Partnerships facilitate a Djarra cultural burn and learning about Djarra women’s digging stick farming.
Mount-Korong Eco-Watch (MKEW), a volunteer landcare organisation, and Dja Dja Wurrung have partnered with support from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) in undertaking a project to build their relationship around cultural burning and women’s digging stick farming practices.
The project was led by Djarra women, Aunty Marilyne Nicholls and Bec Phillips, with invited Djarra Cultural Burners and their families also joining Aunty Marilyne and Bec on Country for the burn.
The project received ‘biodiversity on-ground volunteer action’ funding from DEECA in mid-2021. However, the pandemic and then major flooding in the region meant that on-ground activities were delayed - with site visits getting bogged down in the wet granitic soils of the area - until May 2023.
MKEW Chair Sally Gardner was involved from the beginning and said that the delays were actually quite beneficial.
“It gave us time to build trust and to develop and sustain the relationship and commitment to Djarra getting onto the land to heal Country,” she explained.
The project took place at two properties in the Mount Korong region on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. At one site, the focus was on Djarra women’s digging stick farming lead by Aunty Marilyne, who is a respected elder and traditional ecological knowledge holder of Country and plant uses. Aunty Marilyne has lived most of her life around the Murray (Milloo) River system and its waterways. She has connections to fresh water and saltwater Country through her Wadi Wadi, Barapa Barapa, Latji Latji, Jupagalk, Dja Dja Wurrung, Yorta Yorta, and Ngarrindjeri ancestries.
“Under the guidance of Aunty Marilyne and Bec, we were welcomed onto Country and inducted into the cultural and ecological setting of Djarra women’s farming practices,” Sally said.
“Volunteer participants planted kangaroo grasses around the in-flow zone of a dam using the extraordinarily well-designed traditional digging sticks.”
A cultural burn took place at the second site on an area of grassland with Aunty Marilyne and Bec and Djarra Cultural Burners with their families. Volunteers from Landcare Networks in the area were also present.
“There was much anticipation within both the Djarra group and amongst the non-Indigenous participants leading up to this event. The weather forecast was looking good for the designated day. There was also a great sense of the potential for this event to have an historic significance, with Djarra women leading the first cultural burn on that part of Country in more than 150 years,” Sally said.
“We were not disappointed. It was clear that for Djarra this slow, cool burn, taking place as a peaceful family occasion different from the burns normally undertaken by government agencies, was indeed a healing event. Those of us watching from a respectful distance understood our great privilege in being witness to gestures of deep spiritual significance.”
This wonderful project has opened the way for ongoing relationships between the partners and participants, and Sally hopes that MKEW can be involved in helping to develop new frameworks of ongoing generational access by Djarra, in order for them to undertake cultural and healing practices on Country.