Muslims from Makassar, Sulawesi Island Indonesia, visited Australia for hundreds of years long before the 1600s. They fished for trepang in Arnhem Land Northern Territory.

Tamarind trees are featured across the entire coast of the Northern Territory. They were planted by visiting Macassan Muslims to serve as markers when they returned.

OFFICIAL TRAILER

PLEDGE FOR LATER

Aboriginal Yolngu and Muslim Makassans married, traded, exchanged, learnt from one another and even travelled back to Indonesia. The north was never active for centuries before Europeans came to Australia.

الله

The Aboriginal Yolngu to this day have preserved words, which were taught during the stay of the Makassans. Such words include the name Allah and Muhammad (pbuh).

School and community screenings of this short film Before1770 will be shown across Australia and on-demand. This involves experts discussing the facts around the Macassan connection with Aboriginal people in Australia, followed by the short film, then Q & A panel.

There is a vast array of readings on the subject of the Macassan Muslims and their interaction with Aboriginal people in Australia hundreds of years ago. Some of these readings are included below.

ACADEMIC STATEMENTS

Professor Regina Ganter, "That Makassan contact predates the arrival of the British on the Australian continent is not disputed..."

Professor Marshall Clark and Professor Sally May, "Results indicate this sailing vessel (prau), was painted prior to 1664 AD, and there is a 99.7 per cent probability that the overlying beeswax figure was made between 1517 and 1664 AD ."

Professor Marshall Clark and Professor Sally May, "The Macassan trepang or fishery date back to at least the 1700s, when fishers from the trading port of Makassar and its environs, in the southwestern arm of the island of Sulawesi, made an annual journey to the coasts of the Kimberley and Arnhem Land."

Professor Paul Thomis, "Flinders’ discovery of Indonesian fishing praus off the north coast of Australia in February 1803 was, therefore, significant both from the perspective of the science of his exploration and for the potential commercial implications."

Professor Regina Ganter, "Muslims are now arguably the most widely debated and feared segment of the Australian community but they are also its most long-standing non-indigenous segment. In Australia, we are able to draw on a long and primarily positive contact history between Muslim and non-Muslim Australians that make no sense of the paranoid nationalism... ."

Professor Marshall Clark and Professor Sally May, "The team analysed two skeletons excavated by Macknight in the 1960s and confirmed Macknight’s argument that the skeletons were of Southeast Asian origin (Theden-Ringl et al. 2011, p. 41). They also suggest that one of the individuals died before 1730 AD (Theden-Ringl et al. 2011, p. 45)."

JOURNAL READINGS ON MAKASSANS

MUSLIM AUSTRALIANS THE DEEP HISTORIES OF CONTACT

YOLNGU CONVERSATIONS WITH FAITH

MACASSAN HISTORY AND HERITAGE, JOURNEYS, ENCOUNTERS, INFLUENCES

ISLAM AND INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA

ORIGINS OF ISLAM IN AUSTRALIA

Before 1770