Rediscovering Ginninderra:
Ju Nin Mingo
Born: 1826; Died: 1874; Married: Onyong
James Ainslie was recruited by Robert Campbell to establish a sheep station on the Limestone Plains. It was during his first journey westwards with a flock collected from Bathurst in 1825 that Ainslie met and formed a relationship with a Ngunnawal woman, who gave him directions to the best pastureland at Pialligo. En route, Ainslie pastured his flock for some days at Ginninderra. The woman bore a child named Ju Nin Mingo (Anglicized as 'Nanny') in 1826.
Ju Nin Mingo was probably the first of the Kamberri to have mixed heritage.
It has been speculated that her mother was a Kamberri woman who had come into the Wallabalooa group near Yass as a 'stolen wife', which is why she was identified as a guide for Ainslie into Kamberri territory.
It is believed that this child is the same 'Nanny' who is recorded as being a close friend of Queen Nellie Hamilton and a wife of Onyong in the 1840s.
Nanny had a number of children: Weetangerra chronicler, Samuel Shumack, estimates eleven. One of her daughters married Richard Lowe of Gudgenby and they in turn had four children, but left the district in about 1885.
In March 1873 Nellie Hamilton and Ju Nin Mingo, were imprisoned for a week for defaulting on a fine for being intoxicated. On a trip to Cooma to visit the Ngarigu people, Nellie and Nanny were refused a free passage on the mail coach and decided to walk many days through the winter weather to the Cooma district.
Not long after this in late 1873 at Glenwood, Ju Nin Mingo died from 'congestion of the lungs' - it is believed - as a result of the rigours endured during the long walk.
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References
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- Jackson-Nakano, A., The Kamberri: a History from the Records of Aboriginal Families in the Canberra-Queanbeyan District and Surrounds, 1820-1927, and Historical Overview, 1928-2001, Canberra, 2001
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- Shumack, S. An Autobiography, or, Tales and Legends of Canberra Pioneers (ed. J. E. and S. Shumack), Canberra, 1967