Author(s): Margaret Kemarre Turner

Australiana

Winner of the 2011 Absolutely Books Awards for Non-Fiction Margaret Kemarre Turner OAM is a proud mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. These responsible relationships are her primary motivation to document for younger Aboriginal people, alongside her student and alere Barry McDonald Perrurle, her cultured understanding of the deep intertwining roots that hold all Australian Aboriginal people: "Because if people like me and the other grandmothers we don't teach them now, then they probably won't get much more chances to learn." Margaret Kemarre Turner was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1997 'for service to the Aboriginal community of Central Australia, particularly through preserving language and culture, and interpreting'. With Iwenhe Tyerrtye, Margaret Kemarre lays the knowledge foundations for an enhanced and extended dialogue, so that 'two cultures can hold each other': You've gotta talk, and really analyse words to really get a full meaning of it. You cannot say anything without doing that; And that's how many, many things we as Aboriginal people have never described. Because it's really hard to describe to others the picture that we've got in our head.
If they can't see that good picture, then there's no answer. Sometimes non-Aboriginal people go away with no answer then, and we're left with no answer as well. Margaret Kemarre's knowledge comes through her own Akarre language, though it is in Arrernte that she shares this generous giving of her profound world view. The translations between Arrernte and English are facilitated through the respectful relationship she shares with her niece, Veronica Perrurle Dobson.