This year’s Proclamation Day commemorations on 28 December 2023 will, for the first time, include a series of signal fires lit on the beach along Holdfast Bay’s coastline.
Kaurna Elders and the Kaurna Fire team from Firesticks – an Indigenous alliance across Australia reviving cultural burning and landscape management – with support from the City of Holdfast Bay, will lead this significant cultural event which the wider community will be invited to take part in.
The fires will be lit on the beach at Glenelg North, Glenelg South, North Brighton and Kingston Park in the afternoon, following the Proclamation Day morning ceremony held at the Old Gum Tree Reserve at Glenelg North.
The community is invited to learn more about the signal fires and their cultural significance at two upcoming education sessions which will be held at Brighton on Monday 27 November 2023.
Session one – 4pm-5pm, Kingston Room, Brighton Civic Centre
Session two – 6.30pm-7.30pm, Kingston Room, Brighton Civic Centre
Kaurna Elders and members of the Firesticks team will be in attendance at both community education sessions to explain the cultural and historical significance of the signal fires and to answer questions from the community.
The sessions are free to attend, however, booking are required via this link: https://www.trybooking.com/CMYMH
In the lead-up to Proclamation Day, Kaurna and Firesticks will hold four small fires on the beach, which will be filmed and will accompany the Kaurna speech and Welcome to Country part of the Proclamation Day commemoration ceremony on the morning of 28 December 2023.
The signal fires are part of a joint approach by the Kaurna Nation, Firesticks and the City of Holdfast Bay to provide further knowledge, truth-telling and education to our community around the significance of Proclamation Day, which commemorates the founding of South Australia.
In the past few years, the commemorative event on 28 December at the Old Gum Tree Reserve in Glenelg North, has been an opportunity to reflect on our shared history and what this important state ceremony means for all South Australians.
City of Holdfast Bay Mayor, Amanda Wilson said that working alongside Kaurna Nation to include a focus on shared histories and truth-telling was an important cultural shift for the commemoration.
“Over several years, the City of Holdfast Bay has forged an incredibly strong connection with the Kaurna Nation and for that, I am truly grateful,” Mayor Wilson said ahead of last year’s commemoration.
“The respectful relationship we have built with Kaurna is based on trust and a shared vision – to present the truth of colonial South Australia and the truth from a Kaurna perspective, equally”.
This year, the shared commemoration will include the lighting of four signal fires in the afternoon of Proclamation Day.
The revival of this cultural practice by Kaurna, which is a practice shared by many Aboriginal groups across Australia, is to acknowledge acts that took place in 1836, upon the arrival of colonial ships along South Australia’s coastline.
It is widely documented that signal fires were a form of communication for the First Peoples of this land, both pre and post-colonisation. Plumes of smoke would be sent into the sky as a warning among Aboriginal groups that something of importance was happening.
The community will be invited to attend the signal fires, which will begin in the afternoon of 28 December 2023 and will be held on the beach between Glenelg North and Kingston Park.
At each of the four locations, Kaurna Elders will be present and will determine when each of the fires will be lit.
Kaurna Elder Jeffrey Newchurch will also hold a small campfire on the eve of Proclamation Day at the Old Gum Tree Reserve, as he did in 2022, which the community is invited to attend.
“Proclamation Day now brings us an opportunity that we – and our Aboriginal people and our Kaurna people – were never afforded,” he said.
“The opportunity to have a campfire the night before, to camp on Country and to let those spirits of our people know that we’re here, we’re back.
“For us as Aboriginal people, for myself, I’m thankful.”
The cultural fires will be held with support from the City of Holdfast Bay through the provision of permits and special exemptions that allow the beach fires to take place.
The Metropolitan Fire Service will also be notified ahead of the scheduled dates including Proclamation Day.
Firesticks is a not-for-profit, Australia-wide Indigenous network aiming to activate and increase the use of cultural burning within the landscape.
The Kaurna, Adelaide-based team for Firesticks Alliance was established in 2023 and they are passionate about healing and restoring Country by reintroducing fire to the landscape.
