via ABC News, 09 April 2023: A young woman disappears from a remote beach in outback Australia, only for her family to discover decades later that she’s moved overseas and is married with children. Her family history could hold the key to solving the mystery of Australia’s little-known overseas settlement which has links to Indonesia.
Don grew up hearing stories about the disappearance of his grandmother.
“The old people said she was taken away,” he recalls.
“All they saw was her footprints on the sand, and from there she went missing.
“I think there were a lot of people who were taken from Arnhem Land to Indonesia.”
Decades later came surprising news.
It was confirmed that the young woman — Don’s grandmother — had left with visiting trepang fishermen, and moved to Makassar where she married and had children.
By the time Don found out, his grandmother had passed away, but in 1978 he travelled to Indonesia to meet his relatives.
“It was very emotional, because they had missing family, and we had missing family,” he says.
“Some of them looked like my grandmother, and I knew for sure when I saw paintings in their house of her [Yolngu] totem.
“She is buried in Sulawesi, but I haven’t seen her grave, so I’m hoping to go back again soon.”
It is not known whether Don’s grandmother left voluntarily or was forced to leave by the fishermen.
