Ceremony: All Our Yesterdays for Today (First Knowledge)

What do you need to know to prosper as a people for 65,000 years or more? The First Knowledges series provides a deep understanding of the expertise, wisdom and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians.

We perform ceremonies every day. Some are personal, some highly organised and others are repeated for generations. For First Nations Australians, ceremonies create the backbone of cultural practice. Ceremony: All Yesterdays for Today tells how Indigenous ceremonies link people today to those of the past in a continuum of inherited stories, places and memories - from rites of passage to smoking ceremonies and Welcomes to Country, and many others.

The authors focus on examples from their lives, including personal ceremonies from Quandamooka waterways and lands, community-centred ceremonies held by Warlpiri people in the Tanami desert, stories told to them by Elders and experiences of performing at Opening ceremonies for national events. Stories of ceremony are vast and diverse and many ceremonies are of a secret scared nature and cannot be told to those not initiated or intimately connected to the people, as the authors acknowledge. Rather, this book highlights the importance of ceremony across time and place on both a personal as well as national level that recognises and celebrates Australia's First Nations history and culture.

'Ceremonies can take many forms; in First Nations cultures it is the sense of intergenerational observance that connects us to our families, our Countries and our histories. Ceremonies are a way of connecting all our yesterdays to today.'
- Wesley Enoch