Yolngu parliament in north-east Arnhem Land is not a building and it’s not on a map. But the Ngarra is a powerful place where Yolngu clan leaders have met to govern their land, lives and culture for thousands of years.
Ngarra sits within a sacred men’s area, next to ancestral burial grounds at Bäniyala, a Yolngu homeland of about 150 people on the shores of Blue Mud Bay, four hours’ drive from Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory.
