Daphne Kal-Ma-Kuta Dux age 91 started painting at the age of 77.Credit: Danielle Smith.
Her great-grandmother was the last of the Joondoburri people of Bribie Island near Brisbane. There's even a monument to her. She had married a white man,Fred Turner,whose parents had migrated from the UK with two sons in 1862 . When Fred grew up[he was in the oyster business] he met and fell in love with local Aboriginal girl Kal-Ma-Kuta whom he married. She became known as Alma (Kal-Ma-Kuta) Turner.
They had eight children and over the subsequent years all of their children,grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren were taken away from their mothers “for their own good”.
Daphne was one of the great-grandchildren who at the age of two was taken from her mother,Bessie Turner who wasn't married,and placed in an orphanage. Her mother visited periodically. Daphne left the orphanage aged 12,working in a pineapple canning factory in Brisbane and then married Norman Dux,a descendant of Johann Dux,a crabbing and oyster culling pioneer on Bribie Island.
"Just before my mother died in 1999 she asked me to get my great-grandmother's name,Kal-Ma-Kuta added to my birth certificate,"Aunty Daphne said.
"In those days you were not allowed to have an Aboriginal name on the certificate."
Close up of Daphne painting.Credit:Danielle Smith