Ingelba and the Five Black Matriarchs

This is the story of Patsy Cohen, a woman who discovered her Aboriginal identity at the age of nine. It is also the story of Ingelba, a once thriving Aboriginal community. The book describes Patsy's discovery of her Aboriginal identity on her return to her grandparents at Ingelba, a place of considerable importance to the Aboriginal people and now a deserted mission, and the original home of five matriarchs through whom most of the Armidale Aboriginal people trace their kin networks. Through interviews with the grand-daughters of the five matriarchs and the older Aboriginal men and women of Ingelba, Patsy Cohen and Margaret Somerville have created an account of the lives of apparently urbanized Aboriginal men and women and the means through which they maintain a sense of distinctive Aboriginal identity. Using transcriptions of oral material maintained in its original form to preserve Aboriginal meanings, together with old and new photographs and an interlinking explanatory commentary, this collective work is woven together to provide a celebration of Patsy Cohen's Aboriginal past.