Schools from around the area are visiting Jigamy Farm this week as part of the annual Naidoc celebrations.
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On Wednesday, June 29, students from Pambula and Candelo Public Schools and Lumen Christi Catholic College took part in ceremonial dances, tried boomerang and spear throwing and had a chance to learn about local Aboriginal food and culture from guides and teachers at Jigamy Farm.
Held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Naidoc Week is an opportunity for everyone to participate in a range of activities and to support the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’. This committee was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has since become the name of the week itself.
The national Naidoc theme for 2016 is Songlines: The living narrative of our nation
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the Dreamtime describes a time when the earth, people and animals were created by our ancestral spiritual beings. They created the rivers, lakes, plants, land formations and living creatures.
Dreaming tracks crisscross Australia and trace the journeys of our ancestral spirits as they created the land, animals and lores. These dreaming tracks are sometimes called ‘Songlines’ as they record the travels of these ancestral spirits who 'sung' the land into life.
These Songlines are recorded in traditional songs, stories, dance and art. They carry significant spiritual and cultural connection to knowledge, customs, ceremony and Lore of many Aboriginal nations and Torres Strait Islander language groups.
Songlines are intricate maps of land, sea and country. They describe travel and trade routes, the location of waterholes and the presence of food. In many cases, Songlines on the earth are mirrored by sky Songlines, which allowed people to navigate vast distances of this nation and its waters.
The extensive network of Songlines can vary in length from a few kilometres to hundreds of kilometres, crossing through traditional Country of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language groups. For example, the Seven Sisters Songline covers more than half the width of the continent, from deep in the Central Desert out to the West Coast while others connect the Gulf of Carpentaria with the Snowy Mountains.
