In Memory of Dr W. (Birrinymal) Gaykamaŋu

This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr W. Gaykamaŋu, a Yolŋu elder, educator and philosopher who was born on the island of Milingimbi in east Arnhem land, in the Northern Territory of Australia in the early 1950s. Her father was Tom Djäwa, leader of the Gaykamaŋu branch of the Gupapuyŋu people. Her mother was Eva Maraŋiny of the Guṉḏapuy Djambarrpuyŋu people.

Dr W. Gaykamaŋu spent her adult life working to share her knowledge and her love of Yolŋu life, land and culture with others around the world. She trained as a teacher in the 1970s, taught in remote Yolŋu schools, and was appointed as an educational consultant with the Northern Territory Department of Education in Darwin in 1990.

In 1994, when the Yolŋu Studies program was established in the Faculty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at Charles Darwin University (then Northern Territory University), she was appointed as its first lecturer by a group of Yolŋu elders from the communities and homeland centres of Milingimbi, Ramingining, Galiwin’ku, Gapuwiyak and Yirrkala.

Working with the Yolŋu advisers and Michael Christie, she negotiated with the university, the conditions under which the study of Yolŋu languages and culture could be undertaken in an academic context.  These rules continue today.

Over almost thirty years of involvement with Charles Darwin University, she taught, supported and advised many hundreds of students, both Indigenous and nonIndigenous, undergraduate and postgraduate, domestic and international.

She would start every class with an hour-long discussion with her students about various aspects of Yolŋu languages and culture, or history or current affairs always taking care to observe traditional protocols governing who can talk about which topics, what can and cannot be said, and what language should be used. She maintained constant contact with the elders in Arnhem Land.

In 2005, her team won the Prime Minister’s award for the Australian University Teacher of the Year.

In 2010, she was awarded The Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council National Elder of the Year.

In 2014, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Charles Darwin University.

She taught and led research projects for fourteen years before retiring in 2009 after which she remained active as an adviser, guest lecturer and writer. She always spoke gently and thoughtfully with good humour. She passed away at Milingimbi in late November 2023 and was peacefully buried on the island in June 2024.

She was intending to be the chief editor of this book which is dedicated to her memory as a wise, gentle, thoughtful, always positive, loved, respected and very knowledgeable teacher and elder.