‘Raki’ is a continuation of a collaborative process that began for me in 2004, when I

first visited Ngukkur, on the Roper River in S.E. Arnhem Land. My long journey into

manikay, the Yolngu song cycles that sing up place, situation and identity in powerful

and tightly structured performances of enormous intensity, happened during my

years as founding artistic director of the Australian Art Orchestra. My teachers, and

the custodians of the Djawulparra cycle that has formed the basis of ‘Crossing Roper

Bar’ (2005-2012), Wata (2021) and Raki (2023) have been the Wilfred family, who

maintain ceremonial observance across a broad swath of their large country. 

My successor at the AAO Peter Knight continued and deepened the relationship with

‘Touch the Earth’, an ongoing project that continues to move audiences globally.

 

Raki means ‘bush string’, the string rolled from the fibre of the pandana plant, used in 

the weaving of bags and nets for food collection and many other purposes, both 

practical and ceremonial. But the word, like so many in Yolngu languages, contains 

numerous meanings, of which the primary one is often a metaphor. In the words of 

Samuel Curkpatrick, author of ‘The Singing Bones’, a seminal study of ‘Crossing Roper 

Bar’, raki can also be understood as “‘law’ as customary practice and relations that lead to 

the flourishing of people and country”. 

 

Daniel Wilfred, who leads ‘Raki’, feels strongly that this work conveys the life-giving

spiritual fibres of raki that comprise manikay, bringing blackfella and whitefella

together as part of one interconnected whole, expressed through the deep trust 

necessary or these performances. It is with the deepest respect for this cultural 

treasure that I write these words, and I urge you to feel part of what you will listen to, for 

that is the ultimate meaning of both raki, and of ‘Raki’.