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Calling Our Spirits Home: Indigenous Cultural Festivals And The Making Of A Good Life, Lisa Slater

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Speaking about the problems affecting Wik youth of Aurukun, Cape York, a local community health worker, Derek Walpo, lamented that ‘their spirits have wandered too far. We need to call them back’. The poignant reflection was made at a debriefing session following a social and wellbeing festival in Aurukun.1 The five‐day event culminated in a Mary G concert, in which almost all the township gathered to laugh and cheer the indomitable Broome ‘lady’. It was not just Mary G’s ribald humour that vitalised and galvanised the crowd, but also her performance that playfully reflected back and validated some of the …