By chance we spotted a poster advertising a cultural festival 17km away. After a very long day exploring Kakadu, we jumped on the 5pm shuttle bus down the rabbit hole. While advertised as festival, a more appropriate description was that the local mob had invited people to join them for an afternoon family gathering by the waterhole.
The mob running the show were one of the 10 families who own Kakadu, based halfway between Cooinda and Jabairu. It was the first year the ‘festival’ had run, so it had a disjointed, unprepared, unpolished feel when we walked in.
We paid our gold coin entry fee then sat for a while and watched the women weave, absorbed in the delicate and methodical sewing together of the Jim Jim leaves. Before long, mic checks drew us towards the waterhole, beside which there was promised to be song and dance. Wandering down to the gathering place, we stumbled across a recently decapitated and charred magpie goose head – apparently we missed the cooking workshop.
Down by the water, I spied the pied piper of Jabairu. Awestruck and entranced, I beheld Reuben, who was possibly one of the top 5 speakers I have ever witnessed. With a fire in his belly, passion in his eyes and wicked humour on the tip of his tongue, he wildly and rapidly regaled one story after the other, each building on the others to tell the story of his family the land upon which we stood.
Reuben regaling the story of the Big Barra that got away
Reuben weaved some magic with his words that conveyed history, pride and the strength of his mob. He spoke of the principles that his uncle clung to when he refused to sell to the mines, when they fought for world heritage status, and the business acumen that has led to the success of their multi million dollar tourism operation. He was a perfect talisman for what can happen when there is ownership of land and culture is strong.
The morning of the festival they caught a 2.5m croc by the very billabong we sat. It had been wrapped it in paperbark, buried and cooked on the coals for several hours before beeing shared with the guests for dinner.
Croc for dinner anyone?
As the sun dipped, the song and dance started. The headline act was Shellie Morris. She shared her story – being of the Stolen, she was raised in a white family in Sydney. She was loved and well educated but she didn’t have her own voice. At twenty years of age she was found by an uncle, randomly, while working at a car wash in Sydney. She has spent the last twenty years finding her voice, learning her language and melding it with her classical musical education. She is now one of the most highly regarded Northern Territory musicians, and there she was playing to us at her home billabong.
One of the comments she made that stayed with me was that culture is something that is lived, everyday, so they can dance in their everyday clothes, because by doing so, that’s them living culture.
They invited all to dance with them, for their mob is about sharing, and the festival was an embodiment of that sentiment. We were called in to join them in their gathering, share their food, hear their stories, join their dance. There was a warmth, generosity and unstagedness about the whole thing that made us feel genuinely welcomed. I truly hope the festival survives and grows so that others may also be invited to sit beside the billabong and listen to the stories one day.
Flyabout Australia 