A turtle comes prepacked in its own cooking container, like Jiffy Pop popcorn. Older men provide the music—a rhythmic crack of clapsticks, a trilling chant, the thrumming drone of the didgeridoo. He holds it up and squeezes it, and a muddy brown paste is ejected from the bottom. A sacred hill, he says. Gasoline sniffing got so bad that a special brand of low-aromatic, nonaddictive fuel called Opal is all that’s sold in some Aboriginal areas.Nellie Gupumbu (left) and Lisa Garraynjarranga camp along the Arafura Sea with their grandmother, Lily Gurambara. The dances last all day, and another, and another—the funeral carries on for ten days—as people stream in from communities across the bush to pay respect, to dance some more, to set the soul on its journey with the grandest possible send-off. Both men have thin, elongated scars across their palms and chests. And the path each of these beings took, the countryside they molded before burrowing back into the ground, is called a Songline.The ancestral beings also gave birth to all living things, including humans. Feast.Aborginals in touch with the land see desert oaks and imagine the drinking water in the trees’ cavities. Then on April 29, 1770, British explorer James Cook landed his ship, the If you’re thirsty, dig a hole in the sand for a pool of cool fresh water.More than a half million Aboriginals currently live in Australia, less than 3 percent of the population. Then there are the saltwater crocodiles, known as salties, which can grow to 20 feet long. Analysis revealed he had been killed in the 13th century—hundreds of years before Europeans arrived in Australia and introduced metal objects. Touch a flame to the tip of a palm leaf. Gaypalwani reaches into the water to grab the first rope, and both men tug, veins rising, hauling the ropes in hand over hand, and soon the turtle is pulled to the side of the boat.The men reach over, and each grabs a thick, flapping flipper, braces his feet against the side of the boat, and leans back.

Since 1990 the remains of more than 1,100 Aboriginals have been repatriated to Australia.A young man named Marvin Ganyin convinces me that her concern is unnecessary. So I called Batumbil.She surveyed my bags of supermarket food and asked if they were really for sharing.

Compared with Aboriginals who reside in cities and towns, those in remote homelands eat healthier food, live longer, and are exposed to a fraction of the violence. She loves Elvis. Her father had eight wives. He died in 2000.In 1976 the Aboriginal Land Rights Act for the Northern Territory returned Arnhem Land, more than 35,000 square miles, to its traditional owners. When the remains were submitted for lab tests, the picture radically changed.

Her husband was more than 20 years older.
For the Yolngu, all the world’s a canvas—boulders, trees, bedroom walls, the exteriors of houses. He displays the scars on his knuckles from all his fights.


Through her stunning photography, Amy Toensing touches upon the Aboriginal Australians' cultural struggle, but celebrates these indigenous people's unique way of life and their connection to their ancestral lands. I walk through Matamata, and the stars wink on, and the sound of Ganyin’s playing fills the night. Through her stunning photography, Amy Toensing touches upon the Aboriginal Australians' cultural struggle, but celebrates these indigenous people's unique way of life and their connection to their ancestral lands.The National Geographic Live! Even when someone in Matamata goes to the bathroom—there are outhouses—it is standard to take a partner along.



Dreaming big: National Science Week with Kirsten Banks ... Monday 17 August: 65,000 Years of Australian Aboriginal Astronomy with Kirsten Banks hosted by ANU Astronomical Society. What can you do with it when you’re hungry—eat the book?”But then, on a day when the supply of gas is low and some of the older men drive into town to purchase more, he taps me on the shoulder, hands me a spear, and indicates that I should follow him. Gaypalwani stares, points.

A sister-in-law, a drinker, undergoes daily dialysis treatments in Darwin.

His mother was Batumbil’s daughter, the one who passed away. She speaks several dialects of Yolngu Matha, the language of the Yolngu, as well as excellent English. A huge crab is skewered.



There remain a few places.
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