Country is incredibly important to First Nations across the Australian continent. But what is Country exactly?
“Country is everything to us. It’s more than a word, Country. Country is everything. It’s where we get our identity from… it all comes from Country: our dances, our stories, our songs, and our language, our food, all comes from ngurambang [Wiradjuri concept of Country]… We hold country at a very, very high value because we think of it, well it is our mother, like a mother that nurtures you, gives you everything you need to sustain a healthy life.” – Luke Wighton, Wiradjuri
“Giz ged [Meriam concept of Country] is the place of origin, it is where your heart calls back to, it’s a way of knowing, being and doing that is completely connected to space without necessarily having to be connected to that place. So, this idea of being able to carry these concepts into different places and spaces is also really profoundly important… It is around understanding ourselves as completely and utterly connected to different places and spaces, where we feel the full expression of ourselves being realised.” – Professor Kerry Arabena, Meriam descendant
Gemma Pol of Common Ground shares other First Nations understandings of Country: https://www.commonground.org.au/article/what-is-country
Deborah Bird Rose provides a disciplinary (anthropological), non-indigenous understanding of Country in her 1998 work “Nourishing terrains: Australian Aboriginal views of landscape and wilderness” www.ceosand.catholic.edu.au/catholicidentity/index.php/sustainability/sustainability-and-aboriginal-education/91-nourishing-terrains/file
