Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

For anyone who is interested - This is a transcript of a recent program about Mandawuy Yunupingu (Yothu Yindi Singer) and his fight with kidney disease. Also discusses some very real issues that many Indigenous Australians have to deal with. It's long though!


Message From Mandawuy - Transcript
PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT: Monday, 19 October , 2009


JIMMY LITTLE, PRESENTER: Hello I’m Jimmy Little, I’m a singer-entertainer. Tonight’s program is about a good friend of mine who managed to get Australia dancing and thinking. Mandawuy Yunupingu was the face of the iconic rock band Yothu Yindi. But two years ago the music stopped when Mandawuy received some news that changed his life. Now the priorities have changed but he’s still a man with a message.

(Excerpt of footage from "Tribal Voice" documentary)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I’m Mandawuy Yunupingu, I’m a Maralitja man, a crocodile man. I’m also songwriter and lead singer with the rock band, Yothu Yindi.
(End of Excerpt)

JACK THOMPSON, ACTOR AND FRIEND: He’s been such a light to Indigenous Australia, he’s been a light to non-Indigenous Australia, he’s been an inspiration to young musicians. He’s a man of great heart, he’s my mate.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: What Mandawuy has done, he's made a living independently, and he did that without mining the ground, he didn’t have to dig up dirt, he didn’t have to drive bulldozers - it was using creativity and I think it’s a very noble way to make a living.

PAUL KELLY, MUSICIAN: Having a commercially successful band with a big hit was one thing, but it was really the way he conducted himself all through that and afterwards, and always made it clear that the band was about a whole lot of other things besides just trying to get to the top of the charts.

(Excerpt of television footage)
REPORTER: Now he’s added the Australian of the Year Award to his gold record collection.
(End of Excerpt)

PROFESSOR JANICE REID, FRIEND: By virtue of his many talents and many roles as a teacher, an educator, a rock singer, an Indigenous leader and a spokesperson for the Indigenous community, he became an iconic figure.

(Excerpt of footage of Mandawuy Yunupingu meeting Paul Keating)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I had a bit of a yarn to him and said, now listen Prime Minister, we’re writing a song about Mabo. So watch out for it.
(End of Excerpt)

PROFESSOR ALAN CASS, GEORGE INSTITUTE, SYDNEY UNI: It’s clear that now Mandawuy is frail, I was astounded - my picture, I think like many people was of Mandawuy as a strong, vibrant, remarkable man. So the shock of Mandawuy now being so limited by this severe illness was distressing.

PROFESSOR JANICE REID, FRIEND: Mandawuy has been caught up in a pattern of illness and early mortality which characterises the whole Aboriginal community in Australia, and which remains, as it was in the 70’s, it remains a shameful reality of this nation.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: If a guy like Mandawuy who's got a university degree, you know school principal, travelled the world and he’s got a support team. If he can’t get through the system, who the hell can? You know, if you’re an old, you know if you're a person out of the bush and you’ve got limited English and you don’t have that support network, you’re done for.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I’m no different from any other person you know. A kidney problem can get me as well, big singer, had the world in front of me and all that kind of stuff and yet this small little kidney problem got me right, right where it hurts, you know. Where I had to be dependent on a machine. I never thought that would happen to me. I was in the dark before. I didn’t even know what dialysis machine was and when you hear about your failure, the first instance is bit frightening, you know. What am I supposed to do if it’s not functioning properly? Am I going to die or something like that?

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: Mandawuy is in Darwin learning to do home dialysis so he can do it himself back in Yirrkala where his family is.

PROFESSOR ALAN CASS, GEORGE INSTITUTE, SYDNEY UNI: Mandawuy is in what’s commonly called "end stage" kidney disease, what it’s used to mean is that people need ongoing dialysis three times a week to stay alive. Mandawuy is definitely in that stage. Without ongoing treatment he would get sicker and he would, Mandawuy or anyone in that situation would die in a period normally of weeks to several months.

(Excerpt of footage of Mandawuy Yunupingu undergoing dialysis, footage courtesy of George Institute)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: Going through this might open new horizons of just life you know, that’s so precious. I’ll have to write a song about it.
(End of Excerpt)

PROFESSOR ALAN CASS, GEORGE INSTITUTE, SYDNEY UNI: Over a period of a year from early 2008, we travelled to Darwin on several occasions to film Mandawuy, his family and the doctors and nurses. We plan to put out five or six videos to explore communication or miscommunication in Aboriginal health care.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: Mandawuy’s idea is to use his life story as an example for people back in his own community. If it can happen to Mandawuy, it can happen to anyone. It’s not a disease that’s racist, it’s not a disease that’s elitist, it can strike anyone any time.

(Excerpt continued)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I just tell them it is like a washing machine (laughs). It takes rid of the liquids in your body that the kidneys can’t do anything about now.
MAN: It’s your new best friend?
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: Yeah, guitar and this (laughs).
(End of Excerpt)

PROFESSOR JANICE REID, FRIEND: Well I think the thing about Mandawuy is that, once an educator, always an educator. And I think what he’s done is to take this huge misfortune and say well I’m going to make something of it.

PROFESSOR ALAN CASS, GEORGE INSTITUTE, SYDNEY UNI: Even when severely ill, his determination to communicate and educate is profoundly moving and is a mark of what an amazing person he truly is.

(Excerpt of footage from “Tribal Voice” Mushroom Pictures 1993)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I want to show you my world, because I want you to understand who we are. We are the first culture of Australia. In this part of Australia, we call ourselves Yolngu.
(End of Excerpt)

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I was born and raised in Yirrkala in 1956, my father was a great warrior, in terms of leadership in the community and I grow up knowing that I will one day have this responsibility.

PROFESSOR JANICE REID, FRIEND: Well I went to Yirrkala in the 70s as a student, anyone who lives in Yirrkala for any length of time is adopted, so my honorary family was his family. He was very good looking, he had a lovely personality, he had a real presence. He was I suppose what you would call bicultural. He was at ease in western culture, had many non-Aboriginal friends, but he was deeply imbued with Yolngu culture.

(Excerpt of footage from “The Australians” ABC TV 1995)
REPORTER: Mandawuy decided to become a teacher while still at school. He later became Australia’s first Aboriginal school principal.
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: In the 1980s I came up with the "Both Ways" education system which recognises equal value for our traditional teaching.
(End of Excerpt)

GREG WEARNE, FORMER PRINCIPAL: His ability to bring two intellectual traditions together, and apply that to the development of his own school, and to the wishes of older senior people in the Yolngu community was extremely impressive.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: I was the tour manager for the Northern Territory Arts Council, we went to Gunyangara or ski beach, his community, and sat on the beach and he played me five songs on the guitar and announced that he wanted to get into the music industry.
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: One was mainstream, and the other was Yolngu boy, another was Djarpana. And when he heard that song he said to me, "do you want to go places?" I said, "Let’s do it". That's where Yothu Yindi was born, that night.

PAUL KELLY, MUSICIAN: Mandawuy asked me to become involved in the arrangements for their second album, when I first got there, he said straight away, "I want to write a song about the treaty". The story really is an illustration of what a canny operator Mandawuy is. He’d picked me out to write the song Treaty with him because he wanted, he thought it would be stronger to have a white fella and a black fella writing the song together.

(Excerpt of footage from "Tribal Voice” Mushroom Pictures 1993)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: Well Treaty was a song that was inspired by Bob Hawke who came to Northern Territory in 1988.
BOB HAWKE, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: There shall be a treaty negotiated between the Aboriginal people and the Government on behalf of all the people.
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: It was a friendly reminder to the non-Aboriginal people about Yolngu here first before you guys.
(End of Excerpt)

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: And it went gold, on the dance charts it went platinum worldwide, it went top 10 worldwide. It didn’t matter whether people were Portuguese speaking in Brazil, it was a hit.

JACK THOMPSON, ACTOR AND FRIEND: I first met Mandawuy in Los Angeles at the Whiskey-a-go-go and every expat Australian working in Los Angeles was there. It was a fabulous moment.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: In 1993 Mandawuy was named Australian of the Year, it was a big responsibility with a lot of expectations placed on him. I think that in fact put him on a pedestal to a point where, if he did falter or he was seen to be less than perfect then it also cost him as well.

YALMAY YUNUPINGU, WIFE: Sometimes he would come back, because he’s home now, it’s time for him to drink now. A lot of times it would go overboard, we would sometimes have argument and I would try to stop him, stop it. You should be caring for your health and he would turn around to me and say, "It’s my life".

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I was just doing it because I was a rock and roll star, that was basically what comes with the job you know. The drinking came with the singing and stuff like that but at that time I was young and stupid and didn’t quite know what the drugs would lead up to a kidney failure in my case.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: Mandawuy’s health started to deteriorate in the mid 2005 and he also I think started to suffer depression, you know you’re a waning star, no longer as famous and sought after as you used to be. You can suffer a bit of deprivation from that. But I also think there was a lot of it was, the amount of premature deaths that he’s had to deal with in relation to immediate relatives and friends over the years - that’s enough to make anyone depressed I think. Eventually he agreed to go and spend some time in a rehabilitation facility.

DR OLIVER O’CONNELL, PSYCHIATRIST: Mandawuy was referred to the clinic where I was working at that time, Northside Clinic, for treatment of his alcohol problem. I think he described drinking between one and four cartons every single day - it’s quite a phenomenal amount. Well as part of the assessment we do a routine blood screen, and that routine blood screen indicated to us that his kidneys had failed.

YALMAY YUNUPINGU, WIFE: I thought that will be the end of him, no more touring, he will be staying home, he will be sick, he will be staying home. No more singing on the stage, that’s what I thought when I first heard about him.

PROFESSOR JANICE REID, FRIEND: I saw him at the Garma Festival in 2007 and a number of his sisters who I was sitting with said this will be the last time that Yothu Yindi plays. This will be the last time that Mandawuy can perform and I found that quite stunning and also immensely sad. It brought home in a very personal way how someone who was so well educated, so well respected, so talented, could be afflicted at such an early age by a disease that for which there is no cure, which just has to be managed.

PROFESSOR ALAN CASS, GEORGE INSTITUTE, SYDNEY UNI: Mandawuy has had a very active, successful career and has been a dynamic person and yet he has been struck by the same chronic disease as affects so many other Indigenous Australians.

DR PETER LAWTON, NT RENAL SERVICES DIRECTOR: We think his chronic kidney disease is due to his diabetes and high blood pressure which would have been there for some years before being identified. Mandaway’s struggled with alcohol dependence, and indeed that’s how this issue was identified. But alcohol doesn’t cause kidney disease, alcohol dependence however makes it very hard to have your other health concerns managed well. Teaching Mandawuy how to do his own dialysis didn’t work. It became clear that Mandawuy was fairly sick and his ability to learn was a bit limited because he was so rundown. His wife Yalmay came and effectively took over doing his dialysis for him.

YALMAY YUNUPINGU: Sometimes I felt it was frightening for me, 'cause it was first time for me to put needle through somebody. I’m starting to feel a little bit confident now.

DR PETER LAWTON, NT RENAL SERVICES DIRECTOR: When Mandawuy got home he had dialysis by popping up to the hospital some 25 kilometres away at the Gove Hospital, this created some challenges.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: The competition between a large family for one motor vehicle and if the motor vehicle wasn’t there well he was stumped. Unfortunately that led to a point where September last year, he ended up aero-meded in a state of medical emergency into Darwin, after having missed two sessions and something went wrong, he was on the verge of a heart attack.

YALMAY YUNUPINGU: It was very frightening that night, me and my kids we just thought anything would have happened that day for Mandawuy.

DR PETER LAWTON, NT RENAL SERVICES DIRECTOR: He had to come back to Darwin to get urgent treatment, including shuffling backwards and forwards to Adelaide for operations to save his eyesight. Being in Darwin has its own challenges and I've been worried that at times Mandawuy’s been quite despondent, quite low in his spirits.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I just wanted to move back to home because I wanted to be with my family. I miss them too much.

YALMAY YUNUPINGU: One day he came home and said "no, I’m not going. I’m getting sick and tired of dialysis, I’m not going" And the way he said to me it was, he had this serious look on his face, and it made me worried.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: Sometimes feel like it’s not worth it, go on this machine, the motor cars, the aeroplanes and all that, that I hear here. Not the clap sticks and the shouting of the grandsons. The other side of me looks at it and says the educational role in this is that a lot of people would benefit from this you know. How a person like me would be wasted if you don’t do the treatment that you’re supposed to do. Which then gives me that viewpoint of wanting to live again.

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: Two years after giving up smoking and drinking he’s now starting to get better, but I’m really personally really happy that Mandawuy seems to be just picking up and really developing that sort of strong desire to go on. I think the next step is improving his health to the point where hopefully ends up on that waitlist and he ends up with a transplant.

DR PETER LAWTON, NT RENAL SERVICES DIRECTOR: This time last year it might not have been possible because he was so unwell. I think we’re all a bit more hopeful now that transplantation could be an option, a good option for him.

(Excerpt of footage from Garma Festival - two months ago)
ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: It was Mandawuy’s dream to create a vehicle to put something back into his community, the Yothu Yindi foundation was established in 1990 and the foundation’s core activities or high profile activity is the annual Garma Festival. Mandawuy hasn’t picked up the guitar for probably two and a half years, and if he gets back up on stage this year that will be fantastic.
(End of Excerpt)

YALMAY YUNUPINGU: I do believe that he can go on the stage again, every time I take him to renal, the nurses they always would ask him to sing to them, or even bring his guitar along and sing to them.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: It feels good, yeah, just get used to playing it again. But it’s good to have a guitar in my hands and my arms.

WITIYANA MARIKA, YOTHU YINDI BAND: I seen him for a couple of years, and he wanted to be, to get on the stage and let’s rock and roll, but couldn’t you know. I’d like to see him, me and him, get back on the stage and perform again to the people and to the world. To perform is something medicine for him.

(Excerpt continued)
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: I’m a bit nervous but put on my power here and I'll be right, going to give me the confidence to sing properly.
YALMAY YUNUPINGU: He’s nervous, it's been a long time.
ANDREW FARRISS, INXS: It's his night and he can go however he wants, but I’m sure he’s going to do what he always does which is do amazing things. So it’s going to be a good night.
EVENT SPEAKER: Next up ladies and gentlemen, big welcome to Yothu Yindi.
(Applause and cheers)
(Yothu Yindi performing "Treaty")
YALMAY YUNUPINGU: It will be a big thing for him because we will be also celebrating his success, every time he feels weak and tired I say to him be strong about yourself. You did something good for the community, for Australia.
ANDREW FARRISS, INXS: Amazing, absolutely amazing. I feel elated and very privileged to be a part of this tonight.
JACK THOMPSON, ACTOR AND FRIEND: Same as it ever did. Fantastic.
MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU: Yes I’m really glad that we performed as good as, I’m thought I was a bit nervous but I did well.
(End of Excerpt)

ALAN JAMES, MANAGER: Will Yothu Yindi make any more music? I hope the answer is yes.

(Excerpt of footage of Mandawuy Yunupingu and Andrew Farriss playing guitar together)
ANDREW FARRISS, INXS: The healing song is a song that Mandawuy and I have been working on for awhile now and I think we’re getting close to being pretty happy with it.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU (singing): Give me medicine. Strong medicine, give me medicine, Yolngu medicine.

ANDREW FARRISS: Well obviously Mandawuy is a mate of mine. I was really concerned about his health and happiness. I like the sound of the music we make together, and I think that has a healing element to it as well and the music too and that’s why I believe that these fellas and their hits haven’t stopped by any means.

MANDAWUY YUNUPINGU (singing): Give me medicine, strong medicine, healing medicine, Yolngu medicine.

END CAPTIONS:
Indigenous Australians are ten times more likely to die of kidney disease compared to the general population.

Doctors say it will be at least a year or two before Mandawuy Yunupingu is well enough for a possible kidney transplant.