Kathleen Mary Mills (née McGinness; 6 April 1936 – 24 April 2022), also known as Mooradoop and Aunty Kathy, was an Australian community leader, singer, Aboriginal elder and activist in the Northern Territory of Australia. She had a large family, all musical, with several of her daughters being well known as the Mills Sisters.
Her paternal grandparents were Stephen McGinness, an Irish seaman from Dublin (about whom she wrote a poem), and prominent elder Lucy McGinness, aka Alngindabu, whose children included several leaders and activists. Their son John Francis "Jack" McGinness (aka Kingulawuy), activist and the Northern Territory's and Australia's first elected Aboriginal union leader in 1955, holding the position of NAWU president over three stints until 1963, was Kathy's father.
Her mother was Kingarli (died 1954), later called Polly Wakelin, a Gurindji people woman who was removed from Wave Hill Station to Kahlin Compound, making her one of the Stolen Generation. However she did not transmit bitterness about her life, but rather passed on her Aboriginal culture.
Kathy Mills was a Kungarakany (paternal grandmother's link) and Gurindji people (mother's line) woman.
Mills was the first woman to be elected to the Northern Land Council, and was involved in the establishment of Batchelor College (later Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education).
Mills was appointed a co-commissioner for the Northern Territory to the panel of the Stolen Generations Inquiry, which produced the Bringing Them Home report and was a major factor in having the Stolen Generations issue recognised at a national level. She was also a champion of language maintenance for Aboriginal Australian languages.
She also participated in numerous NT Writers Festivals.
In 2018, she was one of a panel of three at a presentation of the film Buffalo Legends, about a "a group of men who knocked down the barriers of racism on the sporting field"and helped to forge multiculturalism in Darwin.
Her debut anthology of poetry, entitled Mookanunganuk : Selected poems by Mooradoop Kathy Mills, was published in 2020.
A theatrical work, Jarradah Gooragulli – Dance of the Brolgas , co-written with Jada Alberts and described as a blend of "storytelling, dance, music, language, cinematography, and song to tell a creation story alongside the story of two lovers" was being staged at Brown's Mart Theatre in Darwin from 17 to 28 May 2022, at the time of her death.
A 26-minute documentary film about Mills and her family, entitled Arafura Pearl, was made by Indigenous filmmaker Steven McGregor and released in 2003 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as part of their "Message Stick" series. It is available for purchase at ABC Commercial.
Mills also features in Blown Away (2014), a documentary film directed by Danielle MacLean about Cyclone Tracy, which caused extensive damage to Darwin in 1974. The film shows previously unrecorded responses by Indigenous Darwinians to the disaster, and Mills relates how she and her family survived by cramming into a tiny storeroom underneath their house. Her son "Arafura Pearl" also features in the film.
Mills was renowned for her fantastic memory, for both songs and historical and cultural information, which could then be passed down, and she worked hard to contribute to the community of Darwin and Aboriginal people everywhere.
The local Aboriginal organisations established in Darwin as a result of her work, including the alcohol rehabilitation service FORWAARD; a women's shelter; and the Danila Dilba Health Service, remain as part of her legacy.
Her song "Arafura Pearl" is listed as an icon by the Northern Territory Heritage Society.
Arafura Pearl: A Festival of Women was established in 2020 by Tracey Bunn, as "a celebration of women in Darwin". She chose to name the festival after the song because of its connection with Darwin, and because of the Mills family consisting of many strong women. Kathy's daughter June Mills opened the inaugural edition of the festival in September 2020.
Career
Awards and honours
Family and music
Mills Sisters
In film
Death and legacy
Footnotes
External links
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