Truganini (Trugernanner, Trukanini, Trucanini) (1812?–76), Aboriginal woman, was the daughter of Mangana, leader of a band of the south-east tribe. In her youth she took part in her people's traditional culture, but Aboriginal life was disrupted by European invasion. When Truganini met GA Robinson in 1829, her mother had been killed by sailors, her uncle shot by a soldier, her sister abducted by sealers, and her fiancé murdered by timber-getters. At Robinson's Bruny Island mission she married Woorady, and they were associated with Robinson's travels around Tasmania from 1830 to 1835, acting as his guides and teaching him their language and customs, which he recorded. They went to the Flinders Island settlement in 1835, Robinson renaming Truganini 'Lallah Rook', but she retained her traditional ways, and was dismayed at the broken promises that made the settlement a death camp for Aboriginal people.
In 1839 Truganini, Woorady and fourteen others accompanied Robinson to Port Phillip, but after two of the men were hanged for murder, the rest were sent back to Flinders, Woorady dying on the way. With the other Aborigines, Truganini went to Oyster Cove in 1847. Here she resumed to some extent her earlier lifestyle, diving for shellfish, visiting Bruny Island and hunting in the bush. By 1869 she and William Lanne were the only two 'full-bloods' alive, and in 1874 she moved to Hobart, where she died. She was concerned, rightly, that after her death her body would be mutilated by 'scientists', and it was on display in the Tasmanian Museum until 1951. |
In 1976, a century after Truganini died, the Tasmanian Aboriginal community requested that Truganini be cremated and scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel near her homeland. The ceremony was a moving and significant occasion which encouraged Tasmanians to recognise the ongoing existence, rights and cultural responsibilities of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
(Source: Alison Alexander, http://www.utas.edu.au/ ABC Splash; Lives and stories of colonial women |
Click on the below images to access more information on Truganini
First Australians – Episode 2, Her Will to Survive
Truganini Memorial on Bruny IslandMemorial dedicated to the memory of Truganini. The Truganini steps lead to the lookout and memorial to the Nuenonne people and Truganinni, who inhabited Lunnawannalonna (Bruny Island) before the European settlement of Bruny. Truganni was of the Nuenonne tribe whose country had been Bruny Island and the Channel area of the mainland.
Truganini was the daughter of Mangana, chief of the Bruny Island people. A survivor of The Black Wars that accompanied European settlement in Tasmania, Truganini worked hard in the early 1830s to unify what was left of the indigenous communities of Tasmania. In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary was hired to round up the remainder of the indigenous population and he settled them on Flinders Island. Truganini and her husband, Woorrady, helped Robinson in this venture in the hope that removing them would protect them from further violence. Unfortunately, the shock of resettlement, combined with the unsanitary conditions the people were forced to live in, proved fatal and the resettlement program did not work. The result was the virtual annihilation of the one hundred or so people left - mainly due to malnutrition and illness. By 1856 there were only a few remaining indigenous survivors left in Tasmania, Truganini among them, who were taken to Oyster Bay. By 1873, except for Truganini, all of the people taken there had died. Truganini was moved to Hobart where she died in 1876. She had no known descendants. Even in death she was not left in peace. Her skeleton was on display in the Tasmanian Museum from 1904 to 1907. It was not until 1976 that her remains received a proper burial. (Source: http://monumentaustralia.org.au/) |