About Hicks Sticks, respect for aboriginal culture

Interest in the didgeridoo led me to an ongoing relationship with Djalu Gurruwiwi and the Yolngu people of North Eastern Arnhem Land. I have spent considerable time over the last 7 years living with the Gurruwiwis and other Yolngu learning about their culture and the traditional use of didgeridoo. Djalu especially has been one of the most influential people in my life. Their depth of their knowledge, feeling and spirit is endlessly inspiring, and I am grateful and humbled by their friendship and generosity. Through these experiences I have gained a great awareness and respect for all aboriginal and indigenous people of the world, and the challenges they face for cultural survival.

The most important, most sacred use of the instrument belongs to aboriginal people with didgeridoo as part of their ancestral history. Most non-aboriginal use of didge has little to nothing to do with its tradition even by those who copy aboriginal playing styles. Without a lifetime in the culture itself, and ongoing participation in ceremony, it is impossible to fully understand the tradition. Listening to CDs, watching videos or listening to non-aboriginal people who have been exposed to aboriginal culture can provide a glimpse, but not actual understanding of the cultural roots of didgeridoo. For partial understanding, spending time inside the culture is necessary. For full understanding, it is necessary to be born and raised in the culture itself.

It is hard to know on the whole whether didgeridoo is a gift that has been shared or something that has been taken without permission from its original owners... probably some of both. Regardless, the treatment of aboriginal people by modern culture in general has been appropriative and exploitive with culturally damaging results. The same pertains to appropriation of didgeridoo. Due to my own cultural appropriation of didge, I believe it is necessary to acknowledge their traditional ownership, show deep respect and give something back on an ongoing basis to the traditional owners. This part of building a bridge towards reconciliation.

If you are interested or passionate about didgeridoo, I encourage you too to seek out the real information about didgeridoo and its origins, and help support traditional cultural ownership of didgeridoo. As a first step, please consider purchasing traditional instruments, not just modern creations like mine.

I am not aboriginal, I am not Australian. The didgeridoos I make are not traditional instruments, they are solely my own creations. In making and selling my own didgeridoos, I am borrowing/appropriating from the traditional owners, and feel responsible to give something back. I attempt to do this through personal means on an ongoing basis.

As part of this, I import authentic yidaki and mago from Arnhem Land Australia. My intent in doing so is to help promote recognition and provide direct financial support for aboriginal craftspeople and their culture, source authentic instruments for didgeridoo players at reasonable cost, and enjoy playing the instruments while they are here. In restructuring the business, I thought I would stop importing as it has never made me money commensurate with the time, effort and investment I put into it, but after revisiting my own motives, I have decided to downsize but not discontinue the importing side of the business.

People often come to me looking for cultural information and traditional didgeridoo instruction. I am not comfortable providing either in a public setting beyond what is shared on this web site. My relationships with Yolngu just like those with other friends are personal and private. Plus, any cultural information I could convey is based on my personal experience. Any such second hand information is inherently misrepresentative outside of its cultural context. It is out of respect that I prefer to leave it to aboriginal people to communicate what they want the public to know about their own culture. Likewise with traditional playing, it is not my place to teach cultural information that does not belong to me.

So, If you want to learn about traditional culture and didge playing, I am happy to try to point you towards good resources, but it is up to you to do the necessary research, get authentic recordings to learn from and ultimately seek out those who through ancestry own the rights to traditional didgeridoo as your teachers.

Based on what I have learned living with Yolngu, I feel it is important to respect aboriginal ownership of all aspects of their culture as best as we can on their own terms of respect . Their cultural survival depends on our respect and support.