Qualla: Gapuwiyak https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:32 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Gapuwiyak https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory Gapuwiyak: Introduction https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory/ The name is a small lesson in country. Gapuwiyak means brackish water - gapu, water; wiyak, salty - and it describes exactly the lake the community sits beside, where fresh and tidal flows mingle in the heart of north-east Arnhem Land. The lake carries a second name too, Lake Evella, given by a missionary aviator who spotted it from a low-flying biplane in 1935. But the deeper story of Gapuwiyak is not about who named it. It is about the roughly 870 Yolngu people who live here, drawn from many clans, and above all about the women whose woven art has made this remote settlement famous far beyond Arnhem Land.

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/j/b/8/gapuwiyak-northern-territory-wp/rjb8-gapuwiyak-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gapuwiyak: Women With Clever Hands https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory/ Fibre work is one of the great traditions of Yolngu women, and Gapuwiyak is among its strongest centres. The core material is gunga, the pandanus, whose long spiny leaves are stripped, dyed with roots and bark in soft ochres, reds and yellows, then twined and coiled into bathi - ...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/j/b/8/gapuwiyak-northern-territory-wp/rjb8-gapuwiyak-women-with-clever-hands.mp3 0:06 2 full Gapuwiyak: Law, Song, and the Rom https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory/ Gapuwiyak is a young community by Western reckoning but an ancient one by its own. The people produce their own newsletter, Gapuwiyak Dhawu, and the rhythms of Yolngu life run beneath the surface of everyday routine. In April 2017, some five hundred people gathered at the Gapuwiy...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/j/b/8/gapuwiyak-northern-territory-wp/rjb8-gapuwiyak-law-song-and-the-rom.mp3 0:06 3 full Gapuwiyak: The Aviator and the Lake https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory/ In 1935, the Methodist missionary Harold Shepherdson was flying his small Miles Hawk over Arnhem Land when he saw the lake glinting below. He named it Lake Evella, a blend of two women's names - his wife Ella, and Eva, the wife of his fellow missionary the Reverend T.T. Webb. She...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/j/b/8/gapuwiyak-northern-territory-wp/rjb8-gapuwiyak-the-aviator-and-the-lake.mp3 0:06 4 full Gapuwiyak: A Homeland by Design https://qualla.com/gapuwiyak-northern-territory/ Gapuwiyak exists as a community in part because a Yolngu leader willed it so. In the 1960s, David Burrumarra - a Warramiri man, philosopher and diplomat who was later appointed MBE - advocated for the settlement as part of the outstation movement, the push for Yolngu to live on a...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/j/b/8/gapuwiyak-northern-territory-wp/rjb8-gapuwiyak-a-homeland-by-design.mp3 0:06 5 full