Understanding Welcome to Country

Ok, so let’s explain this once and for all.

Welcome to Country is an important aspect of First Peoples and Australian culture that annoys quite a few people. Typically we’re talking about people who grew up in an Australia where their education on Aboriginal history and culture was incredibly brief and inaccurate. Most of our history books through to the 1990’s were written by amateurs and under resourced professional historians, drawing upon select sources. Usually these were written by squatters and unsettlers, known to have taken part in the murder and or rape of Aboriginal people, who in their later years wrote self aggrandising, bumbling tomes, positioning themselves as experts on Aboriginal people, despite their embellishments and faulty observations.

Because most European Australians learnt very little about First Peoples during their time at school, many actually think there’s not much to it. When asked to articulate their annoyance with Welcome to Country, overwhelmingly the biggest complaint is that “I don’t like being welcomed to my own Country”, thus they immediately highlight their lack of knowledge on the subject.

So, what exactly is Welcome to Country?

If you ask someone who has a problem with the ceremony, they will often refer to the idea that Welcome to Country is made up, and that it’s not authentic First Peoples culture. They might cite an article written by Amanda O’Brien and Lex Hall, published in The Australian newspaper in March 2010, suggesting that Ernie Dingo invented the ceremony in the mid 1970’s. This is despite the fact that the same article cites Welcome to Country having been done long before, only in different forms.

Dingo’s Elders in Perth explained to him that in their local culture, taking the sweat from their armpits and wiping that on a visitor was a means for showing the spirits on their Country that the newcomer was not a threat, due to having the same scent as the local people. However, in every part of Australia there were different practices, according to local customs and varying cultures across the entire continent. Sweat might have been wiped on shoulders, and in other localities the head only. In some parts you were required to remain silent, seated, and waiting. Whilst elsewhere the practice was to spray water onto a guests’ face from a local’s mouth. Smoke was sometimes involved, partially because Eucalyptus and Tea Tree were known to be antiseptic treatments, often used immediately after birth, welcoming a new Clan member into the world. Diplomacy was also often key.

Quite clearly some but not all of the practices traditionally maintained would have been seen as highly confronting to modern audiences unfamiliar with them. Not to mention how they might have been received by HR departments and OH&S standards. Thus, the modern Welcome to Country ceremony is an ancient practice, modified for modern audiences, updated for their fragile sensibilities.

Despite Dingo’s claim that he was the originator of the modern form of Welcome to Country, this itself is not true. A similar, well documented welcome had been delivered at the Nimbin Aquarius Festival in 1973 by Bundjalung Elder, Lyall Roberts. It’s highly likely that even earlier iterations of a formalised Welcome to Country had at some point been shared with non Indigenous audiences as well.

So, how about the idea that being welcomed to one’s own country is offensive? Well, on the surface, it probably is. But that’s not actually what Welcome to Country is.

You know how a word can have two meanings? Like when we say a dog has a bark, and a tree does as well? That’s what’s called a homonym. Country is a homonym, although it’s a little grey. Allow me to explain.

Country in an international usage refers to a part of the world. Often it is applied to areas with a single government, or a sovereign state. However, there is no universally agreed definition. A Country can exist without a government, and a Country can exist without being formally recognised.

For First Peoples in Australia however, Country is a term used to define one’s connection to all things of importance, binding us to our ancestors, our laws, culture, the past, present, and the future. It’s not specifically about land. Thus, a member of the First Peoples community born on Wurundjeri Country (Melbourne), whose ancestors Country was Bundjalung (Byron Bay), they will never be Wurundjeri. Their great grand children can be born on Wurundjeri Country, and unless they also have a Wurundjeri parent or ancestor, they will never be Wurundjeri.

Both concepts of Country/country co-exist, just as a dog’s bark, and a tree’s bark do.

You’re not being welcomed to a part of the landscape. You’re being welcomed to a concept of where the people who have lived in that region for tens of thousands of years, cared for it, and allowed it to care for them, have grown their culture, laws, and a kinship system that maintains a balance with nature, your neighbours, and your obligations to your ancestors, your present, and those who will inherit the product of your actions thousands of year into the future. As someone who was not born within the framework of that Country, it is welcoming you into that system, and you have an opportunity reaffirm that you care about where you are, its history, and its future.

From a First Peoples perspective, every one of us has Country. You can be proud to be an Australian, and that can never be denied, but you also have the privilege, should you embrace it, of learning where your ancestors came from. Were they English, Chinese, Sudanese..? What language did they speak, or what food did they eat? What culture was theirs? That is your Country. That is your inheritance, which unfortunately many non-Indigenous Australians have forgotten. That lack of connection, and a sense of loss, can be threatening when presented in contrast with a people whose connection goes back 65,000+ years, over 2,300+ generations. However, Welcome to Country is a kindness, and a reminder as well, that you have more, if you only bother to look.