Australian_Geographic_-_February_2016_

104 Australian Geographic

CAM COPE

A

T KILLIECRANKIE – 41km

north of Flinders Island’s

administrative centre,

Whitemark – we meet Aboriginal

elder Vicki Maikutena Green. “There

is a vexed history of race relations in

Tasmania,” she says. “As a child it

was so confusing – history said

Truganini was the last Tasmanian

Aborigine, yet we’re Aboriginal.”

Vicki is a descendant of Aborigi-

nal women and their sealer partners.

“When European pastoralists settled

in Van Diemen’s Land they fenced off

sections of fertile land for farming.

Battles erupted as Aborigines lost

more and more of their traditional

hunting grounds,” she says. “In 1828

governor Arthur declared martial

law, and Aboriginal clans were

systematically murdered, incarcer-

ated or forced from settled districts.”

There was a misguided attempt

from 1829 to 1834 to resettle and

‘civilise’ Tasmania’s remaining

indigenous people, Vicki says. “About

230 Aboriginal people – who were

either forcibly removed from their

land, or surrendered to the govern-

ment in states of exhaustion – were

taken to Wybalenna on Flinders

Island. Only 47 survived.”

Vicki and her relatives preserve

their forebears’ stories and customs.

In her lounge are woven baskets of

native grasses and bull kelp, and

exquisite necklaces of shells

gathered from the Furneaux Islands.

She hopes to see an Aboriginal

cultural centre established at

Wybalenna, on the island’s west

coast, where all those dispossessed

Tasmanian Aboriginals had perished.

Currently the site is home to a small

chapel, a former commander’s house

and a windswept graveyard that is

the resting place of many of Vicki’s

forebears including Mannalargenna,

the last leader of the Trawl-wool-

way people of north-eastern

Tasmania, who died in 1835.

ABORIGINAL HERITAGE

Many Tasmanian Aboriginals were taken to

Flinders Island and perished in the process.

̃

Aboriginal elder Vicki Maikutena
Green at home in Killecrankie,
Flinders Island, with a collection
of necklaces made from shells
gathered across the Furneaux
Islands. Some of her necklaces
use up to 2000 shells.

Vicki stitched a superbly fashioned

quilt called leipa, which is the Fire

Creation Dreaming story.