Doreen Maude Kartinyeri (3 February 1935–2 December 2007) was an Ngarrindjeri elder and historian, born in the Australian state of South Australia.
However, Doris was the only sibling with whom Kartinyeri maintained contact, as Ron was in prison and Nancy died on the operating table when having a tonsillectomy.
After the death of her mother, Kartinyeri was, unwillingly, moved to the Salvation Army Home in Fullarton, on the condition that she would stay with her sister, Doris.
[3] After being expelled from Fullarton in 1949, Kartinyeri believed she was being sent back home to Raukkan; however, to her surprise she was sent to Joan and George Dunn's house in the Adelaide Hills to work as a domestic servant for the next two years.
After the initial shock had subdued, Kartinyeri settled well into life at Adelaide Hills and came to love and respect Joan and George.
After her two years with the Dunns were complete, Kartinyeri was offered another position, working for the Motterams, who lived in the Adelaide suburb of Kings Park.
She took up a position as a domestic servant for the superintendent of the mission, where her small wages went to supporting her grandparents who weren't entitled to a pension because of their indigenous status.
Deciding that caring for grandmother back home was too stressful, Kartinyeri left Raukkan and took up work sorting grapes at Barmera.
All of her prior research sparked her passionate and argumentative side in 1993, when the South Australian State Government put forward a proposal to build a bridge between Hindmarsh Island and Goolwa.
Doreen quickly became a key figure in the movement against this proposal, saying that Hindmarsh Island was sacred land, particularly for Indigenous women, for reasons which her and her group would not disclose.
In early 1994, Doreen's group were successful in their application to the Federal Government to gain a heritage order to prohibit the bridge being built.
However, in 1995, the Royal Commission conducted an investigation into Doreen's movement and concluded that their “indigenous women” argument was fabricated.
[1] Finally, in 2010, the South Australian government recognised the honesty of Doreen and her group, formally acknowledging that "women members of the Ngarrindjeri traditional owners were genuine in the mid-1990s when they said that the construction of the bridge would violate their most sacred beliefs."
Years later, in an interview on ABC radio with Mike Sexton in 2007, Doreen described her position on this ordeal, saying: "If I was a destructive person I would have went and blown it up, and that's the truth.
A decade after the phrase 'secret women's business' entered the Australian vernacular, Doreen Kartinyeri maintained her rage against the bridge at Hindmarsh Island.
There was one particular instance when Terry threw a leg of lamb at the door because it was under-cooked, causing Doreen to become so angry that she broke a glass bottle and stabbed him in retaliation.
From this research, Doreen went on to write and successfully publish several books on the Indigenous people of this area, which led to her being awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Adelaide and given a job offer from the South Australian museum in their Aboriginal Family History Unit.