Bill Yidumduma Harney

Bill Yidumduma Harney (born ), also known as Bill Harney Yidumduma, formerly Bill Harney, is an elder of the Wardaman people, known as an artist, storyteller, and musician.

As of 2022, he lives at Menngen Station, near Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia, which lies in the traditional lands of the Wardaman people. and also known as Bill Yidumduma Harney ) was born around 1931 at Brandy Bottle Creek, on Willeroo Station, NT. His biological father was the Irish-Australian writer William Edward Harney, but he was brought up in a traditional Aboriginal community by his adoptive Aboriginal father, Joe Jomornji, and mother, Ludi Yibuluyma. His sister was taken as part of the Stolen Generations, but he escaped because his mother covered him in charcoal to hide the whiteness of his skin.

From the age of 12 Harney worked as a stockman on cattle stations owned by the Vestey Brothers. He has been a finalist several times in the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. In August 2009 he featured in a two-man The First Astronomers show with astrophysicist Ray Norris at the Darwin Festival, episode on Aboriginal astronomy produced by ABC TV.

In 2020, the International Astronomical Union's Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature formally approved the asteroid 1979 MR2 as 7630 Yidumduma in honour of his sharing and promotion of traditional Wardaman astronomical knowledge through film, television, and books, including Dark Sparkers and Four Circles.

Harney was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2026 Australia Day Honours.

Selected bibliography 1999 - Born Under the Paperbark Tree (with Jan Wositzky) 2003 – Dark Sparklers (with Hugh Cairns)

Oral history interviews Harney was interviewed twice for the Library & Archives NT oral history program:

Bill Harney Junior, LANT NTRS 226 TS 807 (interviewer Francis Good in September 1987). Bill Harney Junior, LANT NTRS 2493 TS 9301 (interviewer Jan Wositsky in July 1993).