Walking Contemporary Indigenous Songlines: Becoming Intercorporeal With Country

• In Event: Walking Methodologies in a More-Than-Human World

Abstract

The singing and dancing of Darug peoples once echoed throughout the Hawesbury Nepean riverlands in ceremony. A long and challenging walk through bushland along the Nepean River from Emu Green to Yellomundi on the Hawkesbury River, invites the walker to meditate on the presences and absences of these river places. Yellomundi is an important site for Darug people today, holding the history and cultural memories of singing the rivers in song and ceremony. Walking contemporary Indigenous songlines asks how we can come to know the river through walking the songlines of Darug song writers and artists who sing the country of the riverlands today.

Author

• Margaret Jean Somerville, University of Western Sydney