AUNTY MARGRET

Kylie Kwong celebrates the individuals helping to grow a stronger community. This month, we meet Dhainghutti Djirringanj Elder, business woman and IYORIA board member, Aunty Margret.

-  ALLEY PASCOE & KYLIE KWONG

When Aunty Margret was a young girl growing up on Dunghutti country on the mid north coast of NSW, she was taught how to build a campfire. It was sitting around one such seasonal fire where she learned about the whales in the sky. Looking up at the stars, she could clearly see the points of the whale's tail as she was told her MinMin ancestors' Dreamtime stories.

"In my early life, I had relatives who were very specific knowledge holders, and that knowledge was passed down," says the Elder, who was born at sunset on the bend of the Macleay River and had eight siblings, four brothers and four sisters. "My biological mother died when I was five, so I grew up with five mothers - six when my dad remarried - caring for me, within the kinship system."

At the time, the police and the Protection Board would send black cars to the local mission to remove children whose biological mothers had passed. “I was subjected to that in my life, and it meant I was moved around to my mothers – my father’s sisters and my mother’s sisters – to avoid the Protection Board,” explains Campbell, who remembers when Aboriginal people weren’t allowed to catch white buses, or walk on certain sides of the street, or go to the movie theatre. “Is it any wonder I grew up with such strong values?”