Australia
This page is about my Australia.
The Garma Festival
I have never been across to the Northern Territory at Garma Festival time, but it is on my ‘must do’s’ list.
Yolngu culture in north-east Arnhem Land — a heartland of Aboriginal culture and land rights — is among the oldest living cultures on earth, stretching back more than 40,000 years.
The Garma Festival is a celebration of the Yolngu cultural inheritance. The Garma ceremony is aimed at sharing knowledge and culture, and opening people’s hearts to the message of the land at Gulkula. The site at Gulkula has profound meaning for Yolngu. Set in a stringybark forest with views to the Gulf of Carpentaria, Gulkula is where the ancestor Ganbulabula brought the yidaki (didjeridu) into being among the Gumatj people. The festival is designed to encourage the practice, preservation and maintenance of traditional dance (bunggul), song (manikay), art and ceremony on Yolngu lands in Northeast Arnhem Land.
“A garma is a sort of place – of rich resources for many people, this garma thing. For all yolngu [people]. Like this, all yolngu always used to come to this thing garma, coming together, all different groups.” Gunygulu Yunupingu
