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Djiringanj Elder reflects on ‘welcoming’ experience with Australia’s Nepali community
Djiringanj Elder Uncle John Dixon created history when he became the first Aboriginal person to perform a smoke ceremony at a Nepali community event in Sydney.
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By Abhas Parajuli
Source: SBS
Image: Uncle John Dixon says he was delighted to perform the “Smoke Ceremony” at a Nepali community event in Sydney. (Photo: Abhas Parajuli)
Key Points
- Uncle John Dixon has become the first Aboriginal Australian to perform a “smoke ceremony” at a Nepali community event.
- The Djiringanj Elder called on multicultural Australians to deepen their understanding of First Nations people and their ways of life.
- He says mutual understanding starts with education.
Last November, after a hiatus of four years, Nepalis in Sydney gathered in Burwood Park to showcase their culture and food to the wider community.
The Nepal Festival, as the biennial event is known, is staged all around the country by the respective state branches of the Australian chapter of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA).
Deb Bahadur Gurung, the organiser of the 2022 festival in Sydney, said he not only wanted to use the occasion to bring Nepali culture to the fore but to encourage Nepalis to learn more about the traditional owners of the land and their rituals.
“We wanted to give our community a chance to witness and understand the culture of First Nations people too,” he told SBS Nepali.
Uncle John Dixon performing the smoke ceremony at a Nepali community event is Sydney's, Burwood Park. (Photo: Abhas Parajuli)
He said it is crucial for migrant communities to showcase their singing, dancing and other traditions, but also encouraged them to seek a deeper understanding of Indigenous Australian ways of life.
“In part of sharing cultures between each other and understanding each other, it shows the way how people could live together and move forward in the future as a group,” he said.
Uncle Dixon acknowledged that people who come to Australia from overseas may not immediately know all there is about the traditional practices, cultural significance and sensitivities, but he believes there is a clear way forward.
“I reckon it all starts with education,” he says.
If it starts there, getting educated in the schools and also meeting people, you will have a very great viability and ways of how you could treat each other and, have an understanding of what Aboriginal culture [is all about].Uncle John Dixon
The elder said it has taken a long time for society to recognise the traditional owners, but he is "pretty excited" about how things are developing.
“People and the government have a proper realisation, like you know, by adding Welcome to Country into their meetings and gatherings and festivals and all that,” the Indigenous elder said.
This land is still ours and [it is an opportunity here today] to showcase how we go about our traditions.Uncle John Dixon
Uncle John Dixon performed the smoke ceremony at a Nepali community event in Burwood, NSW. (Photo: Abhas Parajuli)
“It’s very good that people from other cultures and traditions are welcoming to such things because we will be doing vice versa.”
He also pointed out the significance of the traditional owners’ smoke ceremony he performed at the Nepal Festival.
The [smoke] ceremony is is for the blessing upon you and it also is to keep away bad spirits so no bad spirits will come yet on you or around you.Uncle John Dixon
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