Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Rodney Carter said there were both formal and informal structures in place to promote Aboriginal culture and educate the younger generations.

Mr Carter said the corporation ran formal cultural activities four times a year, plus other events such as performances and camps.

Other people in the community also had specific roles as storytellers, he said, while others continued to practise traditional skills, such as basket weaving, carving stone tools and making adornments.

Dja Dja Wurrung Corporation chairman Trent Nelson said the community still relied on their tongue and their murrup, or spirit, to keep their culture alive.

“We still go back to our old way of things and we teach our kids that, take them out on country and teach them things,” Mr Nelson said.

Mr Carter said young children were generally receptive to learning about their culture because they saw the fun in it.

Their interest often waned once they became teenagers, he said, but many revived it when they reached adulthood.

Mr Nelson acknowledged that it was not always easy getting children used to iPhones and computer games to learn traditional knowledge and skills.

“It’s not something you can just grasp, you’ve got to be ready for your culture, and your culture’s got to be ready for you,” he said.

But Mr Nelson said one good way to learn was simply to listen to elders about their lives and their history, adding that this knowledge was just as important for gaining an understanding of culture as learning the songs and dance.

Family also plays an important role in passing on knowledge and traditions, with Mr Nelson crediting his father with sparking a thirst for his culture in him.

Mr Carter said the community’s vision was about ensuring future generations thrived and they used cultural examples to try instill a sense of responsibility to education and employment.

“If you’re a hunter and you don’t get up, your family won’t eat,” Mr Carter said.

While there was still some way to go, he said the wider community’s response to Aboriginal culture had been, for the most part, “really positive”.

“As the first people we’ve been here for a really long time… we hope people respect that and see that as something really unique and beautiful,” Mr Carter said.

The theme of this NAIDOC Week is songlines, a significant feature of Aboriginal culture.

Songlines are tracks across the landscape that trace the journeys of ancestral beings as they created the land and living beings, and are recorded in stories, songs, dance and art.

They not only contain knowledge of lore and customs, but are used for navigation and information on plants and animals.

Mr Carter told of one songline that began in Gippsland and went to Port Phillip, through Dja Dja Wurrung country, into the Wimmera and ended at a point in the Mallee.

While Aboriginal people could claim the oldest living cultural history in the world, Mr Nelson said in addition to rekindling the songlines of their ancestors, they were making new ones with their children and their neighbours.

“We’re not stagnant; we’re always evolving, always changing,” he said.