BY KAMALA EMANUEL
HOBART — "Today we are welcoming home the remains of people who should never have been taken away", announced Tasmanian Aboriginal community leader Michael Mansell at the Hobart international airport on June 14.
He was addressing members of the Aboriginal community and their supporters who had gathered to welcome home people returning with the remains of Aboriginal ancestors. The remains were retrieved from Melbourne and Britain.
Jeannette James and Tony Brown brought remains from England. The remains, of Tasmanian Aborigines imprisoned at Wybalenna, had been taken by George Augustus Robinson. From Robinson's journals, the Aboriginal community has been able to piece together the identities of the people's remains.
Rosie Smith, Caroline Spotswood and Jay McDonald brought seven skulls, and the top half of an eighth, from Victoria. According to information provided by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, five came from a doctor who lived near Swansea on Tasmania's east coast. It was unknown how he got them. The other two were among those dug up by William Crowther from the Aboriginal burial ground at Oyster Cove in the south-east of the state. Their identities are not known.
Among the remains was hair of Trukanini (also spelled Truganini). Most Australians have been taught that Trukanini was the "last full-blood Tasmanian Aborigine". This claim has been used to deny rights to Tasmanian Aboriginal people. "She was not the last anything. She was an Aboriginal woman like the Aboriginal women in this room. She was not a 'full-blood', like some animal", Mansell said.
Spotswood said she was "very emotional and very proud to represent my people and to bring my ancestors home." McDonald agreed, "What we've done, we've done for our community and for our ancestors. We're taking them to Oyster Cover [Aboriginal land] to deal with them in our way."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, June 19, 2002.
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