Senior Arrernte Elder MK Turner OAM was given an honorary send off with a state funeral in Alice Springs on Thursday.

Throughout her life, Dr Turner wore many hats as a professor, artist, author, linguist, teacher, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, family member and friend.

She walked across worlds, through cultures and languages, bringing people together through the force of love.

After dedicating decades of her life to helping the future generation of Indigenous Territorians, Dr Turner was finally laid to rest on her home country at Sandy Bore outstation.

In attendance at her funeral were NT Education Minister Eva Lawler, federal Member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour, NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Alice Springs mayor Matt Patterson.

Speaking at her funeral to a crowd of a hundred faces was her granddaughter, Janet Turner, who spoke about how her grandmother never stopped working, giving an insight into her momentous life.

Dr Turner grew up on her traditional lands with her parents and brothers and sisters, with her parents teaching them all 'a very strong and true way'.

She said her knowledge came through Country and her sacred Akarre language.

"That is how I learned throughout life, how I have always seen the world, how I understood it and how and what life has always been." said Dr Turner before her passing.

(Image: Xavier Martin/ABC News)

When she was a child she moved to Little Flower Mission-Ltyentye Apurte (Santa Teresa) Mission School, where she remembered being punished if she spoke in language in class.

The Church did not want them to follow culture, but the families kept their culture and language stron at Anthepe, away from the Mission and at holiday times.

Dr Turner walked between the lines of being a Catholic person and a cultural law person at the same time.

In 1957 she met her husband and got married. They lived in an old village in the stone house built by her husband, where they would raise their nine children.

A remarkable woman, Dr Turner worked many professions in her lifetime including at the hospital looking after kids, managing a store, looking after elderly in aged care to helping young mothers who were dealing with family violence.

She helped preserve culture and teach language in schools, before working with Children's Ground, an organisation aiming to establish systems to empower young Indigenous children.

What Dr Turner loved more than anything was being around family.

At times there could be up to 60 people in her house, and she fed and loved them all.

She also looked after so many children – her house was a home for all the kids in town.

Dr Turner was a strict law woman and carefully upheld the cultural ethics of her role as an interpreter, a responsibility she took with pride and seriousness.

With fluency in four languages — Akarre, Alyawarr, Central/Eastern Arrernte, and English — Dr Turner played pivotal roles in influential First Nations institutions across the NT.

'It felt good helping my people understand what lawyers, doctors and police were saying and giving my old people a voice to tell their story back to the professionals," Dr Turner had previously said.

"I worked with the Central Land Council and interpreted for Anmatyerr people for their land claim. I learned a lot through their stories.

"These things that I learned while interpreting, I did not take them, I did not keep them or use them. That is their knowledge."

In 1997, she was a recipient of an Order of Australia Medal for her work in the Central Australian First Nations community.

Last year, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Bachelor Institute for her lifelong commitment to cultural maintenance and preserving the languages of Aboriginal peoples, particularly in Central Australia.

It took many years for Dr Turner to be truly recognised for her lifelong contributions.

In 2022, she was awarded Elder of the Year at the Mparntwe/Alice Springs NAIDOC celebrations.

Her family said when she met the late Queen Elizabeth and the Pope it was just one moment pulled from her extraordinary life to be proud about.

On both occasions she represented her people, officially, speaking about our culture, faith and Indigenous rights.

As a Catholic woman, meeting the Pope was deeply important to her.

Considering her achievements, accomplishments and all the hard work she has done for her people, Dr Turner will always be remembered as "the jewel of Alice Springs".