Meintangk People, Then and Now

Telling the Whole Story tells the Meintangk story; this stands in response to the National Trust monument which was placed on this site in 1966. The National Trust monument describes the 1840 massacre of survivors of the wrecked ship Maria and represents the colonial thinking of the time. What wasn’t well-known at the time was that the survivors of the Maria wreck landed at Kingston and travelled north along the Coorong and their lives ended many miles from here. Maria Creek is the colonial naming of this place where Meintangk People lived since time immemorial. We have adopted the Bunganditi word for river – Pawur – for this place.

Survivors of the South Eastern tribes of South Australia 1890s

If you pause for just a moment – you may have the chance to feel, hear and see the land as it once was for so long before colonisation. Our aim is to grow back the native garden as it once was along this Pawur. The Meintangk People’s story is about our history in connection to mraat (country) and what happened in our lives and lands before and after the time the British arrived and everything changed for us. Meintangk history is now being told, interpreted and translated in our way and in our voices and this project is a celebration of our ongoing connection to the mraat.

Wanga means to hear, listen and understand and Kalawa means to talk to one another. This is what we call ‘two-way’: we have made space and grasped this opportunity and invite you to join us – as we tell our story and engage with our past as self-determining, unceded sovereign Meintangk people – in our shared colonial history.

Pawur, Meintangk country