Bundjalung Woman l Delta Kay
Conversation with Delta Kay
Delta Kay is an Arakwal woman from the Byron Bay region, known as Bundjalung Nation. In this episode we were privileged to hear Delta share a deeper understanding of the Australian Aboriginal culture. Together, we discussed the importance of preserving and protecting culture, and the beautiful way that aboriginal people nourish, and are nourished by Country.
“I am Country. I belong to her. She is my mother. I don’t own her. She owns me. I’m here to be of service to my mother.... I need to gather people around me to help me do that.”
We marvel at the world’s ancient wonders and yet, right here, in our own backyard, we have the oldest known civilisation. No, they didn’t build grand momentous stadiums or towering pyramids, what they did, was live for thousands and thousands of years in complete harmony with nature - something we are yet to achieve.
Delta Kay a proud mother, grandmother and Arakwal woman from the Byron Bay region, known as Bundjalung nation.
Delta is so passionate about promoting awareness, understanding and mutual respect between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. She dedicates her time to sharing her culture and ensuring it’s protected.
In this episode, Delta, explains the tradition of ‘Welcome to Country,’ how this is completed and what it means for her. As an Arakwal woman, Delta often carries out the ‘Welcome to Country’ demonstrations for local events and festivals.
She also provides consultation on incorporating protocols into an events so that businesses can be certain that customs and etiquette are adhered to respectfully. In addition to speech ‘Welcome to Country’ can be incorporated as a performance - a story, song, dance, didgeridoo or in a very special circumstances, a smoking ceremony.
Delta works alongside Culture Aware, an association set up to help businesses and organisations avoid appropriation and any unintentional disrespect when recognising and respecting Aboriginal cultures in events and festival introductions.
We hope you enjoy this episode and, like us, recognise that a deeper understanding of the Australian Aboriginal culture is so important for future generations. Not only, will it enrich our own experience in this country but may also help us find a way to better way to live more harmoniously with the environment.
Mentioned in conversation...
The traditional way of life for Aboriginal people in the Byron Bay region, known as Bundjalung Nation.
The importance of sharing culture and protecting Country.
The recent recognition of native title rights of the Bundjalung People of Byron Bay and the significance this holds.
Raising cultural awareness on a grass-roots level with local businesses.
As a society how can we better protect cultures.
Learn more about Delta’s work here:
Book an Explore Byron Bay Guided Aboriginal Tours led by Delta Kay
Arakwal people of Byron Bay Website
Culture Aware information Website
Delta Kay’s Website
Full Transcript - Delta Kay
Pru Chapman: Delta Kay is an Arakwal woman from the Byron Bay region, known as Bundjalung Nation. In this episode I was privileged to share a deeper understanding of the Australian Aboriginal culture. Together, in my Byron Bay studio, we discuss the importance of preserving and protecting culture, and the beautiful way that the aboriginal people nourish, and are nourished by their country. I hope that through this conversation you're inspired to learn more about the culture of the country in which you live and those that you visit. Not just for protecting culture, but to enrich your own experience.
Pru Chapman: You see, we don't go to the Colosseum or the pyramids to look at a bunch of rocks. The experience is built on the understanding of what happened there long before we arrived. We marvel at these ancient wonders and yet, right here in Australia, in our own backyard, we have the oldest known civilization. And no, they didn't build grand monumental stadiums or towering pyramids. What they did was live for thousands and thousands of years in complete harmony with Country. Something we are yet to achieve. We have much to learn.
Pru Chapman: One Wild Ride is the exploration of a more meaningful life. Here I share real conversations with ordinary humans doing extraordinary things. From activists and entrepreneurs to sports people and scientists, these are the people that inspire me on the daily. Theirs are stories of positivity, hope, expansion and evolution. These are unscripted conversations where we dive deep into their highs and lows, their challenges and their triumphs. I'm Pru Chapman and this is One Wild Ride.
Pru Chapman: (Singing)
Pru Chapman: Hi, Delta and welcome to the show.
Delta Kay: Oh, thank you so much for having me here, Pru.
Pru Chapman: Oh, my absolute pleasure. Now Delta, I recently ... We're here recording in Byron Bay, and I recently saw you speak about this country at an event and it totally captivated me. So, I was hoping that you could start us off just by telling us a little bit about the Byron Bay area.
Delta Kay: Oh, my homeland is fringe with these beautiful, pristine beaches. Rocky outcrops to play and wander in, and then you've got this gorgeous, dry heathland on one side that is Arakwal National Park now. Then on these rocky outcrops, you've got these rain forests and these gullies that have beautiful palm trees in them. We also have so much birdsong from the time you go to sleep to the time you wake up. I just love that smell. The smell of country. It's always fresh. We call country Cavanbah, which means meeting place. So, you can imagine before the Europeans coming here, that Bundjalung people would come to Cavanbah and share in the rich resources here. Imagine the trade that went on.
Pru Chapman: Yeah.
Delta Kay: With the Western Bundjalung and us Coastal Bundjalung. Yeah. Then we got the seasonal movements of the birds and animals. Right now, [Coal Country 00:03:30], we've got the magnificent humpback whales going by [inaudible 00:03:35]. So, it's pretty exciting living here in Cavanbah country.
Pru Chapman: It's beautiful. It's beautiful, and I love that you said it's such and abundant place, isn't it? Every time ... I'm luck enough to live here now, but even when I used to escape from the city and come to this place, just the abundance of everything, the soil, it's so rich and it grows so many things and like you say, the bird life and the fish in the water, the humpback whales, the sharks sometimes, all of the things, it's just a place where it seems like everything is abundant. There's more than enough here.
Delta Kay: Yeah, so our people have been looking after this beautiful country for a long time and times are changed now, and today we look after it in a different way. We've got lots of white fellow rules that we've got to follow but I think that sharing and listening and collaborating together, this is the only way we're going to look after country that's become a really busy, busy tourism destination.
Pru Chapman: It really has, hasn't it, and particularly I think over the past maybe five or ten years even, it's become, yeah, overrun a little bit.
Delta Kay: You can't go anywhere around the world without someone say, "Where you from?" "Oh I'm from Byron Bay." "Oh I've been there."
Pru Chapman: Yeah.
Delta Kay: Everyone's been to Byron Bay.
Pru Chapman: They really have, and this is something we were just talking about before we pressed play as well on the podcast, and about the importance of protecting country here, because it's so special. Can you tell me a little bit more about before the white fellow came here and took over the place, what was it like, maybe quite a while ago where you said you were trading and there was different places. How was the land cared for differently back then?
Delta Kay: Well our way that we land managed was moving with the seasons. We never stayed in one place too long to soil that area. Moving around our traditional homelands in the Byron Shire, which is the Brunswick River, out to Main Arm across to [inaudible 00:06:07], Possum Creek, down to [inaudible 00:06:13] just at the start of 7 Mile Beach, so we mentioned that whole area, our people moving through the area and the abundance of the different environments. We've got that coastal and then we've got the rain forest. We've got all these high hills. Moving through country, after those seasonal foods, is a way that we looked after it.
Delta Kay: Using that really important tool of fire. Fire brings us together, keeps us warm, cooks our food, but fire also regenerates land. It's quite interesting that now that we've got all these non-aboriginal people talking about how aboriginal people were farmers. We did trade and we did engineer and we did all these wonderful things, but aboriginal people have always known that. I mean look at the boomerang that comes back. That's just pure science there. Our people have always known this, and finally non-aboriginal people are catching up and looking at our tools and our weapons and going, "Wow, they're incredible." Looking at the intricate basket weaving techniques that aboriginal women have been practicing for thousands of years and really appreciating that technique.
Pru Chapman: I wonder if, as you say, with the agricultural practices, that the aboriginal people, you left very little trace of where you were, is my understanding, whereas modern day agriculture, you know where it is and where it's been because it can damage the land so badly. It's almost like it's more subtly being recognized now the way of aboriginal people because it was less harmful. There was less trace of it left behind.
Delta Kay: Yeah, and I like sharing that with people when I take them on walking tours, that here we are at the pass, at Caringbah. That means place of the ... here we are at Caringbah, Fresh Water Gully. Here at Caringbah is this very old midden. You know what a midden is Pru, yes?
Pru Chapman: No, share it with me.
Delta Kay: A midden is a place where our people gather and eat.
Pru Chapman: Of course.
Delta Kay: You can imagine fires over hundreds and thousands of years with the bones and the stones, from our tools and the many shells that litter our beaches and also our rocky crops. This forms a midden. It's like a storybook, just keep turning the pages. You see the layers this midden, the layers of the remains of the fire, and this midden is very old. It's quite condensed. It has incredible species in it that are now extinct on country here. We no longer have the pademelon, which abundance of bones is found in this midden. We no longer have the gray kangaroo, the redneck wallaby, the greater glider. There's lots of species found in this midden that we no longer have here.
Delta Kay: [inaudible 00:10:00], we've never stopped loving our [pipis 00:10:05], our [ugari 00:10:05]. We found 67% of that midden with pipi shells.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Delta Kay: Yeah. In this 52 centimeter study, 3,700 pipi shells were recovered in that small area. That's really, really dense occupation there at the pass, and you can imagine sitting out there, the adults cooking and the kids swimming and playing, safe right there at the pass. Yeah. Walking at the pass, and you know when the water's rushing in there that's an important place of our people would capture fish. Again, just strategically placing rocks at the pass there, and when that full tide comes up, we get plenty of nice fresh fish. With those rocks, putting in a pond, strategical placed in a pond, then the fish are caught, kept fresh there until the next high tide.
Pru Chapman: Wow.
Delta Kay: A lot of these rocky crops around our country were traditional fish traps. Sadly, all that evidence has been removed from people coming here, but we know from stories that these places were significant fishing spots for our people.
Pru Chapman: Yeah, so amazing. As we talked about just a minute ago, these practices that you had just left no trace on the ... know that they weren't harmful at all to country.
Delta Kay: That's right. Evidence of our stone tools, flint knives, all these stone tools have been used around country, and they just go back to country. Yeah.
Pru Chapman: Yeah.
Delta Kay: All our wooden tools and weapons, they just go back into the land.
Pru Chapman: So beautiful.
Delta Kay: We don't have that problem with our marine life choking on plastic bag in the day, did we?
Pru Chapman: No, not at all. Not at all.
Delta Kay: Everything was in abundance because everything was in right relationship. The birds, the bees, the bats, our major pollinators, and our large animals that lived on the land with our soft footing so they didn't harm the environment. Things have changed now with Europeans coming, building their fences, bringing their hard hoofed animals and taking their rich resources from the land.
Pru Chapman: What does that do to your heart, Delta? As you talk about it, I can sense almost a sadness about it.
Delta Kay: Yeah, well the stories that your old people talk about how country used to be, and for my people, it's really quiet here. Mom grew up at Tallow Creek, and she'd say how her and her 12 siblings would wake up with their parents and they'd go hunting and gathering. She'd watch her brothers spear the fish in the shallows. Her, herself, would be catching prawns around the edges of Tallow Creek. Plenty of eggs and bush tucker plants and plenty of animals to eat. Yeah, there's a yearning in my heart because we don't always see a goanna now here on country. We don't always see echidna. I get quite excited when I do, and I can share that with people walking around. "Oh there's echidna there."
Delta Kay: Yeah, I do have that yearning. Time's have changed and we're getting more people, but we're getting less of our native animals here.
Pru Chapman: It's interesting, isn't it, I think Byron Bay, this region, it's, as you say, you can't go anywhere in the world now without someone having been to Byron Bay. It seems like it's placed such an enormous demand on the resources here that most small towns or small places just wouldn't experience. It seems like there's a real disconnect at the moment from the people coming here with country and with the culture that has been here for so long
Delta Kay: Exactly, Pru. I always take it back to Welcome to Country. This is an age old tradition that our people practice with coming into each others traditional homelands. Now Welcome to Country is more well known now. Many businesses here in Byron are embracing it because they do understand the importance of a Welcome to Country because a Welcome to Country, and I chat with my girlfriend about that, it'd be like me coming to your house, Pru and knocking on your door. Would I just come in? No.
Pru Chapman: Probably not.
Delta Kay: No. I'd stand there and wait for you to invite me in, so when I come in I know how I have to behave because this your place. Welcome to Country's like that. I want people to feel welcome here in the Byron Shire, I want them to understand who we are, why country's so important to us because while they're there, I want them to enjoy country, love country and respect country like we do. I want them to behave themselves in our country. Sadly, the visitors that were coming here, they love the place, I know they love the place, they keep coming back, but when I stand there and watch peoples behavior, I question how are we going to look after this country if you're not behaving yourself here?
Pru Chapman: Yeah, absolutely. I guess with that Welcome to Country, that's something that we're seeing people uptake a little bit more at the moment, but it doesn't traditionally have to be performed by an aboriginal person, does it?
Delta Kay: Yeah, an aboriginal person from that area.
Pru Chapman: Right.
Delta Kay: People can do an acknowledgement. Anyone can do that acknowledgment of country, but a Welcome to Country must be done by a traditional person of that country. Yeah.
Pru Chapman: That's good to understand. As interesting as well as I was talking with James a little easier this week who's from Stone and Wood, and we were talking about the indigenous culture here and how we really want to share country, and we really want to understand it more. I was saying to him, "I feel like as I was growing up, I just had this very two dimensional view of the world. There's the sky and there's the land, and that's kind of it." I grew up in country places, so I definitely can feel it, but when I'm around aboriginal people, even if it's yourself and as I mentioned, as you were talking about country, when I've seen you speak before, it's such a part of you, isn't it? It's not just a place where you live or where you grow up, but really it's inside of you as well.
Delta Kay: Yeah. I am country. I belong to her, she's my mother. I don't own her. She owns me. I'm here to be of service to my mother. I'm only here for a short while, and I believe that my life is in service to her. I need to look after her, and I need to gather people around me to help me do that. That's why I love what I do. I teach people to love country like I do. That's how we're going to move forward. That's true reconciliation.
Pru Chapman: Absolutely. I understand now you're doing a lot of work with businesses here in this Byron Bay region, particularly with the Culture Aware program. I'd love for you to let us know a little bit more about that because I know a lot of people that listen to this. As I mentioned, they are business owners, and I think there's a greater understanding now and a greater respect, and definitely a want to move forward. It'll be great to hear more about what you're doing with the Culture Aware program and also how we can take steps forward once we have the knowledge and we're learning the knowledge and we have the understanding, what are kind of the next steps for us?
Pru Chapman: Can you tell us a bit more?
Delta Kay: Culture Aware blossomed last year through this need to have aboriginal protocols as part of festivals and events, so it's done in the right way. I was finding that festivals and events were doing the wrong thing with ceremonies, the way that ceremonies were undertaken. There was a lot of confusion out there of how I was feeling, so I got talking to other people, especially from other cultures from indigenous background who have ceremonies, and we're all scratching our head as why are they taking bits of our ceremonies and then mishmashing them together for their own ceremonies.
Delta Kay: I suppose Culture Aware came from what I was saying, experiencing. I didn't know how to put words to how I was feeling, I just knew that this gut instinct that I had was that it was wrong. After speaking to other Bundjalung people who were experiencing the same thing, seeing ceremonies being undertaken on their countries, we weren't happy what was going on. We felt that education's the key with Culture Aware. We were asking businesses to have a look at what we were offering. We started doing these presentations in our own time, and we explained about what Culture Aware was about. It's about following protocols, it was about protecting ceremonies, it was protecting ceremonial objects.
Delta Kay: Through Culture Aware, I got to meet Chief Arvol Looking Horse. Chief Arvol Looking Horse is a Lakota Dakota elder, and he's been doing this work for a long, long time. He wrote a proclamation, and when I read that proclamation, I just had a light bulb reaction. I just went, "Wow, this is exactly how I'm feeling. I don't want people to be performing all these ceremonies on country that was appropriating other peoples cultures. The wearing of headdresses, the playing of drums, the mimicking of aboriginal languages. Yeah, it's just layered with all this falseness.
Delta Kay: I've been doing a lot of work with Chief Arvol Looking Horse. I went to America last year for the World Peace and Prayer Day where I was his guest, and I got to come over and talk about Culture Aware and the work we've been doing here in the Byron Shire. We have approached a couple of businesses and venues. We first signed up the Byron Bay Community Center as our first venue because they hold a lot of functions at the Byron Bay Community Center. They were our first venue that signed up, and our first festival was the Renew Festival in Mullumbimby, and then later the Mullumbimby Music Festival.
Delta Kay: Along the way, we've been working with businesses, signing businesses up and school, and it's been really, really positive. I think that people want to do the right thing, and cultural appropriation is a real gray area. We know with yoga, it becomes gray. We know with people playing the Didgeridoo, but I think that if we work together to ensure that indigenous cultures are protected and most importantly ceremonial objects are respected, and ceremonies are protected. So education's the key.
Pru Chapman: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the protection of culture is so important because otherwise it's diluted, and once it's diluted, you can't get it back.
Delta Kay: Yeah. With Byron Shire Council ... I'm sorry, Byron Shire having so many festivals in the area, headdresses were a concern for me because I know the honor and the deeds that go into the First Nations people in America, that these eagle feathers are very, very important. To see people put them on and go to festivals was a huge, yeah, insult to me. I didn't want people to be disrespectful like that. Coming up with strategies to get people to think about instead of wearing the headdress, we can swap it over with, say, a bandana with something cool written on it.
Delta Kay: That's what we're doing. We're actually educating. We're giving strategies that can give people other ideas, so cultures are protected.
Pru Chapman: Yeah. I love that you're coming from a place of education as well because I think sometimes, and quite often, probably particularly at the festivals, people, they don't know. They're just not aware, so they're not intentionally doing the wrong thing, but they're just not aware of what that particular object is symbolic of.
Delta Kay: Yeah, and for me, growing up with my elders, we've always been taught to avoid sacred sites. Sacred sites are only used for special purposes, not ordinary business, and our ceremonies, they're kept here within our family, they're kept close to us, and we don't want to put them out on the public arena on a stage and make a mockery of our ceremonies. It concerns me when people are making money from other peoples ceremonies. Yeah. I also worry that Byron Bay attracts people who are coming here to seek ... I've forgotten the word. People that come to Byron Bay seek enlightenment, they want to come here and relax. They're looking for something.
Delta Kay: I believe that many people that are performing cultural appropriation, they're targeting these people who are looking for something.
Pru Chapman: That's interesting, isn't it? Because my understanding of Byron Bay and the country, it's the place where people would come to heal, is that right, traditionally?
Delta Kay: That's right, yeah.
Pru Chapman: I think there's still that innate draw for people, but then as you're saying, we're seeing the situation where those people are maybe preyed on.
Delta Kay: Definitely. Yeah.
Pru Chapman: You touched us there on sacred sites, Delta, and a lot of people listening to this podcast will visit Byron Bay at some point. Can you tell us a little bit more about the sacred sites here and why we should avoid them?
Delta Kay: When you come to Byron and you look out on that beautiful Bay, there's a rock, Julian Rocks. We call it Nguthungulli, but that is a resting place of our almighty creator, [Nguthun Nguthun 00:28:56], for he created all that you can see, the mountains, the rivers, the valleys, the streams. He taught the birds and animals what to eat and how to behave. He gave us the laws of the lands, and we know we must follow those laws because you know when we get them really bad storms, that's Nguthungulli telling us we're not doing the right thing for country. It's a sacred place.
Delta Kay: Then if you look left of the Bay, you'll see that incredible high rocky outcrop that people call Cape Byron where the lighthouse sits at the most eastliest point of Mainland Australia. We call it Walgun, and Walgun means shoulder in our language. It's a ceremonial place. The lighthouse sits on a ceremonial ring. Very important spiritually for our people. Even though there's a lighthouse sitting on it, we know the sacredness of that area. We have women's sacred sites. We have men's sacred sites. Being a men's area, won't go near it, and we ask men not to go to our women's sites either.
Delta Kay: As I said before, sacred sites that we go to our sites for ceremony, for a purpose, and as I said, not for any ordinary business. There's a way that ceremonies are held, the way you prepare that place and the way you behave. I suppose it's like going into someone's church. You walk in solemn, respectful, you know to behave. That's what our sacred sites are like. They're our church.
Pru Chapman: That's a really lovely way to describe that. I feel like everyone listening will now have a better understanding and a respect and a protection of those places as well.
Delta Kay: People say to me, "How do I know if I'm at a site where I'm not supposed to?" I tell them, "Well listen to your gut. You won't feel right. It'll feel wrong. The hairs on the back of your neck will stand up or your arm hairs. You'll feel it. Just walk away."
Pru Chapman: That's good advice. Wonderful. I had a whole list of questions I was going to ask you here Delta, and I just have completely forgotten about all of them because I was too entranced in what you're talking about.
Delta Kay: Well we touched on past land management for our people, that seasonal movement, using fire to keep country clean and healthy. We also made sure that we're never greedy, taking more than we needed. So today, in white man's law, we are now native title holders. My elders were born at Tallow Creek, and the last four surviving were sisters. Four sisters, Lorna, Linda, [Avon 00:32:34] and [Annie Dulci 00:32:37], and in 1994, they launched their native title claim, and they saw Eddie Mabo get his native title in 1992, so that's what I hear, if he can do it, we can do it too. Then let's set out on this journey, but they did it different from Eddie Mabo.
Delta Kay: Eddie Mabo took the government to federal court, whereas my elders were encouraged to mediate their native title. Having a green council, having a green community, having a really strong connection to the country, that ongoing connection. They set out and they mediated their native title. So that meant hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings. You can imagine the media giving Byron Shire people a fright, because they thought their backyards were going to get stolen with native title, but their elders were very strong. They really wanted to bring the community along to understand what they're actually doing. They wanted to protect country. They grew up at Tallow Creek, they wanted their campsite back. They wanted to build a house and live back on country.
Delta Kay: Not far from their homelands is a sacred women's lake that they wanted to protect from development, and that's always been what their mothers given them, that right to protect the sacred women's lake. After 25 years, after three elders passing away, we celebrated on the 30th of April at [inaudible 00:34:53] Park in Brunswick Heads our consent determination with our last surviving elder, [Annie Dulci 00:35:01] Nichols. The houses are built at Ironbark Avenue where they grew up in their little humpy with their mother and father, and their backyard where they grew up is now called Arakwal National Park. Our people have our rights recognized, and what does it mean? Consent determination for the Arakwal people. It means we can live on our land, we can erect shelters. We can access our areas for traditional purposes like camping or ceremonies.
Delta Kay: We can visit and protect important places and sites. We can hunt, fish, gather food or traditional resources like our bush medicines, our [ochres 00:35:58], our waters. These are really important to our people, and of course continual teaching of our laws and our customs, and engaging cultural activities. It's a huge thing for our people, and I suppose it doesn't change much because we've been doing those things anyway. It's now the federal courts publicly declaring us native title holders.
Pru Chapman: And recognizing who you are and the importance that this land holds to you and that you hold to the land.
Delta Kay: Definitely. For me, I can fish on my country. I can fish in the Brunswick River. Yeah. It's wonderful. I can fish in sanctuary zones.
Pru Chapman: This is really important. It feels to me that this shift his happening now, is to the recognition of indigenous people and country and culture. What I feel needs to come next is for us to know what the bridge is. I think, as I said, many business owners listening, where do we go next? I think as businesses and/or as individuals, what are the next steps that we can take to embrace aboriginal culture more, to respect it, to share it and to make sure that it really holds the important position that it has in this country?
Delta Kay: Yeah. I would love it for those listeners, I would love businesses and individuals to have a look at some of our websites. Cultureaware.org is all about cultural appropriation and following proper protocols and we're there to support venues and festivals to ensure that culture is protected. We would like people to look at our website, Arakwal.com.au, and to have a look at us and yeah, read about us, contact us, let us know how you can support our people. I would love to see some more language in our town. I would love it if our visitors came here and can see strong evidence of the Arakwal people because you don't see that. It's pretty ad hoc.
Delta Kay: I'd love the tourist industries to work more collaborative with aboriginal people. We have our young people getting mentored. Even our old people getting mentored, we don't come from business backgrounds and families, so yeah, mentoring is really, really important. Sharing resources. Also, I would like to see ... well it's pretty hard thinking, sorry.
Pru Chapman: No, I think this is wonderful.
Delta Kay: When you get asked, it's like, "Hmm, what do I want?"
Pru Chapman: I think you've made a really important point there for everyone that's visiting this region, for visiting Byron Bay to get on those websites and to have a look, and yes, it's to respect culture and country, but also as a visitor, it will so significantly enrich your experience here, because there's a beautiful video on one of the websites, Delta Review talking about country, and with that understanding about the history of country and where the aboriginal ... like you were telling the story just before of where your mother grew up, and some of those stories are mentioned on the video, I think that's ... you look at this place, you don't just see this place, but you feel this place having gone and educated yourself a little bit more about the history.
Pru Chapman: You don't just ... no one just walks up to the Coliseum in Rome and just says, "Hmm, that's a nice building, isn't it," and walks away. They know about the history of it.
Delta Kay: Yeah, it's incredible.
Pru Chapman: That's what makes it so impressive, because they know of the gladiators and the things that were fought there, and they know the history of it. It's the same ... a lot of sites around European, of European history, they're quite decrepit old buildings now, but people, because they've done the research and they understand the history, then they can use their imagination of what it was, and it really brings the beauty out in those places. I think aboriginal culture in this country is the same. It's, yes, of course, do it to respect country and respect culture, but do it for yourself as well because your time here will be so enriched with that deep understanding of the place.
Delta Kay: Yeah, definitely. I give so much of my personal time, so it benefits my community. I give a big shout out to all of Byron Shire businesses that have come here, they have listened, they're giving to our local community, whether it's kids sports or to environment groups. I suppose they're not coming here to change Byron, but coming here and just be part of the community. I think that's really, really important. Yeah. There's so much more we can do. So much more. I love meeting with people and hearing their ideas because Byron's rapidly changing, and I think it's really important that my people, the Arakwal people, Bundjalung people, we don't get left behind because I feel that at the moment, we're getting left behind, because this place is growing and our people haven't even got a home yet because it's so expensive.
Pru Chapman: I think it's so important for the Arakwal people to have a seat at every table where there's decisions being made in this place, whether it's council or tourism or festivals or whatever it might be. This is your home, and now it's even recognized on all the documents. Of course, your voice should be at the table, at every one of the tables.
Delta Kay: Yeah. Slowly, it's happening, but on the other hand, it's not easy because our people don't live here to just drive around the corner and sit at a table. A lot of our family live in Lismore, Cabbage Tree Island, [Barana 00:43:41], Brisbane, long distances, and it's, yeah, it's a financial burden for our people to be here, be present and have a say. Yeah, we need a lot of support with that, a lot of support.
Pru Chapman: That's potentially where we can help.
Delta Kay: Yes. On a good note, we're working towards building a culture center site, not far from the lighthouse, just on Patterson Street there, that block of land we own. That's always been earmarked by our elders for a culture center site, which will benefit the community and create jobs. We would love people to help us out and get that happening too.
Pru Chapman: Absolutely. Absolutely. Then that I feel, speaking on behalf of myself, but hopefully for some of the other community that are here as well is that we can help and put up our hands. I think, as I said, this is really important to all of us, and so understanding how we can help and how we can work together, so that country is protected, country and culture are really protected moving forward, and that aboriginal people have the support to do that.
Delta Kay: Yeah, thank you.
Pru Chapman: Thank you so much.
Delta Kay: Thank you very much for having me.
Pru Chapman: Thank you Delta.
Delta Kay: My pleasure. [inaudible 00:45:15].
Pru Chapman: To close out, I want to say a huge thank you to [Costa Ray 00:45:22] for the tunes, to Animal Ventura for recording and production, the Bundjalung Nation, traditional custodians of the lands where this podcast is recorded, and of course, to you, our incredible community. If you're hungry for me, head over to our website, onewildride.com where the conversation continues.
Pru Chapman: (Singing)