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Ellen Trevorrow, also known as "Aunty Ellen" is an internationally-known Australian Ngarrindjeri weaver, educator, and authority on Ngarrindjeri culture. She is the head of the Camp Coorong Centre for Cultural Education and Race Relations and also serves on the board of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority.
In 1982 she attended a workshop on Ngarrindjeri weaving led by Aunty Dorrie Kartinyeri, an elder from Point McLeay (now Raukkan). There was a long tradition of Ngarrindjeri weaving by women, originally for their own use, later for sale, but the practice had almost been lost. Trevorrow and another workshop attendee, Yvonne Koolmatrie, have devoted their lives to reviving the tradition to preserve Ngarrindjeri culture. "Ellen Trevorrow", Ngarrindjeri Culture Hub
In recent years she has undertaken a number of large weaving projects for museums, such as Pondi, the giant cod that created the Murray River in Ngarrindjeri legend, done for the South Australian Maritime Museum in 2022. "Ellen Trevorrow’s Pondi gives form to a Ngarrindjeri legend", Peri Strathern, Murray Bridge News, 8 June 2022
Trevorrow was a contributor to Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community (ed. John Allen Grim, 2001).
A woven fish, a Murray cod ("Pondi"), created by Trevorrow and Jelina Haines, is hung from the ceiling on level 8 of the Department for Infrastructure and Transport in Adelaide, where the theme is Lakes/Rivers – "Pangka Pari Winaityinaityi" in Kaurna language.
In June 2025 Trevorrow was a finalist for the Female Elder of the Year award in the NAIDOC Awards.
She is honoured by being the subject of the 2025 Icon exhibition at JamFactory in Adelaide, titled Weaving through Time. The Icon series is a solo exhibition that celebrates the achievements of an influential South Australian crafts-based media artist each year.
Trevorrow has taught and passed on her skills in traditional weaving to others, including Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, and Kaurna artist and curator Carly Tarkari Dodd.
Kaurna / Ngarrindjeri poet Dominic Guerrera, winner of the 2021 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize, wrote in his poem "Blak Excellence":
Trevorrow is also known as "Aunty Ellen". The Murray cod (Pondi) is her totem.
Personal life
She married Tom Trevorrow in 1976, and they had seven children. Tom became the chairman of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority in 2011, and died in 2013."Tom Trevorrow: A Ngarrindjeri Man of High Degree", Diane Bell, Transnational Literature, volume 6 #1, November 2013 He co-managed Camp Coorong with his wife.
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