Woggan-ma-gule – An Aboriginal ceremony for Australia Day

Each year Aboriginal people perform an opening ceremony near the Botanic Gardens in Sydney. The ceremony maintains age-old custodial traditions.

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  1. Woggan-Ma-Gule
  2. Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the following slideshow contains images of deceased persons.
  3. Many ceremony dancers were young girls and boys, shooed to the rehearsals by their parents.
  4. Young boys waiting for their turn at Woggan-ma-gule ('meeting of the waters') in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney.
  5. Most of the time girls and women dance separately from boys and men.
  6. The didgeridoo ensemble calms the spirits and clears the minds of the performers in preparation of the ceremony.
  7. Ceremonial music and song awakens, cleanses and honours the spirits and past inhabitants.
  8. Performers smeared earth and mud into their hair.
  9. Painted patterns represent Aboriginal clans. Each pattern is individual and identifies its group like a business card.
  10. Two young girls await their turn during the dance.
  11. A girl concentrates on the right moves during the ceremony.
  12. Aboriginal skin colour can vary greatly and does not make any individual 'more Aboriginal' than another.
  13. An Aboriginal girl performing in the 'Dream Time' section of the ceremony.
  14. The 'Dream Time' dance tells about the long grass, waterlily and goanna dreamtime.
  15. It is a fusion of contemporary and traditional dance representing Indigenous mythology.
  16. The dance is also a representation of the beauty of the Woggan-ma-gule site.
  17. The ceremony celebrates the lifecycle of the animals and creek bed too.
  18. The 'Initiation' dance recreates song so as to inspire the younger generation.
  19. Ceremonial grounds were called 'bora rings' and used as late as 1975 at Farm Cove.
  20. The Doonooch dancers of the Monero peoples used to live from the Snowy Mountains up north to Nowra in New South Wales.
  21. Aboriginal rapper Wire MC sings about a corroboree from the Dreamtime to infinity, or 'Black to the future'.
  22. Uncle Bobby McLeod reads a poem he wrote.
  23. The closing of the ceremony lets everyone gather in the middle of the bora ring.
  24. After the dance children pose for photographs.
  25. Many young dancers were excited about the many photographers interested in taking pictures.
  26. A proud Indigenous girl in front of the Aboriginal flag.
  27. Black stands for the Aboriginal people, red for the mother earth and yellow for the sun.
Woggan-Ma-Gule
Woggan-Ma-Gule
Woggan-Ma-Gule
Woggan-Ma-Gule

© Images copyright of Jens Korff | Copyright notice

Since 2002, each year on Australia Day, First Nations people perform an opening ceremony in Sydney. The early ceremony on the land of the Gadigal Aboriginal people maintains age-old custodial traditions.

Ceremony is performed at both contemporary and traditional gatherings. In Woggan-ma-gule, the 'meeting of the waters', Aboriginal people continue the commemoration of the past and the celebration of the future.

Young and old dancers are decorated with body markings who depict each dancer individually. Dance and song are "a reflection of a continuous corroboree from the Dreamtime into infinity and beyond. We are taking it 'Black to the future'," says Aboriginal rapper Wire MC.

You'll find more details in the captions to the images of the slideshow.