The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) is a human-rights and cultural organisation for Aboriginal Tasmanians. [1] It was originally founded as the Tasmanian Information Centre in 1973 and has campaigned on land return, Aboriginal identity and return of stolen remains. [1]
The Tasmanian languages were decimated after the British colonisation of Tasmania and the Black War. The last native speaker of any of the languages, Fanny Cochrane Smith, died in 1905. [2]
In 1972, Robert M. W. Dixon and Terry Crowley investigated reconstructing the Tasmanian languages from existing records, in a project funded by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. This included interviewing two granddaughters of Fanny Cochrane Smith, who provided "five words, one sentence, and a short song". They were able to find "virtually no data on the grammar and no running texts" and stated "it is impossible to say very much of linguistic interest about the Tasmanian languages", and they did not proceed with the project. [3]
In the late twentieth century, as part of community efforts to retrieve as much of the original Tasmanian culture as possible, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre attempted to reconstruct a language for the indigenous community. Due to the scarcity of records, palawa kani was constructed as a composite of several of the estimated dozen original Tasmanian languages.
The centre has campaigned for the return of remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people that were sent abroad, such as those sent to the British Museum. [4]
In 2022 Nala Mansell, a campaign coordinator for the centre, called for the removal of a statue of William Crowther from Franklin Square in Hobart. [5] Crowther, a surgeon and former Premier of Tasmania is primarily known for his actions surrounding the theft, decapitation and mutilation of the body of the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal man, William Lanne in 1869. [5]
A dispute exists within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, however, over what constitutes Aboriginality. The Palawa, mainly descendants of white male sealers and Tasmanian Aboriginal women who settled on the Bass Strait Islands, were given the power to decide who is of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent at the state level (entitlement to government Aboriginal services). Palawa recognise only descendants of the Bass Strait Island community as Aboriginal and do not consider as Aboriginal the Lia Pootah, who claim descent, based on oral traditions, from Tasmanian mainland Aboriginal communities. The Lia Pootah feel that the Palawa controlled Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre does not represent them politically. [6] [7]
Since 2007 there have been initiatives to introduce DNA testing to establish family history in descendant subgroups. This is strongly opposed by the Palawa and has drawn an angry reaction from some quarters, as some have claimed "spiritual connection" with Aboriginality distinct from, but not as important as the existence of a genetic link. The Lia Pootah object to the current test used to prove Aboriginality as they believe it favours the Palawa, a DNA test would circumvent barriers to Lia Pootah recognition, or disprove their claims to Aboriginality. [8]
In April 2000, the Tasmanian Government Legislative Council Select Committee on Aboriginal Lands discussed the difficulty of determining Aboriginality based on oral traditions. An example given by Prof. Cassandra Pybus was the claim by the Huon and Channel Aboriginal people who had an oral history of descent from two Aboriginal women. Research found that both were non-Aboriginal convict women. [9]
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres to the south of the Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 1000 islands. It is Australia's least populous state, with 573,479 residents as of June 2023. The state capital and largest city is Hobart, with around 40% of the population living in the Greater Hobart area. Tasmania is the most decentralised state in Australia, with the lowest proportion of its residents living within its capital city.
The Aboriginal Tasmanians are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. At the time of European contact Tasmanian Aboriginals were divided into a number of distinct ethnic groups. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, and erroneously, thought of as extinct and intentionally exterminated by white settlers. Contemporary figures (2016) for the number of people of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent vary according to the criteria used to determine this identity, ranging from 6,000 to over 23,000.
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 up to possibly 363. The Indigenous languages of Australia comprise numerous language families and isolates, perhaps as many as 13, spoken by the Indigenous peoples of mainland Australia and a few nearby islands. The relationships between the language families are not clear at present although there are proposals to link some into larger groupings. Despite this uncertainty, the Indigenous Australian languages are collectively covered by the technical term "Australian languages", or the "Australian family".
Truganini, also known as Lalla Rookh and Lydgugee, was a woman famous for being widely described as the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian to survive British colonisation. Although she was one of the last speakers of the Indigenous Tasmanian languages, Truganini was not the last Aboriginal Tasmanian.
The Tasmanian languages were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania, used by Aboriginal Tasmanians. The languages were last used for daily communication in the 1830s, although the terminal speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith, survived until 1905.
William Lanne, also spelt William Lanné and also known as King Billy or William Laney, was an Aboriginal Tasmanian man, known for being the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal man in the colony of Tasmania.
Fanny Cochrane Smith was an Aboriginal Tasmanian considered to be the last fluent speaker of the Flinders Island lingua franca and the Tasmanian languages. Her wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's indigenous languages. Her recordings were inducted into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register in 2017.
Ben Lomond is a mountain in the north-east of Tasmania, Australia.
William Lodewyk Crowther FRCS was a Tasmanian politician, who was Premier of Tasmania from 20 December 1878 to 29 October 1879.
The South Esk River, the longest river in Tasmania, is a major perennial river located in the northern region of Tasmania, Australia.
Palawa kani is a constructed language created by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre as a composite Tasmanian language, based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various languages once spoken by the Aboriginal people of what is now Tasmania.
Michael Alexander Mansell is a Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) activist and lawyer who has campaigned for social, political and legal changes.
The Lia Pootah are a Tasmanian group who claim descent from both Tasmanian Aboriginal women of several kinship groups and European men who arrived in Van Diemen's Land from 1803 onwards. They are distinct from the Palawa, a group of Aboriginal descent whose immediate ancestors hail mostly from the islands of Bass Strait.
Eastern Tasmanian is an aboriginal language family of Tasmania in the reconstructed classification of Claire Bowern.
Bruny Island Tasmanian, or Nuenonne ("Nyunoni"), a name shared with Southeast Tasmanian, is an Aboriginal language or pair of languages of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern. It was spoken on Bruny Island, off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, by the Bruny tribe.
Franklin Square is a 1.6-acre (0.63-hectare) oak-lined public square located in the Hobart City Centre in Tasmania, Australia. It is named for Sir John Franklin, an Arctic explorer and former Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land. The centrepiece of the park is a statue of Franklin, with an epitaph written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. As the city's most central urban parkland and transportation hub, Franklin Square is frequently utilised for festive markets, public gatherings and as a place for public protest.
Oyster Cove is a semi-rural locality in the local government areas (LGA) of Kingborough and Huon Valley in the Hobart and South-east LGA regions of Tasmania. The locality is about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south-west of the town of Kingston. The 2016 census has a population of 319 for the state suburb of Oyster Cove. Part of Oyster Cove is an Indigenous Protected Area due to its history as a colonial holding facility for Aboriginal Tasmanians.
Aboriginal Australian identity, sometimes known as Aboriginality, is the perception of oneself as Aboriginal Australian, or the recognition by others of that identity. Aboriginal Australians are one of two Indigenous Australian groups of peoples, the other being Torres Strait Islanders. There has also been discussion about the use of "Indigenous" vs "Aboriginal", or more specific group names, such as Murri or Noongar (demonyms), Kaurna or Yolngu, based on language, or a clan name. Usually preference of the person(s) in question is used, if known.
The Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment was an internment facility built at Flinders Island by the colonial British government of Van Diemen's Land to accommodate forcibly exiled Aboriginal Tasmanians (Palawa). It was opened in 1833 and ceased operations in 1847. During that period around 180 Palawa were situated at Wybalenna with approximately 130 people dying at the establishment. Around another 25 died while being transported to the facility. The main commandant of Wybalenna was George Augustus Robinson who played a principal role in the system of capturing and sending Palawa to the facility. Famous people incarcerated at Wybalenna included Truganini, Mannalargenna and William Lanne, amongst others. Due to the many deaths of Indigenous people at Wybalenna, the alienation of the inmates from their homeland and the forcible repression of cultural practices, the Wybalenna establishment is regarded as an example of the implementation of genocidal policies against Indigenous Australians.
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