Patsy described how she felt the Cultural Mapping Camps needed to be viewed as just the beginning. They had been an important start but they are not a complete process. She identified how hard it is for those Bunuba who have stayed on Country and in connection with their culture to be able to immediately accept people they do not know as Bunuba, in the way that we identify each other culturally. Descent means everything to those who are reconnecting, but it means little to those of us who have retained cultural connection. Patsy spoke about the need for resources to enable the development of these healing processes – noting that these processes are not insignificant or quick: there needs to be a process of reconnection, a re-ownership of information and a process by which Bunuba come together to work out a way to quantify our loss and find a way of holding government accountable for compensating for that loss. (b) Millie Bedford/Hills Millie is connected to the Mongbung group through her Bunuba mother, Maudie Calwyn. Millie was interviewed by my team at the second Cultural Mapping Camp about Mongbung connecting families back on Country. On her father’s side, Millie is connected to Gija country. Millie came to the second Cultural Mapping Camp with her mother’s story of connection to Bunuba and the paperwork of their genealogical connections which backed up the knowledge Millie had from her mother. Millie’s family was first approached by the NTRB when they were doing the anthropological research for the native title claim. Her family was one which was linked by descent, but whose connection as Bunuba has been challenged by some individuals because she did not grow up on Bunuba Country. Millie’s mother was stolen from her family as a child. However, as an adult, Millie’s mother and father brought their children to Fitzroy Crossing to visit family. They did know they were Bunuba – they just didn’t know the exact connections. Establishing those clear connections was a powerful experience for Millie and she hoped it would result in those who had questioned her changing their perspectives and embracing her as family. Millie felt that native title had ‘created more problems for us’ because of the way it divided us and had us ‘arguing about Country’. Millie spoke of dreading the native title meetings because she ‘knew there was going to be tension’. Millie felt that benefits and royalties from native title have caused division and fighting and have not been used to benefit the community more generally. She felt strongly that such money should be used as part of the bigger, long-term plan to benefit the community, rather than only to individuals in the immediate term. Millie felt that native title and the associated processes were rushed and caused us to be rushed, and that this had a detrimental effect on our cultural wellbeing as a group and as individuals. Millie described how the native title claim was rushed through without all the relevant information, to someone else’s deadline. Millie felt the process they were going through at the Cultural Mapping Camp should have been done before native title was claimed – taking the time we need. Millie wanted to reconnect with cultural ways of our previous generations which kept us unified as one people. She spoke of the importance of language, skin names, and ways of welcoming people onto our Country and sharing, without being defensive and exclusionary. Millie also spoke about reviving the everyday ways of connecting, which her parents used to do, like stopping off to visit extended family whenever out driving – casual, informal ways of maintaining connections. 72 Women in Native Title: Native Title Report 2024