Moogy Sumner

Major Lancelot "Moogy" Sumner AM (born 1948), also known as Uncle Moogy, is an Aboriginal Australian elder, cultural adviser, dancer, and environmental activist in South Australia.

Early life and education

Major Lancelot Sumner^[1] was born in 1948 on Point McLeay mission on the shore of Lake Alexandrina in South Australia,^[2] one of 12 children. The family moved to Millicent in the South East of the state, but after his parents split up, he and several brothers were placed in a boys' home in Adelaide.^[3] His father, Colin Rex Sumner, was buried in an unmarked grave in the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide after being allegedly murdered in a brawl in the north of the state. Moogy has been investigating how to find his father's remains and re-inter them at Long Point (aka Dapung Talkinjeri), where he was born.^[4]

Sumner is of the Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna peoples,^[5] with particular knowledge of and affiliation to Ngarrindjeri culture.^[1]

Career

As a young man, Sumner worked in many places, including on the railways on the Nullarbor Plain.^[3]

Environmental and cultural activism

Sumner has long engaged in environmental activism, with particular reference to the Murray-Darling basin. He has campaigned to save the major Australian river systems and against drilling for oil and gas in the Great Australian Bight.^[2]

In 2010, he began the "Ringbalin Murrundi" Rover Spirit project, which relit the ceremonial fires along ancient Aboriginal trade routes of the Darling and Murray Rivers.^[6][1] It is also known as "Dancing the River".^[7] In 2010 he joined with other traditional owners in travelling down the river from Queensland to the Southern Ocean, performing ceremonies every night, in the ancient Ringbalin tradition that had been performed before colonisation but not since. The impetus for this undertaking was the decade-long drought, and, not long afterwards, the rains began that year, and there were record-breaking floods in the following year.^[8]

In 2011, Sumner crafted the first Ngarrindjeri bark canoe on Country in over a century, which was dubbed "Moogy's Yuki".^[6][2]

In August 2023 Sumner addressed the Climate Action I Assembly at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, US.^[9] In November 2023, he was part of a delegation who went to Canberra to lobby the government on the issue of river health.^[10]

Cultural activities

Sumner, also known as "Uncle Moogy" is an elder, dancer, cultural ambassador,^[2] and activist,^[11] who works to further Ngarrindjeri culture. Apart from traditional dance and song, cultural advice, he creates and advises on various traditional arts and crafts, including wood carving, and combat methods that employ traditional shields, clubs, boomerangs, and spears.^[2] He has also built local, national, and international communities over many decades, and has become a community leader.^[6]

In 1997 Sumner and his wife Loretta Sumner founded Tal Kin Jeri^[12][13] (or Talkindjeri) dance group, and is still artistic director.^[6][14]

Sumner often performs Welcomes to Country at various major events. He danced and spoke at the launch of the South Australian Voice to Parliament in Adelaide March 2023,^[15] and performed the Welcome at the launch of the Yes campaign for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in a northern suburb of the same city in August 2023.^[16] In 2024, he welcomed former British Prime Minister and current foreign minister David Cameron to Government House in Adelaide.^[17]

Sumner has been heavily involved with the repatriation and reburial of Aboriginal people's remains from overseas institutions.^[14] He has worked closely with the South Australian Museum on the repatriation of human remains to country,^[18][19] and was instrumental in the establishment of Wangayarta, a burial ground for Kaurna ancestors in Smithfield Memorial Park in the northern Adelaide suburb of Evanston South.^[20][21]

Sumner has run the three-day Dupang Pangari (Coorong Spirit) Festival^[22] at Long Point,Coorong^[23] (on Ngarrindjeri land, adjacent to Coorong National Park, as part of the Adelaide Fringe several times. In 2018, the event won the BankSA Best Event Award.^[12] The 2024 event included performances by the Tal Kin Jeri dancers; cultural workshops in basket-weaving, yidaki, and carving clubs and clap-sticks; traditional ceremonies; and a marketplace.^[22][23]

Politics and leadership

In 2018, Sumner stood for the Australian Greens in a by-election in the Division of Mayo, as they were the party which had the strongest policies to protect the Murray.^[3] He also stood for the greens in the Division of Boothby at the 2022 federal election.^[17]

In April 2024, Sumner was elected to the South Australian Voice to Parliament, topping the votes in his ward.^[17][24] He had previously campaigned for a "Yes" vote in the 2023 referendum for a national Indigenous Voice to Parliament.^[25]

Other roles and activities

• Board member of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority^[6]
• Board member of Black Dance Australia^[6]
• Worked with the Aboriginal Sobriety Group from 1980; co-founded the Sober Walk Initiative in 2009^[14]
• Member of the South Australian Aboriginal Advisory Council from 2011^[14] until at least end 2020^[26]
• Member of the World Archaeological Congress^[26][27]
• Member of the World Council of Elders^[26][27]
• Contributor, with wife Loretta and others, to a chapter in the 2022 volume Contested Holdings: Museum Collections in Political, Epistemic and Artistic Processes of Return^[28]
• Director of Talkingjeri Aboriginal Corporation^[1]
• Patron of the Wayapa Wurrk Aboriginal Wellness Foundation^[1]
• Member of the International Indigenous Repatriation Committee^[1]

Recognition and honours

He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honours in 2014, "For significant service to the Indigenous community of South Australia through contributions to health, social welfare, youth and cultural heritage organisations".^[29][14]

In November 2020, Sumner was recognised as Elder of the Year in the City of Port Adelaide Enfield's ATSI Awards,^[a] in which he was described as a "world-renowned performer and cultural ambassador of Ngarrindjeri arts, crafts, martial arts and traditional culture", "highly respected Elder", "local ambassador for Aboriginal people and culture within the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and the broader western Adelaide suburbs... an international, national and local icon".^[26]

In 2021 won the Premier of South Australia's NAIDOC Award.^[30][2]

In 2022, Sumner awarded a lifetime achiever award South Australian Environment Awards, and was inducted into the SA Environment Hall of Fame.^[2][6]

In 2023, the Adelaide Film Festival bestowed him with the Bettison & James Award.^[31]

Personal life

Sumner married Loretta Sumner, and they have a small leasehold on Aboriginal land not far from where he was born at Point McLeay. They had nine children, and as of 2018 had 28 grandchildren.^[3]

The family lived in Canada for some time, to learn more about incorporating First Nations justice and law into modern judicial systems.^[1]

A previous resident of Millicent in the South East of the state,^[17] Sumner lives and works in Adelaide and at Camp Coorong.^[27]

Footnotes

1. Instigated by Josie Agius, Pat Waria-Read, and Susan Dixon in 1998; first awards held 1999.