Lorna Rose Dixon

Lorna Rose Dixon (also known as Laura Mandima Dixon; née Ebsworth; 1917–21 December 1976) was an Australian Aboriginal custodian and preserver of the Wangkumara language.

Early life Dixon was born at Tibooburra, New South Wales, probably in 1917, to Albert Ebsworth, a stockman of the Galali language group, and his wife Rosie, née Jones. She and her siblings attended the Tibooburra public school, and spent much of their free time with their Wangkumara-speaking maternal grandparents in the bush around the town, learning about bush tucker, significant sites and traditional stories. Dixon's parents also took them to ceremonial gatherings, including a major initiation held at Innamincka in the early 1920s, and regularly took them travelling through their traditional country, following the tracks of ancestral beings during the Dreaming. Forced move to Brewarrina In 1938, the Aboriginal Protection Board moved Aboriginal people living at Tibooburra to a ration station near Brewarrina, over two hundred miles away, forcing them to comply by threatening them with guns and with having their children removed. Dixon and her extended family had to leave their homes with just a few hours' notice, taking only a few belongings, children together. Lorna Dixon's parents died not long after moving to Bourke. After the years of being prohibited from speaking her language, Dixon did not teach it to her children. However, when alone, and especially before going to sleep at night, she had translated her thoughts into Wangkumara. with Mathews and with a NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Aboriginal Sites Survey Officer, Howard Creamer. In 1994, nine of Dixon's traditional stories were published in an anthology titled The Opal that Turned into Fire and Other Stories from the Wangkumara (Magabala Books, ). Death Dixon died at Bourke on 21 December 1976, of a cerebral haemorrhage.