SONG, dance and stargazing will combine in a free Star Night looking at the constellations and their meaning to the Kamilaroi people.
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Host Len Waters said the event launched last year with a surprisingly large number of people turning out.
He said the night promised to be an immersive experience that would show the sophistication of the Indigenous nation’s system of belief and astronomy.
The Star Night will be held at the botanic gardens on April 19, as part of the Tamworth Heritage Festival.
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Mr Waters said guests would be treated to tales about the skies and its inhabitants, along with music, song and dance that would help “resonate with the stories that I’m telling [and] bring a lot of the Kamilaroi stories back to life”.
Mr Waters said some of the lessons in the stars reflected the Kamilaroi’s knowledge of the natural world and its rules for survival, while others were “all about relationships and how we should be treating one another”.
“It’s a very important thing: it talks very much about behaviours, about unwritten laws and always checking yourself to make sure that you’re being responsible and being a leader and leading by example ...
“There are a lot of principles and values written in the stars; a lot about the meaning of life and other very interesting things.
“It really takes more than one viewing – you should do at least three a year – because the sky is constantly changing and the stories are constantly changing.”
Mr Waters said one of the crucial stories above was the constellation that represented the emu or dhinawan, and its movement and visibility as the months went by.
“In the wintertime she reveals herself in full, but in between now and then she’s preparing her nest and getting her mate,” he said.
“She starts nesting and that’s the time you can gather eggs; then the eggs in the sky disappear, and that’s when the male sits on the eggs.
“Once the eggs in the sky disappear, that’s the time it’s forbidden to go near the nest, because they’re incubating.
“It’s all about sustainability – but written in the sky, not in textbooks.”
Mr Waters said he had gained his cultural knowledge about Kamilaroi astronomy as a youngster from elders.
“It’s vitally important that people have a bit of a look at our culture and work out how sophisticated it really is.”