Heidi O’Donoghue would often dream of crocodiles and later in life found they were part of her Kungarakany dreaming story.
I was born in Darwin, Northern Territory, in 1985. At 18-months-old my mother brought me and my big sister Natasha to Cairns to make a new life.
I didn’t see as much of my father after we moved here. Him and mum had separated but remained friends.
Over the years, Dad came and went with work and life, and so did Tash and I. We would fly back up to Darwin to spend time with him and his family any chance we could. There has always been a feeling of longing and a sense of calling that stayed with me – I would close my eyes and I could feel the warmth of the wind and the smell of the salt air and red dirt. It was different to this other place I now called home, it was the place I came from, the land my people walked on – the Northern Territory.
As a child I would often dream of Crocodiles, later in life I found out this was the Kungarakany dreaming.
My mother is of English and Scottish descent. My father is Aboriginal, a descendant from “Aingindabu” Lucy McGuinness, the last survivor from the Kungarakany Tribe (Paperbark People) on his maternal side. They were from Chapana, near the Finnis River, in the Northern Territory. My father’s father was forcefully removed as a child from Tennant or Hatches Creek, Northern Territory, and taken to Melville Island’s Garden Point Catholic Mission. My father never spoke much of his father, nor did he know much of Grandad’s country, or his mother and father. I couldn’t for some time understand why it wasn’t spoken about or why he didn’t ask Grandad any questions.
I know now it was, and still is hard for our people to speak of that trauma.
I’m now a woman with my own children and I want to know more of my Grandad and his mother and her people, culture and country for my knowledge, and to pass onto my children so they are able to pass that onto their children. In 2019 I became a client with Link-Up (Qld) to help me find as much information as possible on my grandad Jimmy Dunn/ O’Donoghue. My research was completed in late 2022.
My Grandfather’s birth was registered in Alice Springs, some 18 years after his birth, and the only information recorded about his mother was her name was Annie. His father was listed as O’Donoghue, and recorded as a bush birth in Tennant Creek, Northern Territory. Unfortunately, not everything was recorded, but this is just the beginning for me to find who my grandad’s people are and his proper county.
Link-Up (Qld) took me back to Darwin for my reunion and I was fortunate enough to visit his grave. Sadly just a number was all that was there. My mother and partner accompanied me on the trip. My mother helped me put together a pot of artificial native flowers so it will remain there, covering that number, along with two Lotus Lilly solar lights and two little angles, as a representation of me and Tash. It is making sure he will never be in the dark again and we will always be by his side.
I was sad to leave but happy I honoured him. I said, “I’ll be back Grandad, with my babies to give you the best headstone ever”.
Upon leaving the cemetery my mother was walking along the next aisle looking at graves. She suddenly stopped and yelled out to me: “Heidi, look here”. When I looked at that headstone, I couldn’t believe the name I was reading: Lucy McGuinness. I almost fainted – none of us knew that she was there. I picked a bunch of frangipani flowers and placed them on her headstone and told her thank you for calling for me.
Link-Up (Qld) also took me across to the Tiwi Islands as a place of significance to my family. Pirlangimpi was where my grandfather spent some of his younger life and married my grandmother there, my father and his little sister spent time there as babies and were christened into the Catholic ministry in the same little church that is still standing there today. I got to see what it would have been like for him as a little boy on a big ship sailing into the unknown across that big ocean without his mother clinging onto each other, all the little people so scared.
There are a lot of my grandfather’s Dunn family still living at Tiwi. I will return with my children to meet them one day, and yarn and gain as much information as I can.
Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to meet my Grandfather he had passed before I was born. I will forever hold his memory close to my heart and continue to search for the missing pieces in honour of him.
A special thanks to the Link-Up (Qld) staff for their support over two years, and for taking me home to make sense of the past.
This has given my family and I some direction for the future.
Published 17 June 2024.