Welcome to Country
This tool contains information and guidelines for two ceremonies: Welcome to Country and Acknowledgment of Country.
This tool includes:
Why use this tool?
- Appropriate ceremonial practice and respect for ritual is crucial to showing respect.
- This tool provides you with what you need to respect first Australians, diversity and cultural differences.
This tool has many commonalities with guidelines in the Inclusive events tool.
RESOURCE ONE—Background to Welcoming to Country
- Local Indigenous people may have a preference for how they are described, for example at a function or event. If you’re not sure of a person’s particular language group and can’t find out, it is usually okay to simply acknowledge them as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
- The easiest way to find out is to ask the person themselves—they will see this as showing respect and they’ll appreciate it.
- Connection with country is crucial to the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. For millennia, when Indigenous people visited the country of others, there would be rituals of ‘welcoming to country’. Today, these rituals have a legacy in ‘Welcomes to Country’ and ‘Acknowledgment of Country’.
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Traditional owner of the Ngambri-Ngunnuawal people Matilda House provides the Welcome to Country at the National Citizenship Ceremony in Canberra on Australia Day 2008. |
RESOURCE TWO—Welcoming to Country
- Usually a ‘Welcome to Country’ will occur at the beginning of any major public meeting and event.
- It will be done by an appropriate Elder—someone widely recognised as having ancestral connection with the country you are meeting in.
- She or he may welcome in their Indigenous language, or in English, or both.
RESOURCE THREE—Acknowledgment of Country
- ‘Acknowledging Country’ can be done at the beginning of any meeting. Some organisations, for example, begin staff meetings with an acknowledgement.
- An ‘Acknowledgment’ might be, for example ‘I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land we’re meeting on today, and acknowledge my gratitude that we share this land today, my sorrow for some of the costs of that sharing, and my hope and belief that we can move to place of equity, justice and partnership together’.
- You may wish to establish your own wording, in consultation with your local elders.
- The Australia Day and Reconciliation Tool provides more information about Acknowledgment of Country.
Related tools
Australia Day and Reconciliation
Inclusive events
URLs
Share our pride website
http://www.shareourpride.org.au
Reconciliation Australia
www.reconciliationaustralia.org.au
Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal
www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/indigenous/reconciliation
