Walkabout To Hollywood: 'Human-being music'

David Gulpilil is on a trip to America to promote Walkabout and talk about a film he wants to make called Billy West and Lightning Thunderboy. In voice-over he says that he identifies with the American Indian people because 'Indian people is like my people. We have the same problem - that a white man came to the reservation - it's like the white man came to the reserve.'

He plays yidaki (didgeridoo) with Canadian Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, who is set to co-star in his film, which was never made. She shows him different types of jewellery made by American Indian tribes and they share stories about their families. He also speaks with an American Indian man about problems his people share with Indigenous Australians and shows him a hair belt made out of the hair of his ancestors.

He says 'Inside here is all my people, all my relations, and your relations too'. It's very powerful that he can show the hair of his father, himself and his sisters all woven together. He gives the man a gift of a hair necklace saying it's from his people, 'the lightning thunder people'.

Notes by Beth Taylor