18-10-2013, 12:36 PM
1
the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian man
The last Australian Tasmanian Aboriginal,William Lanne or (King Billy) Wife of Truginni,this is his sad story and demise.
William Lanne (also known as King Billy or William Laney) (c. 1835 – 3 March 1869) was a Tasmanian Aborigine. He is most well known as the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian man.
Lanne was captured along with his family in 1842 during a period known as the Black War. He was the youngest child in the last family taken to the Aboriginal camp at Wybelenna on Flinders Island by George Augustus Robinson. His native name is lost, probably because at 7 he was too young when arriving at Wybalenna and so the English name William he was given there stuck.
In 1847, he temporarily moved to Oyster Cove, and was sent to an orphanage in Hobart until 1851. In 1855 he joined a whaling ship and regularly visited Oyster Cove when he had time.
Lanne died on 3 March 1869 from a combination of cholera and dysentery.
Life at Oyster cove aboriginal station, painted ca. 1849 by Charles Edward Stanley (original in National Library of Australia).
Following his death his body was dismembered and used for scientific purposes. An argument broke out between the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal Society of Tasmania over who should possess his remains. It was reported that someone, allegedly a member of the English College of Surgeons named William Crowther, managed to break into the morgue where Lanne's body was kept and decapitated the corpse, removed the skin and inserted a skull from a white body into the black skin. The Tasmanian Royal Society soon discovered Crowther's work, and decided to thwart any further attempts to collect "samples" by amputating the hands and feet and discarding them separately. Lanne was then buried in this state.[1]
(From David Davies, 1973 "The last of the Tasmanians", Frederick Muller, London. 235-6)[1]:
"Dr. Crowther of the hospital vainly applied to the Government for permission to send the skeleton to the Royal College of Surgeons in London. However, a rather macabre note was struck at Lanne's funeral, for it was found that the head of the corpse was missing. During the night after the burial the rest of the body was dug up and several parts removed. Crowther was blamed for the removal of the head and his honorary appointment as surgeon at the Colonial Hospital terminated, but it is interesting to note that the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons awarded him during 1869 a gold medal and a Fellowship of the College, the first instance of an Australian having been given this honour."
Although it is not known what happened to the stolen remains of Lanne, a report in The Times in 1912 headed "Conversazione of the Royal Society: recent advances in science" mentions the exhibition of "the desiccated brain of an aboriginal Tasmanian"[2]
William Lanne's name is believed to be the source of the "King Billy Pine",[3] or Athrotaxis, a native Tasmanian tree whose wood is renowned for its durability to rot and insects.
Billy
18-10-2013, 12:46 PM
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Re: the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian man
Real nice people my English Ancestors!Theft of remains: “A skull could be worth a year’s wage”
In the 1800s Aboriginal body parts were highly sought-after ‘antiquities’ that were traded by all sorts of people, from opportunists to amateur archaeologists.
An Aboriginal skull could be worth a year’s wage [31], so people were digging up Aboriginal grave sites. Skulls of Tasmanian Aboriginal people were worth much more as they were considered “the most primitive people on the planet” [31].
Those who did not want to wait until Aboriginal people died simply shot them for their bones. “We know that some of our people were murdered just so the prized skulls of what settlers hypocritically called savages could be donated to scientists,” says Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Sara Maynard [39]. “There was a massive trade in Tasmanian Aboriginal remains in the mid-1880s.”
William Ramsay Smith was a physician at Adelaide Hospital in the late 1890s. He used his position to supply the University of Edinburgh with “a steady and illicit supply of Ngarrindjeri [Aboriginal clan] and other remains—bones, skin, hair samples—for medical and scientific purposes” [35].
Aboriginal elders responded by insisting that caskets be open at funerals to ensure they contained the body of a loved one and not sandbags.
From the diary of Dr Erik Mjöberg (cited in the documentary Dark Science):
“We arrived at the mist-coverd port of Fremantle. It was forbidden by Australian law to take Aboriginal skeletons out of the country.
Two officers from the customs office made a brief inspection.
‘Have you got any skeletons with you?’ he said.
I quickly replied: ‘Well I think I must have brought at least a dozen kangaroo skeletons with me.’
The officer’s face brightened and he said: ‘I think you might be a bit of a joker, doctor.’
‘Oh yes, definitely,’ I replied.
And thus began the skeleton’s long journey to Sweden.”
Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/abor...#ixzz2i4bgZFga
Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/abor...#ixzz2i4bNJHAm
18-10-2013, 01:08 PM
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Re: the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian man
It was used as a penal colony,plus there was a massive Whaling Operation happening in the World,the Southern Ocean was and still is a haven for Whales.Yes it was sighted by the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642,I think they thought it was the bottom of Australia,not realising it was an Island,they at first thought it was the mainland,they called it Van Dieman's Land,so Tassie was then known by that name.
About 150 years later the British Government sent a ship from Sydney to claim Van Diemen's Land before the French could claim it in 1802.British and French sailors were visiting there in the early 18th Century and even planted gardens there,probably for fresh food.
I will do a bit of internet research later,am not sure of my timeline with my dates,have to look at it properly and cut and paste some stuff?
Billy
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