ABORIGINAL elders launched NAIDOC Week with a smoking ceremony by Dean Stewart at Altona on Monday.
Aboriginal elder, member of the stolen generation and local resident Peter Letting also attended the ceremony.
NAIDOC, an acronym for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee, originated with the emergence of Aboriginal groups in the 1920s seeking to raise awareness of the status and treatment of indigenous Australians.
This year’s NAIDOC Week theme is “We value the vision: Yirrkala bark petitions 1963”.
Fifty years ago, the Yolngu people of Yirrkala in northeast Arnhem Land sent two bark petitions to Federal Parliament, protesting the government’s granting of mining rights on their land.
An exhibition by indigenous artist Ande K Terare is at Altona’s Joel Gallery until July 21.
