Smoking ceremony

Smoking ceremonies may be performed at birth to welcome a newborn into the community and ensure that the mother and child will both be healthy throughout their lives.[5] It is considered ‘baby business’ and is thus the responsibility of women in the community.[6] Aspects of the practice have specific sacred meanings.[6] In the Darug nation, smoking the feet represents a connection to country; the chest represents the connection between heart, family and country; the hands the spiritual imperative to take only what's needed from the land; and the mouth the Indigenous language.[6]

Some Indigenous groups in Central Australia perform circumcision or subincision on boys as they come of age to welcome them into adulthood, marking the beginning of their involvement with men's business.[7] Smoking ceremonies are thus integrated into the initiation ceremony to encourage both spiritual and physical cleansing.[8] Smoking leaves of the emu bush serves a dual purpose of cleansing one's spirit to connect them to their country and sterilising instruments used in the circumcision itself.[1]

Smoking ceremonies are conducted in a deceased person's space to aid their spirit in moving on from the material world[5] and purify or cleanse a location.[1] The ceremony takes precedence over all other events and may involve smoking a deceased person's house, room or car to allow their spirit to return to country.[5] Depending on the Indigenous Nation, smoking may be accompanied by sweeping of branches across a location, which is said to weaken the connection between the dead and living world and may have replaced the practice of burning the clothes and belongings of the deceased.[5] Community members may also paint ochre on the living spaces inhabited by the dead, which serves the dual purpose of encouraging the spirit to move on and notifying the community that someone has died.[5]

If it occurs in an enclosed space, the practice itself is altered slightly.[5] A small fire may be built within the home, or a bucket of smoking coals may be brought into the house.[5]

During their 2018 royal visit of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex participated in a smoking ceremony to commemorate the unveiling of the Queens Commonwealth Canopy in K’Gari National Park.[12] Butchulla elders performed the ceremony as a Welcome to Country, highlighting the focus on Indigenous forests encouraged by the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy program.[12] It was the first smoking ceremony performed for royalty.

In 1995 Pope John Paul II beatified the Australian nun Mary Mackillop in Sydney, accompanied by 26 Catholic Aboriginal Australians.[13] Aboriginal Australians performed a smoking ceremony to replace traditional incense burning in Catholic mass,[14] with the Pope making special mention of the presence of Aboriginal Australians throughout Australia's history.[13] Members of the Indigenous community who commented on the event said they saw this as a positive step towards reconciling with the Catholic church.[13]

In 2020 convenors of the Midsumma Festival invited Aboriginal elders to perform a welcome to country ceremony before the march, incorporating a smoking ceremony into the proceedings.[15] They acknowledged the Faces of Aboriginal Pride, elected at the 2019 Victorian NAIDOC Pride Night, Stone Motherless Cold and Astro.[16]

Lidia Thorpe's induction into Parliament in 2020

Thorpe at a smoking ceremony

Upon election to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 2017, Senator Lidia Thorpe was inducted into her position wearing a traditional bosom fur cloth representing her ancestry as a Djab Wurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman. Her swearing in included a smoking ceremony as part of a welcome to country.[17]

Thorpe’s later appointment to the federal senate in 2020 included a smoking ceremony at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. She carried a message stick bearing a mark for each of the 441 Indigenous people who died in custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1990.[18]

Emu Bush leaves, used in smoking ceremonies.

Emu bush, otherwise known as Berrigan, is a traditional medicine sacred to Aboriginal Australian cultures. Research has shown that there is variation in the quantity and types of essential oils produced by plants across NSW. These chemovariants correlate to different ceremonial uses of the plant. For example, the Western Australian Emu Bush is a different chemotype which contains some toxic compounds, so Australian Sandalwood is more common in ceremonial life.[19]

Temperature is known to affect the antimicrobial activity of beneficial compounds in Emu Bush. Pyrolysis and burning of the plant also increase the physical benefits of the plant. Medicinal benefits are maximised through elements of the ceremony. Individuals participating in the ceremony are directly exposed to the smoke as the leaves are brought closer to their skin and face, and artefacts are sometimes singed alongside the leaves when used for surgery.[19]

As with other sandalwood species, Australian Sandalwood essential oils are known to be anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial. While the oils are known to cause skin sensitization in people with allergies, fumigation does not carry the same risks to community members due to the decreased absorption and changes in chemistry that occur upon burning the leaves. Additionally, a randomised controlled trial of 87 women showed evidence that aromatherapy reduced anxiety during image-guided breast biopsy, with sandalwood showing the most significant effect,[20] and one of the compounds within the oil may guard against skin cancer.[21] These powerful physical properties bring serious benefits for Indigenous communities in the various contexts of smoking ceremonies, particularly as smoking ceremonies expose not only the skin but the respiratory tract to the oils.[5]