Tyson Yunkaporta: A laugh, a cry & a touchstone

This still feels like the funniest story told on the podcast over its eight and some years now. And right up there among the most moving too. I still laugh out loud when I think about the end of my yarn with Tyson Yunkaporta back in episode 70, when I asked him about his music story. And the emotions that surged in a touchstone moment just prior to that have been the subject of many a chat since. Funnily enough, I couldn’t actually remember that one followed the other. So here’s the last 15 minutes or so of my time with Tyson for episode 70 back in 2020.

Welcome to the 9th instalment of Vignettes from the Source, the new short form series featuring some of the unforgettable, transformative and often inexplicable moments my guests have shared over the years. Indeed, this one hits all three of those marks, and was front of mind when deciding to create this series.

Tyson belongs to the Apalech Clan from Western Cape York in far north Queensland, with community/cultural ties all over Australia. He is the author multiple books, including Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. He’s also a poet and artist carving traditional tools and weapons, processes that were central to writing the book.

If you’d like to hear or revisit this conversation in full, head to episode 70 – ‘Sand Talk: Indigenous thinking, saving the world & living creation’ (there are a bunch of links in those show notes too, and a very special photo from this conversation on that episode website).

Right now, we’re in the thick of the unprecedented series of international events that have gravitated together between Perth, the wheatbelt and Bridgetown here in WA. I’ll look forward to sharing some of what happens with you all afterwards, especially for those who can’t get here. For now, I hope you enjoy revisiting this one with Tyson.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Originally recorded 13 August 2020, and released 14 September 2025.

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Music:

Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

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Episode Transcript

AJ (00:00):
You know, in a way, I feel like there's a touchstone for
this yarn and perhapsunsurprisingly, because it
wasn't lost on me that you saidin the book you think about this
at least once a day and it wasthe footage you once saw of the
Andaman Islanders.
Yeah, man, Can you describe?

Tyson (00:18):
that.
Thanks, man.
No one's ever asked me aboutthat, you know.

AJ (00:25):
Thank you, you know, thank you.

Tyson (00:26):
You bet I just you know that feedback, physiological
feedback again, oh yeah.
I'm feeling it.
I can't even see the screen now.
My eyes have teared up.
It's that much of a longing,you know.
Yeah, it's that much of alonging, you know.
Yeah, just, and I've never beenable to find it again.

(00:52):
I've spent so many hundreds ofhours looking for that.
I can't find it.
But you know, it was a longtime ago.
I saw it, but it was those two,it was those.
It was their dignity and agencyand just unfathomable

(01:14):
intelligence.
I mean, their eyes were burningwith it, they just glowed.
It was man and woman, side byside, equally muscled, you know,
and they were side by side,walking towards the camera like

(01:35):
what, what do you want?
And they looked right into thatcamera and it just went through
me.
And, yeah, it's every day Ithink about it and I've
mentioned it to people beforeand they've gone.
Hmm, that wasn't lost on meeither.
But, yeah, thank you, but it's,it's such a, it's just, it's

(01:56):
the best and worst thing I'veever seen.
You know, it ruined my lifeseeing that, because this is
that's something that you knowfor us to return to that level
of super I mean, they were superhere, but you drop them in a
city.
They'd be superheroes, thephysical things that they would
do yes, superheroes, but theirmental, their cognitive powers

(02:19):
that was clearly there.
But just their relationaldynamic, those two together, oh
my god, you know superhuman andit just.
And, like I said it, it waslike being a labrador seeing two
dingoes.
Yeah, I curl up under the couchjust whining with the tail

(02:40):
between my legs.
You know, and I've been thereever since, my tail's still
between my legs from thatencounter and that was just a
shadow of an echo of somethingfrom decades ago and I don't
know, but it's still in us, it'sthere.
But that's the worst part.
I look in myself and find allthose shattered fragments of

(03:03):
that same pattern.
You know, I look in my culture,my language and what's there of
that.
I look at the community andwhat is so startlingly present
there that reflects that, theparts of myself, the things I do
.
But then the way that is sofragmented and out of balance
and just wrong, and there'sthese frustration signals just

(03:25):
zapping across between thosefragments.
The way that is so fragmentedand out of balance and and just
wrong, and there's thesefrustration signals just zapping
across between those fragmentsand there's conflicts and
there's disagreements andthere's contradictions and it's
not coming together and there'sjust these moments.
You know, I see my niece likesome fellow slaps the other
niece.
So you know my niece, who's thebest fighter?
She goes around at their houseand she calls out the six best

(03:49):
men fighters there in that house.
You know it's like, well,you're not good enough.
Call your cousin from overthere, he can come in.
I want the best fighters.
All right, you all here fromthis family.
All right, let's go.
And this one girl beats theshit out of all of them and I
have this just surge ofempowerment and joy.

(04:12):
And you know, you see thoseflashes of just brilliance,
exceptional something.
But then you also just see itin the quiet spaces in between
things, and just that fiercenurturance of grandmother and
granddaughter happening quietlyover there in a corner showing

(04:32):
her something.
And you have the same responseto it because it's complete.
It's complete, but it's sodisrupted as well.
Anyway, I'm not expressing thisvery well because no one's ever
asked me about it before and Ihaven't.

AJ (04:48):
I haven't thought it through it's just something that I've
met.
Yeah, thank you, it's justdoing its work on me.

Tyson (04:54):
but I just I know that we're more than this.
Like I just know it and mostpeople just know, yeah, and
there's, there's probably a youknow, there's a thousand
scientific studies that wouldback that and there's even more
that would just laugh at it.
You know, no, this is, we'rebetter now than we've ever been.
But I know that's not true.
I know it's not true and I feeljust so many people feeling the

(05:19):
same thing, just like a grief.
You know we've lost something.

AJ (05:22):
Yes, I don't think that's marginal anymore.
I mean even, yeah, it's sort ofwherever I go that they are
questions of meaning and wortheverywhere.

Tyson (05:41):
Yeah Well, there's a crisis of meaning.
Now that everybody acceptsevery side of politics, there's
nobody I've seen refute thisconcept of a crisis of meaning.
So, basically, in removingpeople from the land, the state
and economy had to provide thethings that the land provided

(06:01):
for people for free before, andso they provided them
haphazardly.
But the idea was that if youtraded a third of your life, if
you sell us a third of your life, if you sold us, you sell us a
third of your life and you dothis soul destroying labor, then
you will have access to thethings that the land used to
give to you.

(06:22):
When society is not a thingthat's separate from land or
nature, the other thing providedby the land is meaning.
So that's another thing thatthe state and economic system,
you know, business, marketplace,whatever institutions that were
provided to give us meaning,and outside of that there's

(06:42):
still the church.
So you have a number ofinstitutions.
You know.
All these institutions aresupposed to provide meaning and
anyway, as the civilization hascommenced its fall, all of those
institutions have been revealedto be corrupt.
Nobody can trust them anymore.
You can't trust the church withyour kids, all of the

(07:04):
institutions that were put inplace to provide meaning to us.
Once we're removed from theland, they're all gone.
So now there's a crisis ofmeaning.
What are we going to do?
I know, I know what I'm goingto do.

AJ (07:17):
I'm just going to go for a piss, bro, so I'll be back well,
mate, give us the little storyabout the piece of music that's
been significant to you ah, okay.

Tyson (07:33):
So that's, um, that timeless land by yothi indy,
which is not.
It's not a song I particularlylike.
It's all right, but it's not myjam or anything.
Yeah, but that was just afterthe first time I met.
Oh man, juma, and he decidedall right, it's you, you're the
one sit down.
I'm passing this to you andyour job's to pass that
everywhere.

(07:53):
Now, oh, by the way, I'm gonnaneed you to perform an act of
domestic terrorism down thetrack, but that's not for now.
Just, oh, he wants me to getthis, this there's a beacon on a
rock beside a us military baseand the beacon on top of the
rock is blocking the spirit workthat that special rock is doing
.
I've got to go and remove thatat some stage in my life and I'm

(08:19):
definitely going to get shotdoing it.
I'm not looking forward to itand I've just got to raise up
these babies first.
And it was like I did notappreciate him putting that on
me.
I didn't appreciate him puttingany of this shit on me.
Anyway, it's here, I'm doing itnow.
Sorry, old man, I'm gettingwild, but nobody wants anyway,
ain't, nobody got time for that.

(08:40):
So, anyway, this song.
It was like first time I methim and it was my first piece of
like, doubting him.
Not just doubting him, butdismissing him.
I sat there all day.
He blew my mind with all ofthese symbols and images and
then he said all right, so thatsong there off the Indy Timeless
Land, you got to listen to thatsong.

(09:01):
There's a song line in therefor a place where you're going
tomorrow.
And I'm like, immediately I gotalarm bells because he's like
aha, and I'm thinking I haven'ttold him that I'm flying down to
Victoria tomorrow.
He thinks I'm still going to behere in the Northern Territory.
We're like this Yothi Indi,this Yolngu singers, that their

(09:21):
song line, that I'm going to bearound that and I'll be able to
find this song line in theNorthern Territory and follow it
.
Haha, he doesn't know.
I'm going to be on a planetonight and I'm going to be in
Victoria tomorrow and I'm goingup to the Snowy Mountains.
I'm going right up the top ofthe Snowy Mountains and there
were the Snowy River.
That's where I'm going to betomorrow and he doesn't know
that.
So now I know that he's gammonand he's full of shit, you know.

(09:44):
And so I completely dismissedhim at that stage and I walked
away and I barely gave itanother thought till next
morning.
I'm right up there in the snowymountains and I'm there with,
like, a senior lawman and I saidI told him about what I've gone
through with my gentleman theday before and he said well, I'm
sorry, boy, but you, um, you'vegone the wrong way there.

(10:06):
And I'm like, yeah, but it'slogical, he doesn't know where I
was gonna be.
And he said well, they tend toknow where're going to be these
old people you need to.
Did you listen to the song?
Did you do what he said?
And I'm like, well, why shouldI?
I'm like I'm not even there.
What's a Yulma song?
I'm going to have to do with me.
And he said look, just do whatyou're told.
And so I, you know, so I dowhat I'm told now, ever since

(10:27):
this bloody thing anyway.
So I did it.
I listened to the song and rightat the start there's these
lyrics um, this is written bypeople from northern to, anyway,
from the edge of the mountaindown through the valleys, down
where the snowy river flows,follow the water down to the
ocean.

(10:47):
Bring back the memories.
And that was like oh, so youknow, it turns out that those
Yolngu people had visited thesnowy mountains and they've
written that's.
They've sat down with the oldpeople there, got the story for
that song line and they'vewritten that song line into
their song.
And how did he?
And then I'm like how did heknow?
I didn't tell him I was cominghere.

(11:08):
There's no way he could know Iwas coming to here, to this spot
.
God damn it.
All right, it's true.
And so I'm like oh my God, whatare the other instructions?
So old man had told me that Ineeded to follow the song line
all the way to the sea and thenI had to remember all of the
hundreds of symbols he'd shownme the day before and I had to

(11:29):
draw them all on the sand upabove the water mark and then,
when I was done, a wave wouldcome and take that knowledge out
into the ocean and distributethat.
That was the instruction andthat's the lyrics of the song
like follow the water down tothe ocean, bring back the memory
.
And I'm like, oh, no, anyway, Iwent and I did it.

(11:50):
And you know, and I'm not goingto do it like a big like, oh, it
happened, it's just like yeah,of course the wave came up.
No wave took it out like youknow, of course, all that
happened.
And is this like a transcendentmoment for me?
No, it's just annoying.
It means I'm definitely gonnahave to get get shot by
Americans one day when I'vetaken out that beacon, you know,

(12:14):
and I don't want to get shot byAmericans, I want to get shot
by my own people.
If I'm going to get shot, wellspeared preferably, which I'm
it's not impossible no, that'sright cheeky as I am.

(12:36):
If I don't start showing alittle bit more respect for
these old people who are sharingtruth with me, if I don't start
trusting in this dream timerapture that's apparently going
to happen, if I don't start, Idon't know man, I'm gonna start
embracing this mobile phone andthis zoom meeting like it's part
of creation and I don't followthose instructions, then maybe I

(12:59):
will end up getting speared.
But I'm not even close yet,bros.
You know it's.
It's what I keep warning people.
No stop, don't come to me forwisdom.
I've got no answers.
You know I'm a cheeky boy with abunch of questions and some
interesting ways of looking atthings, and none of them are my
own.
You know I'm a bower birdcollecting a bunch of shiny shit

(13:21):
and putting it around a nestfor a dory.
That's it, it's.
Oh, you know, don't be puttingme up there Like.
I'm not a thinker, like peoplego.
Oh, indigenous thinker, tosin.
No, yes, oh, indigenous scholar.
Okay, technically I'm a scholar.
Yes, you ask any scholar.
Like you know what's Tyson'sreputation?
I'm not a reputable scholar.

(13:42):
I don't do quality work.
You know I do weird stuff thatI'm just doing as a culture jam
and you know so I'm not really.
I'm a very low status person,you know, in in this, this
society, this, this industrialsociety, and I'm a low status
person in my own community and,um, so yeah, just just that,

(14:05):
like caution for people, justhave fun with this stuff, don't
get, don't be like you know,thinking I've got any answers
for you.
I don't, I don't have anyanswers.
I'm not even doing it myself.
I haven't got my shit together.

AJ (14:19):
I'm a mess you've brought to mind.
Well, firstly, I want to sayall the same, you've made me
happier than ever that I askedthe question about the music.
That's a hell of a story.
It's gonna stay with me.
And on the self-deprecation,you have brought to mind the

(14:41):
line in your book that I haveactually mentioned already a
bunch of times to people aroundnot being terribly special and
that actually none of us areterribly special.
Yeah, and that's liberatingbecause we can be part of
something special.
That's it.
It's a beautiful thing yeah,like.

Tyson (15:01):
so you know, like I, I say these things about myself
and people like, oh hey, don'tput yourself down, yeah, yeah,
you know, don't have self-esteem.
I'm like, it's not myself-esteem, I'm happy with
myself.
You know, I'm intensely awareof all my defects, but I'm quite
accepting of those, you know,and I'm accepting of the fact
that this is where I am and Irefuse to let my thinking

(15:27):
overtake my feeling and tell meI should be, I should be less
skeptical.

AJ (15:33):
I come back to our touchstone as we end.
Tyson, the story that you thinkabout every day, the footage
that you saw, yeah, I come backto that as a touchstone, yeah,
and how that, how that felt tothink about that, even having
seen it.

Tyson (15:53):
Yeah Well, thanks, that's good advice.

AJ (15:55):
Yeah.

Tyson (15:56):
Yeah.

AJ (16:01):
Mate.
I thank you too for yourhybridized insights and lenses
that you brought, mate.
It's been of value to me and Iknow others.
So good on you for seeingseeing it through to so far.
Anyway, and good luck with thenext one the mongrel insights
bring it yeah, I'm actuallyreally happy that on zoom we
managed to connect prettyreasonably and, you know, with

(16:25):
substance so thanks a lot andhopefully next time it is by
fire somewhere that'd be awesome, and maybe even out of the city
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tyson (16:32):
Well, this was a practical, uh, exploration of
that hypothesis that this is anew campfire, right?
I felt like me, you know, geezman had a bit of laugh, had a
bit of cry yeah went for a piss.
It's all good, thank you.