“You are on Indigenous lands
swimming in Indigenous waters
looking up at Indigenous skies
There is no part of this place
that were not
are not
someone’s kin.”
AMBELIN KWAYMULLINA
The Australian continent is made up of the cherished homelands of First Nations peoples – the custodians of these territories for tens of thousands of years. This relationship is best captured in the term Country, a word for a complex and deeply entrenched framework. Country is a concept that’s central to First Nations ways of being, knowing and doing. As an extension of this, conducting ourselves appropriately on Country is integral to being a good guest, whether Indigenous or not.
Country, as a concept, identifies several things – the physical landscape of our homelands, family, broader kinship, our non-human kin (animals), spiritual systems, law, ancestor spirits and creator beings, language, knowledge
