was the basis by which

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...

and Torres Strait Islander people could apply for freehold title to traditional lands (known as

Native title in Australia Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have righ ...

) in the Northern Territory and, significantly, the power to negotiate over mining and development on those lands, including what type of compensation they would like. An important and symbolic event in Australian history occurred when, during an emotional ceremony in 1975, Prime Minister

Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the h ...

poured the local sand into Lingiari's hands, symbolically handing a small part of land belonging to the Wave Hill station back to the Gurindji people, on a 30-year pastoral lease. A photograph of the moment captured by

Mervyn Bishop Mervyn Bishop (born July 1945) is an Australian news and documentary photographer. Joining '' The Sydney Morning Herald'' as a cadet in 1962 he was the first Aboriginal Australian to work on a metropolitan daily newspaper and one of the first to ...

was purchased by the National Portrait Gallery and is displayed in Old Parliament House. On 7 June 1976, Lingiari was named a

for his services to the Aboriginal people.

Legacy

Lingiari died on 21 January 1988. Every year until then he attended the Gurindji's annual re-enactment of the walk-off. Lingiari was a leader and holder of the cultural authority of the Gurindji people. His fight for his people's rights made him a national figure. He won a victory that is one of the most outstanding achievements in the history of the struggle for the recognition of Indigenous people, and initiated awareness to non-Indigenous people of the intense connections between Indigenous peoples and their land. One of Australia's largest electorates is named after Lingiari. The

Division of Lingiari The Division of Lingiari is an Australian electoral division in the Northern Territory that covers the entirety of the territory outside of the Division of Solomon, which covers Darwin and surrounding areas. The division also includes the C ...

encompasses nearly all of the Northern Territory as well as Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands. It includes

Daguragu __NOTOC__ Daguragu, previously also known as Wattie Creek by the Gurindji people, is a locality in the Northern Territory of Australia located about south of the territory capital of Darwin and located about south-west of the municipal seat i ...

and traditional Gurindji lands. The story of Lingiari is celebrated in the song "

" written by Paul Kelly and Indigenous musician Kev Carmody and recorded by Kelly in 1991. It was later added to the Sounds of Australia archive. The Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lectures have been held at the

Casuarina ''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in th ...

campus amphitheatre of

Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University (CDU) is an Australian public university with a main campus in Darwin and eight satellite campuses in some metropolitan and regional areas. It was established in 2003 after the merger of Northern Territory University ...

since 1996, featuring speakers as diverse as

Marcia Langton Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...

Malcolm Fraser John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Fraser was raised on hi ...

, Pat Dodson and

Bruce Pascoe Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Aboriginal Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Since August ...

. The story of his part in the strike is also told in Irish folk musician

Damien Dempsey Damien Dempsey (born 9 June 1975) is an Irish singer and songwriter who mixes traditional Irish folk contemporary lyrics that deliver social and political commentaries on Irish society. Damien sings in his native, working class accent in the Eng ...

's song "Wave Hill Walk Off", on his 2016 album ''No Force on Earth''. The Vincent Lingiari Cup is an Aussie rules football competition that takes place at the annual Freedom Day Festival each year in Kalkaringi.

Vincent Lingiari Art Award

The Vincent Lingiari Art Award was created in 2016 by the Central Land Council (CLC) and Desart, on the 50th anniversary of the Gurindji strike, and 40 years after the Land Rights Act was passed. CLC is the

land council Land councils, also known as Aboriginal land councils, or land and sea councils, are Australian community organisations, generally organised by region, that are commonly formed to represent the Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australians ...

for

Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...

, while Desart represents over 40 Aboriginal art centres in the region. The award intentionally has a political focus, in particular relating to land and water rights for Aboriginal people. The submissions, open to all members of Desart-affilieated art centres as well as artists with strong links to the CLC region, are displayed at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery (run by Tangentyere Council) in Alice Springs. The award is the first art prize in the region developed by Aboriginal organisations. In 2016, the theme of the competition was "Our Land, Our Life, Our Future", and the inaugural award, judged by Hetti Perkins, was won by Marlene Rubuntja of

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' A ...

, for her soft sculpture ''My future is in my hands''. The award was worth in this year. In 2019 the award theme was "Our Country – True Story", relating to the call for

truth-telling A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state ac ...

which was made in the 2017 '' Uluru Statement from the Heart'', and the submissions were exhibited from 4 September at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery. The prize went to Eunice Napanangka Jack of Ikuntji Artists for her painting titled ''Kuruyultu'', which is the name of the artist's birthplace, and the painting expresses her connection to it. In 2021, the theme was water rights, expressed as "Ngawa, Ngapa, Kapi, Kwatja, Water", intended to "raise awareness of our struggle against massive water theft that threatens the survival of desert plants, animals and people and for safe drinking water for our remote communities", according to the CEO of Desart, Philip Watkins. Includes photo of 2016 winning work. The award paintings were exhibited from 8 September at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery, and a second award was also introduced, the Delegates Choice Award. Judge Hetti Perkins selected the painting ''Raining at Laramba'', by Grace Kemarre Robinya (born 1942) of Tangentyere Artists as the winner. The title refers to the small community of Laramba, near

Napperby Station Napperby Station, also known as Napperby, is a pastoral lease used as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. History The station was established on Anmatyerre tribal land. The Chisholm family have owned Napperby Station ...

, where Robinya used to live, where the water supply contains three times the level of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

considered to be the safe limit. The Delegates' Choice Award went to Leah Leaman for her painting titled ''Following the Waterways''. There were a record 47 entries for the award.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lingiari, Vincent 1908 births 1988 deaths People from the Northern Territory History of Australia since 1945 Australian indigenous rights activists Members of the Order of Australia Gurindji Australian stockmen