“A garma is a sort of place – of rich resources for many people, this garma thing. For all yolngu [people]. Like this, all yolngu always used to come to this thing garma, coming together, all different groups.†Gunygulu Yunupingu
The ancient sound of the yidaki (didgeridu) is a call to all people to come together in unity. This call will announce the annual Garma, the largest and most vibrant celebration of Yolngu Aboriginal people of north east Arnhem Land) culture in recent memory.
Regarded as one of Australia's most significant Indigenous festivals, the Garma Festival attracts around 20 clan groups from north east Arnhem Land, as well as representatives from clan groups and neighbouring Indigenous peoples throughout Arnhem Land, the Northern Territory and Australia.
Garma implies many things for Yolngu, as a practice and as a place. Garma happens when people with different ideas and values come together and negotiate knowledge in a respectful learning environment. The Garma Festival at Gulkula creates this kind of environment for Yolngu (Aboriginal people of northeast Arnhem Land) and Balanda (Non-Indigenous Australians).
Mandawuy Yunupingu explains:
We’re living in fluid times, trying to discover in more profound ways what it is to be Australian. I think the vast majority of Australians would agree that Aboriginal Australians have a special contribution to make to that. But there seems to be a problem. I think most non-Aboriginal Australian accept that there is a deep intellectual strength to Aboriginal knowledge, but they seem to think of it as a mystery. I hope we are less of a mystery now.
Yolngu culture in north-east Arnhem Land — a heartland of Aboriginal culture and land rights — is among the oldest living cultures on earth, stretching back more than 40,000 years.
The Garma Festival is a celebration of the Yolngu cultural inheritance. The Garma ceremony is aimed at sharing knowledge and culture, and opening people’s hearts to the message of the land at Gulkula. The site at Gulkula has profound meaning for Yolngu. Set in a stringybark forest with views to the Gulf of Carpentaria, Gulkula is where the ancestor Ganbulabula brought the yidaki (didjeridu) into being among the Gumatj people. The festival is designed to encourage the practice, preservation and maintenance of traditional dance (bunggul), song (manikay), art and ceremony on Yolngu lands in Northeast Arnhem Land.
Garma is organised by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, a not-for-profit Aboriginal charitable corporation with charitable status. All attendance fees and other revenues received go to the operation of the Foundation's programs and projects, such as Garma, to achieve the following outcomes: