There's growing evidence Aboriginal people moved to Indonesia at least 150 years ago and started families. These images are the first photographic proof of this community.
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this articleThe discovery of a trove of long-forgotten, black-and-white photographs in an Italian library has proven that a group of Indigenous Australians formed a community in South East Asia 150 years ago.
The photographs were taken by Italian naturalist Odoardo Beccari, who travelled through South East Asia in the 1860s and 70s.The discovery of the photographs has triggered an international search for descendants, with the potential for DNA testing to reveal the scale of the migration from northern Australia to South East Asia.
"So I think it's highly likely that there are descendants of those mixed families still living in Makassar."Aboriginal elders believe the people in the photos are Yolngu people, from the Arnhem Land area. "I think [these] are the faces of people who were living there [in Indonesia], and it was too hard for them to come back to Arnhem Land … their own place.Makassan fishermen travelled along various routes to northern parts of Australia in their search for trepang.
There's plenty of evidence of interactions with local Aboriginal people, with Makassar words, tools, and images being incorporated into tribal culture. "To Makassar come some [boats] every year from northern Australia … and Indigenous Australians are not uncommon in Makassar where you see them moving about in the streets.
The language reflects the ethnographic assessments of racial variance that were popular at the time, but are now considered offensive by many.A shock discovery "When I went in, there were no lights on, but the curator was very friendly and left me alone with the archive," she said. She viewed the photographs at a music studio in Darwin, where Yolngu and Makassan musicians were gathered for a cross-cultural collaboration.
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