Descendants of Aboriginal traditional owners and settlers buried at an overgrown, decaying cemetery on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula are furious at its condition.
The Poonindie cemetery, north of Port Lincoln, is significant to both the local Indigenous community and those with pioneer family members buried there.
Sisters Fran Solly and Sue Olsen were "disgusted" to see the place of their great grandmother's burial overgrown with weeds and scattered with large holes.
Ms Olsen was part of a volunteer group hoping to see the cemetery's significance recognised and help to clean it up, but said it was "beyond repair".
"We need to acknowledge these people [buried there], and to make it a site that people can be proud of," she said.
"It's something that is significant and historically very important.
"I would think that with the interest that's been shown now, the job is far too big for just a group of volunteers at the moment."
The cemetery was closed, but Ms Olsen said history did not come to an end with it.
At least 140 people were buried at Poonindie, including well-known figures who helped to shape the Eyre Peninsula, with family names like King, Mortlock, Solomon and Watherson.
'We don't know our traditional lands'
Heather Cox, a Kaurna woman from the Adelaide area, said her family had a connection to Poonindie since the 1800s and her great grandparents were buried at the cemetery.
"It's heartbreaking," Ms Cox said.
Ms Cox said practising culture, songlines and stories was once prohibited, but "to be accepted in the same cemetery is comfort to us".
"My brother's at the North Shields cemetery," she said.
"We go and we sit and we talk to them. It just breaks that chain for us.
"Where they're buried, it's where we feel closest to them and it seems it's insignificant, it is not a priority of the council."
Council vows to work with government
The CEO of the Lower Eyre Peninsula District Council, Delfina Lanzelli, recognised the "sacred" cemetery needed some work.
"It's been quite abandoned over the last number of years, and my understanding is that council has undertaken communication with [the state government]," Ms Lanzelli said.
Ms Lanzelli said the cemetery was on Crown land and the council was working with the government to remediate the area.
She said the council had allocated funding to carry out improvements and a management plan would be finalised by the end of April.
"All of this work will be done in consultation with the community, and with the Barngarla people out there. We will continue to work together," she said.
The volunteer group and the council will meet at the end of April.
