When next you are asked to voice an Acknowledgement to Country, please consider basing it on this one. You will need to amend the country you are from, the country you are speaking on, and use your own Aboriginal language [with permission of course] or not use Aboriginal language at all if it is not relevant to your history. Of course, I would appreciate you mentioning that it is based on the acknowledgement from Hobajing Narrative Practice.
Before we Acknowledge the Guardians of this land, I would to quickly talk about why we are here. There are two forms of ritual, one is a Welcome to Country and one is an Acknowledgement.
Traditionally, what we now term a Welcome to Country, was an opportunity for safe passage. As a Visitor, you waited on the border to be allowed in and Custodians of that land area took a gamble on trusting you to not harm the living breathing mass that was their homeland.
Today, the welcome is based around the same principle, you and I are being asked to demonstrate commitment to the Aboriginal people locally and the living breathing mass they call their homeland.
Now I include myself in this commitment because I am not a (Country Name) Woman. I am a Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari Woman. I am an Aboriginal Woman but I am not from this land. My people come from areas to the east of what you would recognise as the Queensland & New South Wales Border, near Goodooga and Walgett and Lightning Ridge.
The difference between (Country Name) and Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari is not the same as the difference between Queenslander and Tasmanian, it is more like the difference between French and German. We share a continent but our language, our culture, our way of life is different. Just as a French Woman could not welcome you to Germany, I cannot welcome you to (Country Name) Land. What I can do, and what anyone in this room can do, is acknowledge that we are on (Country Name) Land.
Now, whether we are acknowledging or welcoming, it doesn’t give value to your time or mine to present a token gesture. So as a member of the Australian Aboriginal people, I ask that you extend some of your time and get to know this land. You could look up it’s history, listen music, read fiction or non fiction or poetry books, there are many sources of (Country Name) content, and all I’m asking is that for a moment, you look at this land through another window …
Now for the acknowledgement
yaama gayrr ngaya djijidan
hello my name is jedison
ngaya yala-girr-maga winanga-y (Country Name) dhayn-galgaa ngaanngu walaaybaa-ga nhalay buu-dhaa gaa–gi-ga
i acknowledge the many (Country Name) people whose home this meeting is taking place on
wayamaa-galgaa ngaya winanga-y-la-nha, yanaa–wayi-y-la-ndaay, yanaa-y-la-ndaay, yanaa–mayaa-y-la-ndaay
i acknowledge the elders who lived long ago, who are living now and who are to come and recognise their continuing connection and contribution to this land and waters, and their courage in continuing our culture.
gaba nginda yaalu.
thankyou and see you soon