Celebrating Good People– Delta Kay
Words–
Nat Woods
@nat.woods_
Delta has a quiet and humble presence that commands your attention. While some people feel the need to raise their voice to be heard, Delta speaks gently, with strong conviction and truth – if you’ve seen her open a local event with a Welcome To Country, then you’ll know what I mean. Delta is the local Arakwal Bumberbin representative, a role passed down to her from her Mother. Her family has lived on this land for thousands of years, caring for it and for its visitors. I sat down with Delta to speak about a new initiative, Culture Aware, which supports indigenous people here on Bundjalung country, and all around the world, to stop cultural appropriation.
Most people would recognise you from your Welcome To Country ceremonies at the commencement of events – what is a Welcome To Country?
A Welcome To Country is done by the traditional people of that specific area. It is a ceremony to welcome visitors, because we are responsible for all visitors to our land. We welcome you, and you are part of our family while you’re here, and in return you’re expected to behave appropriately while you’re here as a guest. Even myself, as an Aboriginal woman, I’m also a guest on this land, on Mother Earth. I’m expected to behave appropriately too.
The ‘modern’ idea of ownership over land has really destroyed our ability to see the land as a whole, rather than just as little plots that we own, hasn’t it?
As humans, we are all here for such a short time. Sharing and looking after each other is so important – they’re the basic elements of being humans and of community. We should be looking after each other and our land – she’s our Mother, and we rely on her for everything, so shouldn’t we look after her so our children’s children can rely on her?
The colonised mindset is to see the land as a resource. But how can we make a community if we’re going to have that mindset? We want people to come here and feel welcomed, to entrench themselves in our community, to work together in harmony and respect.
We’ve all got something to contribute – we can all share something in the community, such as knowledge, resources, skills, and stories.
You’re now part of the team building Culture Aware, an initiative to protect indigenous culture from cultural appropriation – why is this an important initiative to you personally?
I noticed through my role performing Welcome To Country over the years I was feeling uncomfortable and confused with the presenters at most events. At the time I couldn’t label why I felt wrong but I knew what I was seeing and hearing wasn’t right so I would leave the event.
I’d see these ceremonies with a mish-mash of different cultures – taking a little bit from this native culture, and a little bit from another – and I’d leave the event because I knew in my heart that it wasn’t right what they were doing, that they didn’t have the birthright to be performing those cultures. So I’ve been watching these ceremonies that people are doing at events – giving themselves labels or titles, and cherry-picking parts of different native cultures around the world, and presenting it as a ceremony that they have a right to perform – and the more that this was happening, I just felt that events in this region were losing their integrity. Culture Aware is about educating people and helping protect indigenous cultures from losing their culture.
Do you think that we’re seeing more people adopting parts of other cultures and claiming them as their own because of globalisation?
Sure. People can go on Youtube and learn everything now – they think they can learn how to play didgeridoo and then become a didgeridoo healer, but it doesn’t work like that, it’s not your birthright and you’re doing that ceremony out of context. Those ceremonies are traditionally being done by senior law holders – people who had learned these ways over many years and earned that role within the community. You can’t just watch Youtube, or go to a workshop, and then go out and think you can do these things.
I guess some people would say that they are just appreciating another culture by learning about it and sharing parts of it.
Native people deal with their cultures holistically, we take the good with the ugly. For Aboriginal people in Australia, our people have the highest rates of imprisonment, the highest rate of infant mortality – we are such a minority in our own country, on our own land.
Being culturally aware will protect native cultures around the world. If we sit back and ignore this stuff happening at the moment, then it dilutes our cultures and what will our young people do? There won’t be a culture left … it will be so mixed up. Imagine in ten year’s time, are people going to understand the truth of native cultures if they’re all mish mashed together? We need to keep our cultural integrity. Of course, native cultures are always evolving and we have to evolve to survive, but we will evolve our own way to protect our culture, not by westerners getting involved and taking our culture for themselves.
It’s great that the Byron Shire has this appreciation of native cultures, but for us to appreciate it in the future, we need it to be strong and practiced by native people. Everyone can still participate and experience some aspects of native culture, but only when it is performed by people of that birthright, in the right context, and with an invitation to join the ceremony.
“We want to strengthen communities, to give indigenous and non-indigenous people the tools to call people out if they’re not doing the right thing on country.”
What is your hope for native communities through Culture Aware?
I feel real hope being affiliated with Culture Aware that people will listen and have more of an awareness about cultural appropriation and the harmful effects. We want to strengthen communities, to give indigenous and non-indigenous people the tools to call people out if they’re not doing the right thing on country. It can feel quite vulnerable to go into these ceremonies and communities to ask people to stop what they’re doing, but the circle of people we have already gathered through Culture Aware gives me strength and feel safe enough to say that I don’t like what they’re doing.
As a global indigenous community, through the connections made through Culture Aware, we now have authority to call out ceremonies from different cultures that we see being disrespected – so there’s this network of indigenous people all over the world and we’re all looking out for each other’s cultures. And when we travel, if we attend events or venues that are Culture Aware accredited, then we can trust that the event will be authentic and in right relationship with the traditional owners – that you’re paying for something authentic.
And what do you hope for locally?
Through Culture Aware I’d love to unite the Bundjalung People and strengthen our nation. I want to protect our languages, our art, our stories, and I want to share our culture so people have a deeper awareness and understanding of the First Peoples. We’ve got a really important role to play to look after our country, to look after our visitors, but we need this platform to be empowered to do it in a proper way.
So let’s protect our ceremonies and sacred sites, and let the first people do it in our own way.
Are there sacred sites in Bundjalung country that you’d like to be more protected?
I don’t want to talk too deeply about sacred sites, because of my upbringing by my elders – sacred sites are a deeper level of our cultures and it’s really important that we keep it in our family, because we have a duty of care to protect those sacred sites. And they’re sacred for a reason!
All I ask is that people avoid sacred sites. I ask people to choose avoidance out of respect of these sacred places. Bundjalung people didn’t go to sacred sites for ordinary business, they were visited during important times for important reasons. And that’s why they’re sacred. Two well known places we ask people to avoid are the women’s lake at Suffolk Park, and Wollumbin (Mount Warning). I ask people to make the choice not to climb Wollumbin and to not go to the women’s lake.
Thank you so much, Delta, for your time. What can people do to support Culture Aware?
If you’re at an event or see something and your gut is telling you that it’s wrong, then don’t support it. Don’t give your money to it. Pay attention to those red flags. And you can go to the Culture Aware website to learn more. We welcome feedback and we’d love for people who are interested in getting involved to get in touch.
www.cultureaware.org
Originally published in Paradiso Issue 09