This morning on tv, I saw an article about the Yolngu People of North East Arnhem Land. They have a regular gathering called the Garma Festival which provides them a place to share knowledge and culture.
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 North East Arnhem Land.It is an important reminder that knowledge is not just about business but delves deeper into who we are and also where we have come from. All of the indigenous tribes of the world are recognised for their story telling and connective ability – something the business world had lost under a mire of technology and process but is now starting to find again.The festival is an important step in the establishment of the Garma Cultural Studies Institute, to be built on the site at Gulkula by 2003.
