Warning : This story contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died.

When the great Indigenous actor David Gulpilil died four years ago, the many warm tributes reflected what a remarkable career he’d had since being cast as a teenager from a largely tribal Arnhem Land upbringing in the 1971 film Walkabout .

A Yolngu man of the Mandjalpingu clan, Gulpilil went on to be a charismatic presence – loose-limbed and riveting – in Storm Boy , Mad Dog Morgan , The Last Wave , Crocodile Dundee , Rabbit-Proof Fence , The Tracker , Australia and Charlie’s Country.

When the end neared after four years of treatment for lung cancer with “white fellas’ medicine” near Adelaide, he told his family and friends that he wanted his body to be taken to Gupulul, where he

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