Mapuru Weaving and Living on Country – Arnhem Land
We are privileged to run trips to the remote Community of Mäpuru in East Arnhem Land. A unique opportunity to learn about Yolngu culture from Indigenous leaders passing on their traditional skills and knowledge in basket weaving and bush survival.
Introduction
Twice a year we gather together a group of people and head out on the long and dusty Arnhem Highway. We take this journey in order to visit a small homeland community called Mäpuru. It is here that live our Yolŋu friends and adopted family who we have been working in partnership with for the past 12 years. We organise these trips in order to support our friends in making a meaningful living on country. In exchange they teach us what it means to live on and speak to the land; how to weave pandanas baskets; how the water tells its story of life through those very fibres we weave; and how we might actually be able to look at the world differently.
And so we invite you to join us, to live with and learn from the people of Mäpuru who are passing on their traditional skills and knowledge to future generations – as it has always been. Each visitor is welcomed with an open heart and mind, and given a rare glimpse into the Indigenous worldview.
Two opportunities
10-Day Mixed Men and Women Trip
Dates: 17th – 26th June, 2023
Cost: $3410
BOOK HERE
12-Day Women-Only Trip
Dates: 30th June – 11th July, 2023
Cost: $3990
BOOK HERE
Please email: mapuru@ceres.org.au to go on the expression of interest or waitlist.
This will be an experience that will always be in the forefront of my mind. Thank you to CERES for taking on these trips and allowing us to participate and help the Arnhem Weavers keep their community and culture strong.
All Australians should experience something like this: Indigenous people living a semi-traditional life, and us visiting on their terms. The experience highlights how huge the gulf is between the two cultures, and how little the European Australian culture really learns or gives priority to the traditional culture of the country
The whole trip was very well organised and the information provided could not have been more detailed.
Everything was covered and at no stage was there a reason to be confused about what would / or was happening.
P.S. Fantastic food!
Such an incredible experience connecting with the Mapuru community. It was an honor to contribute to a vision of Yolgnu people living lives of dignity on ancestral land.
It was a wonderful adventure in so many ways – physically, emotionally, spiritually. I was outside my comfort zone, at the edge of my experience, challenged and confronted at times and I have been rewarded. My awareness is developing, my perspective has shifted. A reality-based frame of reference is now established within me. I have grown as a man and feel more connected with myself, with the earth, with my family and with the wonderful people at Mapuru.
I didn’t just learn how to weave a basket in Mäpuru, I took a brief glimpse at my universe differently.
These trips always leave people with far more than baskets, bark paintings and didgeridoos. Whether it is through the intuitive guidance under the weaving shelter, walking through the mangrove forest, buffalo hunting on the mud-plains, swimming in the water-hole, gathering pandanus or being together around the bush camp-fire, the gentle people of Mäpuru open our western eyes to a glimmer of the knowledge and wisdom of Yolŋu culture.