For Wiimpatja Marli man Warlpa Thompson, living in a state of loss can be hard to escape when everyone around you is so connected.
Thompson is chairperson of the board of management of Mutawintji national park, the first Indigenous-run national park in New South Wales.
The park’s managers say that they were motivated to host July’s Mutawintji cultural festival in the far west of the state after the high number of deaths in their communities left many feeling that funerals had become the default gathering.
“All of our families have had those losses, we’re all related to each other, and we feel strongly for one another as well as for our own family members,” Thompson said.
“There is this cycle of sorrow, and people are still grieving for the lost family members, and then we’ll have another loss within the community.”
So within the Byngnano Ranges of Mutawintji national park, traditional owners created a celebration of food, music, dance, art, craft, and coming together.
Dotted with gorges, engravings, rock pools and red gum-lined creek beds, these rangelands have been host to ceremonies and cultural gatherings for the Pantjikali, Malyangapa, Wilyakali and Wanyuparlku for millennia.
Since the Mutawintji national park was returned to traditional owners in 1998, after a 1983 blockade when 200 Indigenous Australians prevented access to the site in response to visitors damaging and removing rock carvings, the management team has been finding more ways to get Indigenous people on country. This includes work programs and involving young people in the decision-making processes.
“We have been looking to share our country and the beauty of Mutawintji more with visitors,” Thompson said.
“As we put the festival on, that was one of the things in the front of our minds, that what we were doing is kind of a modern version of what our ancestors did in the past, and what we and our previous generation fought for.
“The right for us to be able to care for country so that we can share it with others,” Thompson said.
Artist Cheryle Thompson drove 11 hours from the NSW southern highlands to the festival after seeing a post on the national park website.
“I found that the preparation that went into the festival, and the generosity among the community, was kind of like bigger and better than Christmas,” she said.
“Getting to yarn with people by the fire that live there and seemed very happy and excited for you to be there, it was really special to be welcomed in that way by the community.”
Narelle Osborne, who discovered her connections to the Paakantji/Barkindji community 18 months ago, said she found the experience of gathering, cooking and craft-making in Mutawintji “overwhelming”.
Growing up in Adelaide, Osborne was simply told she was of Indigenous and Italian heritage.
Through DNA tests and some Facebook detective work, she recently discovered family in the Paakantji and Afghan communities in and around Broken Hill.
“My mum is from the stolen generation, so I’m learning to be Paakantji, if you like,” she said.
“I was just gobsmacked … To be part of that was something special.”
For those who have participated in Mutawintji’s journey to becoming an Indigenous-owned and managed national park, the festival is another win in demonstrating the advantages of Indigenous people managing land and country.
Bryan Hancock was a young law student and a self-described “participating spectator” at the 1983 blockade.
“Oppressed Australians wanted to do something about their miserable condition and decided that they knew how to do that,” he told Guardian Australia.
Hancock attended the 1998 hand-back as well as its 15th anniversary.
“That involved organising among themselves and liaising with non-Indigenous supporters who understood their struggle and wanted to join it, and we were welcomed into it,” he said.
“It was a signal that Australian society was changing, and that we were changing, because Aboriginal people were drawing things to our attention to make us change and it was very significant for those reasons.”
He reckons it was clear then, as it is now, that “Mutawintji is one of the most important Aboriginal sites in New South Wales”.
“It’s hugely meaningful and important and it gives Aboriginal people their rightful place in the Australian story,” Hancock said.
