Wherever he danced, he says, drought-breaking rain fell. The gatekeeper refers to his belief that he must protect the river, all the way to the sea. Mr Sumner, a widely known elder of the Ngarrindjeri people who has taken his people’s dance, art and culture across the world, has never stood for political office. “We live in two worlds, us Aboriginal people,” he says. “There’s the Aboriginal world and the Western world. “I feel it’s time to go out in the Western world and have a say.

“People are always talking about reshaping your country and changing this and that, and they never ask us. “I decided to represent the Greens because they want to look after the land and the water and make sure the country is healthy. “My people have been doing that for thousands of years.” Mr Sumner at a Mayo candidates forum - with Liberal candidate Georgina Downer, Centre Alliance candidate Rebekha Sharkie and Labor's Reg Coutts - last week. Credit:AAP Mr Sumner was born in 1948, on an Aboriginal mission station known as Point McLeay on the shore of Lake Alexandrina between the Murray River and its mouth.

“If you look on the Australian $50 note, you can see the picture of a little church,” he says. “I was born right there.” His parents and his 11 brothers and sisters later moved to Millicent, in South Australia’s south-east, but his parents split up and he and some of his brothers were taken away to a boys’ home in Adelaide. He worked “all over the place”, including the railways, living on the Nullarbor. But the river kept calling him back. He has a small leasehold on Aboriginal land in the Mayo electorate, not far from the place of his birth, where he and his wife Loretta hold gatherings of their vast family. Mr Sumner on Hindmarsh Island near the Murray mouth. Credit:Justin McManus “We had nine children and we’ve got 28 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren,” Mr Sumner chuckles. “It’s a crowded house when they’re all around.”

Major Sumner - an initiated man, dancer, artist and craftsman - is a Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority board member, a board member of Black Dance Australia, and is the artistic director of the Tal-Kin-Jeri dance group. His company performs regularly at festivals, events and community celebrations. Top of Mr Sumner’s political agenda is protection of the river, all the way from the source to the sea. He is planning an expedition soon to the spot in the Snowy Mountains whence the Murray springs, and where he has been told wild brumbies are trampling the moss and interfering with the run of the water. Loading “I’d like to dance up there,” he says, mentioning that as a child on the Point McLeay mission, traditional dancing wasn’t allowed. “When people all around South Australia turn on the tap, the water that comes out comes from the Murray. If we don’t take care of the river, one day people will turn on their taps and no water will come out. “

Mr Sumner has two formidable opponents for the seat of Mayo: the Liberals’ Georgina Downer, whose father held the seat for 24 years, and Rebekha Sharkie, of the Centre Alliance, who won the seat in 2016 and is recontesting after being forced to resign because she held dual citizenship. But he takes heart from the knowledge that in a 2008 byelection, the Greens’ candidate Lynton Vonow came within a few points of claiming the seat, which was won by the Liberals’ Jamie Briggs. “You never know,” says Mr Sumner. “Aboriginal people are very patient people. We sit back and watch. But when we see that things are being done wrong, like they are for the river, we’ve got to come together and say it’s wrong, and do something about it.”