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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-07-06 Daily Xml
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Ingkatji, Mr K.

The Hon. T.T. NGO (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation. Can the minister tell the chamber about the contribution to language, the arts and South Australian society from a significant Aboriginal elder, Mr Ingkatji?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for his question and his interest in Aboriginal affairs generally and as the chair of the Aboriginal Parliamentary Lands Standing Committee. It is with great sadness that I advise members the chamber that Mr Gordon Ingkatji passed away last month at his homeland, David's Well, between Pukatja and Umuwa on the APY lands.

I would like to say a few words to honour one of the special Pitjantjatjara men who became renowned for his skill in language, music and art. As is the cultural protocol, I will respectfully refer to him as Kunmanara, after having been given his family's permission to name him at the start of this contribution. Kunmanara was a remarkable person and became a very good friend and teacher of mine. On visits to the APY lands I was privileged to spend a great deal of time with Kunmanara, often catching up with him three to four times on each visit, at his home at David's Well, at the Ernabella Arts Centre or at the local footy game. My family and I would often catch up with Kunmanara when he was in Adelaide.

Kunmanara was born in about 1930 at Aparatjara, between Kanypi and Pipalyatjara, and his family moved to Ernabella Mission in 1937. He recalls his first memory of meeting a white fella for his family to exchange a dingo scalp for a bag of rations. It is a phenomenal link to our past that has been lost where we had a man alive up until a couple of months ago who predated European contact. He can remember his first contact with a white person. He was one of the very first children to attend the Ernabella Mission school which opened up in 1940. On leaving school, he worked in the office at Ernabella with Bill Edwards, the superintendent throughout the 1950s. Kunmanara was among the first group of Pitjantjatjara people to be baptised at Ernabella in 1952.

He later became a church elder and played a leading role in the Ernabella church throughout his life. Kunmanara was instrumental in the early days of the Ernabella Mission, working in the office and store and becoming involved in teaching the Pitjantjatjara language to staff in translation work and in the early production of Pitjantjatjara language literature. He was the first teacher of the Pitjantjatjara language to the mission teachers at the Ernabella school. When the Pitjantjatjara language summer schools commenced at the University of Adelaide in 1968, Kunmanara worked as a teacher there.

When the Pitjantjatjara language was introduced to courses at the Torrens College of Advanced Education in the 1970s, he was, again, involved in course preparation and teaching. Kunmanara dedicated much of his life to ensuring language thrived. In fact, I know he regularly laughed at me and corrected me when I tried to speak Pitjantjatjara and mangled words. He sorted me out and tried to gently show how they ought to be said. It was fitting that in 2005 Kunmanara was made an honorary fellow of the University of South Australia in recognition of his substantial and continuous support to the university in Indigenous education.

Kunmanara was a choirmaster with the Pitjantjatjara choir. He was the leading tenor of the choir that went in 1954 to Adelaide to see Queen Elizabeth and again, in 1956, when they sang in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh at the opening of the John Flynn church in Alice Springs. Other tours that Kunmanara was involved in include Melbourne, Adelaide, regional centres, Fiji, and Sydney a number of times. He has been largely responsible for a resurgence of interest in the choir in recent years, training and conducting the choir on visits to Alice Springs and sharing this role during visits to Adelaide in 2004 for the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, and then again, very recently, in March this year, where he led the Pitjantjatjara choir singing at the WOMAD festival.

I was lucky enough to see the performance of the Pitjantjatjara choir at WOMAD and gently teased Kunmanara afterwards. Every member of the choir was dressed in a red T-shirt, except Kunmanara, who needed to stand out in a white shirt and a tie, but having been involved with the choir since the 1940s, he had really earned the right to do that. Kunmanara was an accomplished artist. He first painted in Nyapari in 2007 and has been painting at Ernabella Arts since 2008. In 2015, Kunmanara was a finalist in the Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. His entry in that award was acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

There was a particular story that he paints regularly, and it would have been towards the end of last year when I was in the Ernabella Arts centre as Kunmanara was explaining what his painting meant and what the symbols were. As he was halfway through explaining it to me, my phone rang—being in Ernabella, it is the only community on the lands that currently has phone coverage—and I looked at the phone, and it was the Premier ringing me. I was in a real dilemma: do I listen to this great elder explain his story that he was painting, or do I pick up my phone that the Premier was ringing?

I had to make a very quick decision, and I answered the phone and walked over to the other side of the room—it was just Kunmanara and I in the room—and talked to the Premier for three or four minutes. It was about getting the final stages of our Stolen Generations Reparations Scheme in order. I went and sat back down and, quick as a flash, Kunmanara said, 'So, you sort that policy out with the Premier?' He knew exactly what was going on.

His first solo exhibition, 'Let me tell you my story', will be opened at the Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne tomorrow night, a fitting tribute in NAIDOC Week. He had been working towards this special exhibition—his first solo exhibition—for many months, and he had already booked his airfare to attend the opening. Sadly, he passed away only very shortly after finishing his final piece for the exhibition. But tomorrow night it will go ahead and his daughter, Nyunmuti Burton, will attend Kunmanara's first exhibition. Paintings and ceramics will be displayed, telling the stories he so often painted. Kunmanara spent his life teaching people about Anangu language, law and culture. He was also a powerful Ngangkari—a traditional Anangu healer—who used his gift to heal and comfort many people throughout his life. He was a highly respected elder and will be dearly missed.

I last caught up with Kunmanara in late May on the APY lands at his home at David's Well. I spent most of Saturday morning in his lounge room where most of the time it just consisted of laughter. He was a great teller of stories and it was a real privilege to hear in his own words stories about his first contact with white people, helping to build the Ernabella mission, a little bit about women he had shared his life with and he reiterated the three most important things in life to him: kunga, papa and motocar—a woman to share your life with, a pet dog and your Toyota four-wheel drive.

I extend my condolences to his family. Kunmanara had 10 children, seven girls and three boys. He is survived by six of those children, 13 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren, quite a number of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. Today I am honouring Mr Ingkatji. He was a strong man and a generous man. He taught many with great love. He was a great friend and teacher to me and took good care of me. Today I am thinking of his family, his friends and all of those Anangu as they grieve.

Ngayulu kuwari wati panya Mr Ingkatji-nya walkuni. Paluru panya wati kunpu, wati munytja munu paluru Anangu uwankara wirura nintilpai mukulya wirungku. Paluru malpa wirungku ngayunya nintilpai mununi atunymara kanyilpai. Ka ngayulu kuwari kulini palumpa walytjapiti, palumpa malpa tjuta munu Anangu uwankara kulukulu nyura tjituru-tjituru nyinanyangka.

The PRESIDENT: I imagine Hansard will want that.

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