When we travel anywhere internationally,
we of Wadjella/Gadiya/Wipella cultures spontaneously speak with gratitude for being in this new place, and pay some kind of respectful homage to the people and culture of the place we’re travelling to, especially if it’s somewhere north of the tropics. We also know we ought to adapt ourselves, as much as we can without losing our sense of self, to the new culture: we don’t go to a culture where siestas are common and demand that everything be open at or just after lunchtime; we don’t leave chopsticks poking into our bowls; we drive on the correct side of the road; we dress in culturally appropriate ways; we try to learn at least some key phrases in the local language. These impulses are stronger, wider, and deeper when we move somewhere. Learning the culture — the Lore, the Language, the Civics — of the place is understood as a self-helping thing to do and, moreover, as a duty. It is meet and right so to do.
My Ancestors are Worimi, the Country North & West from what we currently call Newcastle & Port Stephens; I was born on Ngunnawal Country; I was grown up on Noongar Country. My British & Irish Ancestors came over mainly on the First and Second Fleets, some moving to or taken to the lands of the Awabakal & Worimi as settlers, Imperial employees, or as convicts. That is to say: I am Worimi Waypella on Noongar Boodja. When I Acknowledge Country, I am accepting the responsibility which comes with living on Noongar Boodja to be, as the Elders leading Danjoo Koorliny Walking Together put it, a carer of everything and everyone. I accept that their long-held Lore, Language, and Civics — which are parts of what we Mob call Connection to Country — have deep wisdom and is steeped in what Scholastic Philosophers called the Natural Law. I place myself as a student of Noongar epistemology, ontology, and ethics while never dropping what, in those fields, has been passed on to me (the traditio of) my own Ancestors.
