Ghillar Michael Anderson
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Ghillar Michael Anderson (born 1951), or Michael Ghillar Anderson, is a Euahlayi Elder and activist from Goodooga, New South Wales, in Australia.[1][2][3]
In 1972 he was one of the four men who set up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, as a protest in the struggle for the recognition of Indigenous land rights in Australia,[4][5] eventually becoming its High Commissioner.[6]
As a participant in the Australian Aboriginal Astronomy Project, Anderson has collaborated[2] with academic astronomers Robert Fuller and Duane Hamacher[7] in sharing and documenting traditional star knowledge.[2] He has been pivotal in researching the Emu in the sky astronomical interpretation, that recognises the space between the stars in the Milky Way as containing ancestral figures,[3][8] the inspiration for the title of Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu.[9]
Anderson was featured in a documentary film about Aboriginal Australian astronomy, which was widely shown, including in schools.[2]
Anderson has sat on a UN Committee in Geneva addressing the repatriation of cultural material.[10]
In 2013, Anderson with other leaders, proclaimed a republic in Dirranbandi, Queensland. He was elected his nation's head of state and informed Queen Elizabeth II.[11]
