Ngeygo Ragurrk’s family invites coroner to ceremony calling her spirit home
The NT Coroner has apologised to a mourning family during a moving ceremony, telling them: ‘I’m sorry it has taken so long. I hope you can find some peace’.
Indigenous Affairs
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names and image of Indigenous people who have passed, used with the permission of their families.
A woman’s spirit will finally be able to return to her ancestors after her family were reunited with their loved one’s possessions three years on from her brutal killing.
Ngeygo Ragurrk’s family stood together on the same beach where the 40-year-old was brutally tortured, dragged, stripped and dumped in the shallow waters by the man who claimed to love her.
Their voices cleansed the land where three years ago paramedics struggled to revive Ngeygo, her throat too filled with sand and saltwater.
Speaking in Mawng — the language of her West Arnhem island home — and in Kunwinjku — from the mainland, her family ushered her spirit closer at Mindil Beach.
This was a moment of peace and closure for the West Arnhem family who have spent years watching from the gallery within the cold, foreign walls of the Darwin courts, first as a criminal case and now as a coronial inquest.
“She’s here with us,” Ngeygo’s older sister Edna Midjarda told coroner Elisabeth Armitage.
“She’s talking our language. I was feeling, feeling (her).
“We still remember. She’s only young.”
It was a different saltwater country that answered her family’s call, far away from her home on Croker Island, near her mother and father country at Arrla and Junction Bay.
In a statement from the family, the Mirrangangu woman from the Mandjungung clan was described as a loving daughter sister, mother and grandmother, who also held the important cultural role as a djungkay.
“She was also the only woman in her tribe who knew the names of all the sacred sites and totems of her country,” her family said.
They were proud of her work as a Warddeken Ranger, where she protected the land and coordinated with archaeologists to identify and preserve unique rock art.
When she was 30 she left her island home for the freshwater life at Oenpelli, Gunbalanya then Manmoyi.
She moved to Darwin in 2016, where soon after she met her future killer, Garsek Nawirridj.
Ms Midjarda she saw Nawirridj “making trouble” for her sister, saying he was “being jealous, swearing, threatening, or hurting Ngeygo. Even burning her clothes“.
Ms Midjarda said she worried about her sister and told her to stay with her — even threatening to call police on Nawirridj if he came over.
Ngeygo’s father Tommy Madjalgaidj said Nawirridj would not make trouble when he was around.
But away from the men, the abuse would start up again with Ngeygo spending days on the run from Nawirridj.
Despite this, her family said Ngeygo never accessed a women’s safe house.
“We all think when Garsek hurt or scared Ngeygo, Ngeygo tried to keep it a secret by herself,” the family said.
“We knew about it, but Ngeygo did not talk to us about it.”
They said Nawirridj did not listen their calls for the violence to stop, and they doubted he paid attention to the domestic violence orders in place.
Speaking through a translator, the family told the coroner their disappointments with the kiwarlkparran (Non-Indigenous) system.
“This is the first time the family have heard the story about what happened to their loved one,” their lawyer James Lowrey said.
“(But) they have felt the presence of their sister in court.”
Without a translator in the criminal court, the family were not kept up to date with Nawirridj’s court dates, could not follow the legal jargon, or understand what happened to their loved one.
They were even unaware of her killer pleaded guilty to manslaughter, not murder.
“None of us knew that full story,” the family statement said.
“(They) told that story in English, not Kunwinjkuor Mawng, which are the languages for telling important stories like that one.”
The family were also unaware that Ngeygo’s final belongings were held by police and the coroner, which they said stopped her spirit from moving on.
On Thursday Coroner Elisabeth Armitage handed Mr Madjalgaidj Ngeygo’s clothes, which had been locked away as evidence since December 23, 2019.
“I’m sorry it has taken so long. I hope you can find some peace,” Ms Armitage said.
Looking to stop other women meeting the same fate, the family told the coroner the solutions for violence in community had to come from their people.
“As victims and survivors; our women and communities should be listen to, supported, and funded to find on-country, in-language solutions to family violence,” they said.
“When our communities are listened to about caring for women, our communities can have meetings, make plans, start projects, and work together.”
IN PICTURES: MINDIL BEACH CEREMONY FOR NGEYGO RAGURRK
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