The stage is set for the nation's biggest celebration of Yolngu culture.
The 24th annual Garma Festival will take place from August 2 to 5 at Gulkula, 31 kilometres from Nhulunbuy in Northern Territory's northeast Arnhem Land.
Each year, the festival draws a bigger and bigger crowd. With the Prime Minister and politicians, academics, legal experts, business people, education and health advocates, and foreign delegates, some of those in attendance.
The first Garma
Garma Festival was a creation of Yolngu Elder and leader of the Gumatji clan Yunupingu and his late brother Dr M Yunupingu, the frontman of .
Yunupingu passed away in April last year after a long battle with illness. He dedicated his life to the land rights movement and the self-determination of his people.
Garma, itself, is a Yolngu Matha term for "two-way learning process".
Yunupingu and Dr M Yunupingu led the first Garma Festival in 1999, a small gathering intended to gather Yolngu to talk about self-determination, well-being and health.
It was hosted by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which was established almost a decade earlier to represent the five regional clans in Arnhem Land: the Gumatji, Rirratingu, Djapu, Galpu and Wangurri.
The significance of Gulkula
The very first Garma was hosted at the Gulkula site on Gumatj Country, a tradition that has remained.
Gulkula site is a significant place of ceremony for Gumatji, and a meeting place for the five clans. Yolngu history describes how people have danced at the ceremonial grounds 'from the beginning'.
Gulkula is home to a stringybark forest that looks out over the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The Gulkula site, where thousands of campers descend for the Garma Festival. Credit: yyf.com.au
At the time, there was no Native Title legislation so Yolngu were not consulted or able to fight the development.
In 2017, under the influence of the Land Rights Act, the Northern Land Council (NLC) approved a lease over Gumatji land near Gulkula for the operation of a sub-orbital rocket launch facility.
Garma 2024
The Yothu Yindi Foundation (YYF) announced that this year's Garma theme will be 'Gurtha-Wuma Worrk-gu – Fire, Strength and Renewal'.
YYF Chairman Djawa Yunupingu said that Gurtha (Fire) and Worrk-gu (Renewal) are two deeply significant concepts to the Yolngu people.
"[Gurtha] is the foundation of life that gives strength, energy, and power. Gurtha is in the people, and is of the land.
"Worrk-gu is in the life of the land and the people. It is the goodness that arises in the Country after fire has burnt the land and cleansing rains have come," Mr Yunupingu said in a statement.
This year's Garma is the first since , which will no doubt make an impact on the festival.
"Many Australians are still hurting after the vote, which followed years of hard work by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders,” Mr Yunupingu said.
“We have felt the fire of Australians who didn’t approve of our proposals, who rejected us with their own intensity. That is now in the past and we choose to look to the future," he said.
