Jesse Gurugirr is a First Nations Guringai man who has been taught the traditional practice of smoking Guradji leaf and tea ceremonies to assist the promotion of health and well being. His people are from the Northern Shores of Sydney and for centuries have harvested tea as a native bio food.
"My grandfather taught me about Guradji when I was young, about the medicinal and ceremonial purposes of it," Jesse says.
Now, Jesse and his family are busy with their business Lore Australia, a small enterprise that promotes native bio foods and stocks the Guradji in tisanes (herbal tea) and native kombucha (fermented) drinks.
"As a society, we are at a time where we understand protocols need to be respected. It's really a time to start bridging those gaps and start understanding that when we live in this country there's ancient protocols, there's ancient customs that have been developed over thousands of generations which give us the understanding of where we are and who we are as a people."
Protocols of country and Guradji
Jesse explains that Guradji was used on the Guringai nation. If you had business in country, ceremonial, totemic business or hunting you would seek out the Guradji men. The Guradji men are like the law men.
"They were the keepers of knowledge. So what you'd do is you would find the Guradji men, it was very disrespectfull to walk up and talk directly to Guradji men, so you would have to make yourself known you were there," he says.
The process of custom is to wait until the Guradji men call you over, and this would be straight away or even a couple of days, and you would have to have shown patience.
"The Guradji man would bring you over and you would state your business."
"You would take the Guradji, they would put into a crab claw or a shell on the end of a hollow pipe and the Guradji man would have a little dilly bag of dried Guradji leaf and you would smoke it," he says. "It would have an analgesic affect over the bodies and this was like saying, 'I am comfortable with smoking Guradji with you, you are welcome into my country.'
"What's important with a welcome to country, it's never an open invitation. It's stating your business. You come and you leave. You show the right protocols and respect when you come into country and when you leave country."
Jesse Gurugirr and his family at the 2017 Melbourne Tea Festival demonstrating their native bio foods, tisanes (herbal tea) and kombuchi (kombuncha). Source: Kirstyn Lindsay SBS Radio Living Black