Djalu Gurruwiwi
Garma Festival 1999
The Garma Festival was held on the occasion of a Garma ceremony
involving many clans from Arnhem Land. This Garma has as its purpose
the sharing of knowledge and culture, and the opening of hearts
to the message of the land at Gulkula, where the ancestor Ganbulapula
brought the Yidaki (didjeridu) into being among the Gumatj people.
The sound of the Yidaki at Gulkula is a call to the clans of northeast
Arnhem Land to come together. It is a call to all peoples to come
together in unity.
The Yidaki comes from Aboriginal law and is used in sacred contexts that have ever deeper layers of meaning. The Yidaki and the bilma (clapping sticks) are the rhythm and pulse for the stories of our ceremonies that go back to our ancestors. They also look forward to the world we share with Balanda (non-Aboriginal people).
The Garma Festival is an opportunity to explore an ethical place
in global culture for the Yidaki. Yolngu leaders of Arnhem Land
are pleased that guests invited to the Garma Festival organised
by the Yothu Yindi Foundation have started the journey of learning
Yolngu culture and traditions.
The emergence of an ethical relationship between senior clan elders,
whose custodianship of the Yidaki includes the right to permit
the use and teaching of the Yidaki, and those guests invited to
attend a Yidaki master class led by Djalu Gurruwiwi, lays the
foundation for finding ways that Yolngu and Balanda worlds can
coexist on the basis of mutual respect, shared rituals, and reciprocal
obligations.
Yet Yolngu people are concerned that the emergence of a global
culture and the commercialisation of the Yidaki has the potential
to separate the Yidaki from its origins in the sacred stories
which are at the heart of the songs. Ritual leaders of northeast
Arnhem Land are calling for a new relationship with Balanda which
recognises the centrality of the Yidaki to the Aboriginal groups
who by right and tradition have the Yidaki as one of the instruments
of cultural expression.
At this Garma Festival, the clan elders have identified five principles
to guide the developing relationship between Yolngu custodians
of the Yidaki and the Balanda people who use the instrument:
RESPECT
The basis of a new relationship is respect for the origins and significance of the Yidaki to Aboriginal people of northern Australia.
ABORIGINAL LAW
Aboriginal law protects the Yidaki and establishes ritual exchange processes and reciprocal obligations between those elders with the authority to collect, make, perform and teach the Yidaki, and those people ñ Yolngu and Balanda ñ who desire to learn about the instrument.
PERMISSION
Yolngu law has always regulated the production and use of the Yidaki in Yolngu society. It is wrong for Yidaki to be produced without reference to, and respect for, these laws. Permission from the custodians of these laws is required.
YOTHU YINDI
The Yolngu concept of Yothu Yindi, which recognises duality and fosters balance where there is difference, is a guiding Yolngu philosophy that applies to this new relationship.
ETHICAL RELATIONSHIP
The basis of a new relationship will be mutual respect, goodwill,
and a commitment to working together to define and evolve an ethical
place for the Yidaki in world culture.
With this statement, Yolngu elders of northeast Arnhem Land open their hearts to a new relationship for the Yidaki with global culture.
copyright 1999 Yothu Yindi Foundation