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THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF TASMANIA |
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The attempted genocide of the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania is one
of the most tragic episodes of modern history. Ironically, if it were
not for American and British sealers and whalers who had operated from
the shores of Van Diemen's Land since 1793, abducting Aboriginal women
and taking them to the Furneaux Islands in the Bass Strait as their
slaves and mistresses, the Tasmanian Aborigines would have disappeared
without trace. Until recently, it was stated in school books that the
last Aboriginal Tasmanian was Truganini , who died at Oyster Cove, south
of Hobart, in 1876. However, a strong Aboriginal movement has grown up
in Tasmania in the last twenty years, with over six thousand descendants
proclaiming their heritage and pushing for land rights.
The Aboriginal people of Tasmania appear to have been racially distinct
from those of the mainland, although their beliefs and rituals were
similar. About twelve thousand years ago, the thawing of the last Ice
Age brought rising ocean levels, which separated these people from the
mainland and caused their genetic isolation; it's thought that on the
mainland new cultures probably entered ten thousand years ago. This
isolation was also evident in cultural development : they couldn't make
fire but kept alight smouldering fire sticks; their weapons were simpler
- they didn't have boomerangs; and although seafood was a main source of
food, eating scaly fish was taboo. In appearance , the men were
startling, wearing their hair in long ringlets smeared with grease and
red ochre, while women wore theirs closely shaved. To keep out the cold,
they coated their bodies with a mixture of animal fat, ochre and
charcoal; women often wore a kangaroo-skin cloak. Men decorated their
bodies with linear scar patterns on their abdomens, arms and shoulders.
Their art consisted of rock carvings of geometric designs, still to be
seen in areas on the west and northwest coasts.
When the first white settlement was established in the early years of
the nineteenth century there were reckoned to be about five thousand
Aboriginal people in Tasmania, divided into nine main tribes. A tribe
consisted of bands of forty to fifty people who lived in adjoining
territory, shared the same language and culture, socialized,
intermarried and - crucially - fought wars against other tribes. They
also traded such items as stone tools, ochre and shell necklaces, and
bands moved peaceably across neighbouring tribes' territory along
well-defined routes at different times of the year to share resources:
the inland Big River tribe, for example, would journey to the coast for
sealing. Once they realized the white settlers were not going to "share"
their resources in this traditional exchange economy but were instead
stealing the land, the nomadic people displayed a determination to
defend it - by force, if necessary. Confrontation was inevitable, and by
the 1820s the white population was in a frenzy of fear - though for
every settler who died, twenty Aborigines met a similar fate. In 1828
Governor Arthur declared martial law, expelling all Aboriginal people
from the settled districts and giving settlers what was, in practice, a
licence to shoot on sight. Alarmed by these events, the British
government planned to round up the remaining Aborigines and confine them
to Bruny Island , south of Hobart Town. In 1830 a mass militia of three
thousand settlers formed an armed human barrier, the Black Line , which
was to sweep across the island, clearing Aborigines before them, in
preparation for "resettlement".
The line failed; but unfortunately the final tactic was "divide and
rule", in which the Aboriginal people themselves, with their superb
tracking skills, were enlisted to help ensnare their tribal enemies. The
135 Aborigines who survived the Black Line were moved in 1834 to a
makeshift settlement on exposed and barren Flinders Island . Within four
years most of these people died of disease, or as a result of harsh
conditions. In 1837 the 47 survivors were transferred to their final
settlement at Oyster Cove, where - no longer a threat - they were often
dressed up and paraded on official engagements. The skeleton of the last
survivor, "Queen" Truganini, originally from Bruny Island, was displayed
in the Tasmanian Museum until 1976, when her remains were finally
cremated and scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, according to her
final wishes.
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