THE Rural reader Shell McMahon from Cootamundra has won a copy of The Power of Bones by Keelen Mailman. Thanks to all of the people who entered.
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FROM a troubled childhood of poverty, abuse and racism, to becoming the first Indigenous woman to run a commercial cattle station, this is one extraordinary woman's heartbreaking but uplifting story of triumph against all odds.
The future looked bleak and predictable for Keelen Mailman.
Keelen had a loving yet alcoholic mother, an absent father, and was forced to raise four young siblings at the tender age of 14, faced the regular horrors of sexual and physical assault, and encountered the casual racism of a small Australian outback town in the seventies.
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But somehow, despite the pain and deprivation, the lost education, Keelen managed to absorb and hold onto her mother's life lessons: her Bidja language and culture, her obligations to country.
So it was no surprise to some that a girl who could hide for a year in her own home to keep her family together, run as fast as Raylene Boyle and hunt porcupine to survive would one day make history.
At just 30, and a single mother, Keelen Mailman became the first Indigenous woman to run a commercial cattle station when she took over Mt Tabor, two hours from Augathella on the black soil plains of western Queensland.
Mt Tabor is the heartland of Bidjara country, after all, and the place her mother and grandparents and great-grandparents had camped on and catered for.
A place where her great ancestors left their marks on caves and rock walls more than 10,000 years ago.
In her unflinching, heartfelt memoir, Keelen Mailman pulls no punches as she recalls the startling racism her family endured and the shocking violence of their lives.
But this is a story of redemption, shot through the grandeur of love and endurance and an irresistible humour that has helped her survive, and to achieve a life-long goal: to bring the remains of her people back to their country, and see Mt Tabor returned to its original owners once more.
"I'm alone here now, but I've looked after myself all my life and now it's second nature: I can change and fix a car tyre, repair a fence, service the bores, pull a cow out of the dam and shoot and skin roos. And if I had to I could find myself a feed on this land.
I'd never starve, even if I was lost for a very long time. I'd survive. I've been through lots of tough times, racism, violence, abuse, and I can stand here and say I know how to survive. How to turn things to the best" Keelen said.