Truganini

Truganini
Truganini in 1870.
Born	c. 1812 Bruny Island, Australia
Died	8 May 1876 (aged 63–64) Hobart, Australia
Other names	Truganini, Trucanini, Trucaninny, and Lallah Rookh
Known for	Last surviving full blooded Tasmanian Aborigine
Relatives	Very close to Ouray Ouray, if not her daughter.

Truganini (c. 1812 – 8 May 1876) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian (Palawa).

There are a number of other spellings of her name, including Trugernanner, Trugernena, Truganina, Trugannini, Trucanini, Trucaminni, and Trucaninny. Truganini was also widely known by the nickname Lalla(h) Rookh.

Early life

Truganini was born in 1812 on Bruny Island, located south of the Tasmanian capital Hobart and separated from the Tasmanian mainland by the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. She was a daughter of Mangana, Chief of the Bruny Island people. Her name was the word her tribe used to describe the grey saltbush Atriplex cinerea.

In her youth she took part in her people's traditional culture, but Aboriginal life was disrupted by European invasion. When Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1824, he implemented two policies to deal with the growing conflict between settlers and the Aborigines. First, bounties were awarded for the capture of Aboriginal adults and children, and secondly an effort was made to establish friendly relations with Aborigines in order to lure them into camps. The campaign began on Bruny Island where there had been fewer hostilities than in other parts of Tasmania.

Truganini, seated right

When Truganini met George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines, in 1829, her mother had been killed by sailors, her uncle shot by a soldier, her sister abducted by sealers, and her fiancé brutally murdered by timber-cutters, who then repeatedly sexually abused her. In 1830, Robinson, moved Truganini and Woorrady to Flinders Island with the last surviving Tasmanian Aborigines, numbering approximately 100. The stated aim of isolation was to save them, but many of the group died from influenza and other diseases. In 1838 Truganini also helped Robinson to establish a settlement for mainland Aborigines at Port Phillip. After about two years of living in and around Melbourne, she joined Tunnerminnerwait and three other Tasmanian Aborigines as outlaws, robbing and shooting at settlers around Dandenong, which triggered a long pursuit by the authorities. The outlaws moved on to Bass River and then Cape Paterson. There, members of the group murdered two whalers at Watsons hut. The group was captured and sent for trial for murder at Port Phillip, and a gunshot wound to Truganini's head was treated by Dr Hugh Anderson of Bass River. The two men of the group were found guilty and hanged on 20 January 1842. Truganini and most of the other Tasmanian Aborigines were returned to Flinders Island several months later. In 1856, the few surviving Tasmanian Aborigines on Flinders Island, including Truganini, were moved to a settlement at Oyster Cove, south of Hobart. According to The Times newspaper, quoting a report issued by the Colonial Office, by 1861 the number of survivors at Oyster Cove was only fourteen: "...14 persons, all adults, aborigines of Tasmania, who are the sole surviving remnant of ten tribes. Nine of these persons are women and five are men. There are among them four married couples, and four of the men and five of the women are under 45 years of age, but no children have been born to them for years. It is considered difficult to account for this... Besides these 14 persons there is a native woman who is married to a white man, and who has a son, a fine healthy-looking child..." The article, headed ‘Decay of Race’, adds that although the survivors enjoyed generally good health and still made hunting trips to the bush during the season, after first asking "leave to go", they were now "fed, housed and clothed at public expense" and "much addicted to drinking".

Final years and legacy

Oral histories of Truganini report that after arriving in the new settlement of Melbourne and disengaging with Robinson, she had a child named Louisa Esmai with John Shugnow or Strugnell at Point Nepean in Victoria. Further, Truganini was from the bloodlines of Victoria's Kulin Nation tribes. Indeed, they hid the child from authorities hunting Truganini. After Truganini was captured and exiled, her daughter Louisa was raised in the Kulin Nation. Louisa married John Briggs and supervised the orphanage at Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve when it was managed by Wurundjeri leaders including Simon Wonga and William Barak. According to a report in The Times she later married a Tasmanian known as "King Billy" who died in March 1871. By 1873, Truganini was the sole survivor of the Oyster Cove group, and was again moved to Hobart. She died three years later and was buried at the former Female Factory at Cascades, a suburb of Hobart.

Prior to her death Truganini had pleaded to colonial authorities for a respectful burial, and requested that her ashes be scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. She feared that her body would be dissected and analyzed for scientific purposes as Aboriginal Tasmanian Wiliam Lenne's body had been. Despite her wishes, within two years, her skeleton was exhumed by the Royal Society of Tasmania and later placed on display. Only in April 1976, approaching the centenary of her death, were Truganini's remains finally cremated and scattered according to her wishes.

Truganini is often considered to be the last full-blood speaker of a Tasmanian language. However, The Companion to Tasmanian History details three full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal women, Sal, Suke and Betty, who lived on Kangaroo Island in South Australia in the late 1870s and "all three outlived Truganini". There were also Tasmanian Aborigines living on Flinders and Lady Barron Islands. Fanny Cochrane Smith (1834–1905), outlived Truganini by 30 years and in 1889 was officially recognised as the last full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal. Smith recorded songs in her native language, the only audio recordings that exist of an indigenous Tasmanian language.

In 1997 the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, England, returned Truganini's necklace and bracelet to Tasmania. In 2002, some of her hair and skin were found in the collection of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and returned to Tasmania for burial.

In 1835 and 1836, settler Benjamin Law created a pair of busts depicting Truganini and Woorrady in Hobart Town that have come under recent controversy. In 2009, members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre protested an auction of these works by Sotheby’s in Melbourne, arguing that the sculptures were racist, perpetuated false myths of Aboriginal extinction, and erased the experiences of Tasmania’s remaining indigenous populations. Representatives called for the busts to be returned to the aboriginal community, and were ultimately successful in stopping the auction.

Cultural references

• "Truganini's Dreaming" is the title of a song written by Bunna Lawrie, the founding member, sole songwriter and lead singer of the Australian Aboriginal band Coloured Stone. It appeared on their 1986 album, Human Love, which won the Best Indigenous Release at the ARIA Music Awards of 1987.
• "Truganini" is the name of a song by Midnight Oil; this song spoke partly of Truganini herself but also of what Midnight Oil saw as Australia's environmental and social problems.
• Truganina, a suburb of Melbourne, is possibly named after her.
• In the roman à clef Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, one of the main characters is Trugernanna, a somewhat-fictional portrayal of Truganini.
• A steamer called 'Truganini' sailed in the South Seas in 1886, visiting Papua New Guinea.
• A racehorse named 'Truganini' ran in Britain in the early 20th century and another named 'Trucanini' started racing aged 2 in the 2012 season.
• "Truganini of Bruny Island" is a song by the Tasmanian band, The Dead Maggies [2012]. The song poetically details her abduction and the murder of her fiancé.

See also

• Black War
• Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World
• Tasmanian Aborigines
• Tunnerminnerwait

External links

• The Last of the Tasmanians on Wikisource
• Truganini (1812–1876) National Library of Australia, NLA Trove, People and Organisation record for Truganini
• Images of Truganini in State Library of Tasmania collection
• Alexander, Alison Truganini at Companion to Tasmanian History, University of Tasmania
• Russell, John (Essay) The Representation of Trucanini 1999. at fotoworkz freelance photographic
• (Article) Truganini's Funeral
• (Radio Feature) Truganini – Bushranger
• (Article) Truganini (1812?–1876) A life reflecting the tragic history of the first Tasmanians.