Yagan (c. 1795 – 11 July 1833) was a
NoongarThe Noongar , are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast...
warrior who played a key part in early
indigenous AustralianIndigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands, and these peoples' descendants. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.6% of Australia's...
resistance to
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
settlement and rule in the area of
Perth, Western AustraliaPerth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. With a population of 1,650,000 , Perth ranks fourth amongst the nation's cities, with a growth rate consistently above the national average....
. After he led a series of attacks in which white settlers were killed, a
bountyA bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...
was offered for his capture dead or alive, and he was shot dead by a young settler. Yagan's death has passed into
Western AustraliaWestern Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. Australia's largest state and the second largest subnational entity in the world, it has 2.2 million inhabitants , 85% of whom live in the south-west corner of the state.The state's capital...
n
folkloreFolklore is the body of expressive culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which...
as a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
by colonial settlers. Famous throughout Australia, he is considered a hero by the Noongar people.
Yagan's head was removed and brought to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, where it was exhibited as an "
anthropologicalAnthropology is the study of human beings, everywhere and throughout time....
curiosity". It spent over a century in storage at a museum before being buried in an unmarked grave in 1964. In 1993 its location was identified, and four years later
it was exhumedThe exhumation of Yagan's head was the result of a geophysical survey and archaeological dig at a grave site in the Everton Cemetery, Liverpool in 1997.-Background:...
and repatriated to Australia. Since then, the issue of its proper reburial has become a source of great controversy and conflict amongst the indigenous people of the Perth area. To date, the head remains unburied.
Early life
A member of the
WhadjukWhadjuk, also called Wadjuk, Whajook and Wadjug, is the name according to Norman Tindale for the Aboriginal group inhabiting the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain, and extending below Walyunga into the surrounding Jarrah Forests...
Noongar people, Yagan belonged to a tribe of around 60 people whose name, according to
Robert LyonRobert Menli Lyon was a pioneering Western Australian settler who became one of the earliest outspoken advocates for Indigenous Australian rights and welfare in the colony. He published the first information on the Aboriginal language of the Perth area.-Early life:Robert Menli Lyon was born Robert...
, was
BeeliarThe Beeliar were a group of Indigenous Australians belonging to the Noongar people of the South West region of Western Australia. Robert Lyon referred to the Beeliar people as one of the five groups of the Perth metropolitan area, but it is now thought that they may have been a family subgroup of...
. Lyon's information is not entirely reliable, however, and it is now thought that the Beeliar people may have been a family subgroup of a larger tribe that
Daisy BatesDaisy May Bates , CBE was an Irish Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society. She was known among the native people as 'Kabbarli' ....
called
Beelgar. According to Lyon, the Beeliar people occupied the land south of the
SwanThe Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow.-Course:...
and
CanningThe Canning River is a major tributary of the Swan River in south western Western Australia.-Source and route:With headwaters on the Darling Scarp, the Canning meanders through suburbs of Perth on the Swan Coastal Plain, including Cannington, Thornlie, Riverton, Shelley, Rossmoyne and Mount...
Rivers, as far south as Mangles Bay. It is evident, however, that the group had customary land usage rights over a much larger area than this, extending north as far as Lake Monger and north-east to the
Helena RiverThe Helena River is a tributary of the Swan River in Western Australia. The river rises in country east of Mount Dale and moves to the north west to Mundaring Weir, where it is dammed...
. The group also had an unusual degree of freedom to move over their neighbours' land, possibly due to kinship and marriage ties with neighbouring tribes.
Yagan is thought to have been born around 1795. His father was
MidgegoorooMidgegooroo was an Indigenous Australian of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Indigenous resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia...
, an elder of the Beeliar people; his mother was presumably one of Midgegooroo's two wives. Yagan was probably a
Ballaroke in the
Noongar classificationNoongar classification refers to the classification system in tribal law by which the Noongar, an indigenous Australian people, enforced restrictions on intermarriage....
. According to Green, he had a wife and two children, and a report in the Perth Gazette in 1833 gives the name of his children as "Naral", age 9, and "Willim", age 11; however most other sources state that he was unmarried and childless. Described as taller than average with an impressive burly physique, Yagan had a distinctive tribal tattoo on his right shoulder which identified him as "a man of high degree in tribal law". He was generally acknowledged to be the most physically powerful of his tribe.
Relations with settlers
Yagan would have been about 35 years old in 1829 when
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
settlers landed in the area and established the
Swan River ColonyThe Swan River Colony was a British settlement established at the Swan River on the west coast of Australia at the time of the founding of Perth in 1829. This colony expanded and became what is now Western Australia. Fremantle was the seaport and Perth the political centre of the Swan River Colony...
. For the first two years of the colony, relations between settlers and Noongars were generally amicable, as there was little competition for resources, and the Noongars welcomed the white settlers as
Djanga, the returned spirits of the Noongar dead. As time passed, however, conflicts between the two cultures gradually became more frequent. The settlers took the view that the Noongars were nomads with no claim to the land over which they roamed, and so they considered themselves free to fence off land for grazing and farming. As more and more land was fenced off, the Noongars were increasingly denied access to their traditional hunting grounds and sacred sites, so by 1832 Yagan's family group was unable to approach the Swan or Canning Rivers without danger, because
land grantsThe Swan River Colony, established in June 1829, was the only British colony in Australia established on the basis of land grants to settlers. Under the conditions stipulated by the Colonial Office, settlers would be granted land in proportion to the value of assets and labour that they brought to...
lined the banks. The Noongars' response to the loss of their hunting and gathering grounds was to take the settlers' crops and spear their
cattleCattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
. They also developed a taste for the settlers' food, and their constant
theftIn criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, fraud and sometimes...
of
flourFlour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
and other food supplies became a serious problem for the colony. Another cause of conflict was the Noongar practice of firestick farming,
firingA bushfire is a fire that occurs in the bush . In south east Australia, bushfires tend to be most common and most severe during summer and autumn, in drought years, and particularly severe in El Niño years...
the bush"The Bush" is a term used for-Australia:In Australia the term has a number of distinct meanings, usually clear in context. In reference to the landscape, the term describes any wooded area, generally where eucalyptus are present....
to flush out game and encourage germination of undergrowth, which threatened the settlers' crops and houses.
The first significant Aboriginal resistance to white settlement in Western Australia occurred in December 1831 after Thomas Smedley, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler, ambushed some natives who were raiding a
potatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food...
patch, and shot dead one of Yagan's family group. A few days later, Yagan, Midgegooroo and others stormed the farmhouse and, finding the door locked, began to break through the mud-brick walls. Inside was another of Butler's servants, Erin Entwhistle, and his two sons Enion and Ralph. After hiding his sons under the bed, Entwhistle opened the door to parley and was instantly speared to death by Yagan and Midgegooroo. Noongar tribal law required that murders be avenged by the killing of a member of the murderer's tribal group, not necessarily the murderer. The spearing of Entwhistle may therefore be understood as retribution under tribal law, as the Noongars would have thought of Butler's household as a family group. The white settlers, however, saw the act as the unprovoked murder of an innocent man.
In June 1832 Yagan led a party of Aborigines in an attack on two labourers who were sowing a field of
wheatWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
alongside the Canning River near
KelmscottKelmscott is a southeastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Armadale, and it is located southeast of Perth along Albany Highway....
. One of the men escaped, but the other, William Gaze, was wounded and later died, possibly through infection of the spear wound. In response to this, Yagan was declared an outlaw with a reward of £20 offered for his capture. Yagan managed to avoid capture until early October 1832, when a group of fishermen enticed Yagan and two of his friends into their boat, then pushed off into deep water. The three Noongars were initially taken to the Perth guardhouse, then later transferred to the
Round HouseThe Round House is the oldest building still standing in Western Australia. It is located at Arthur Head in Fremantle, and recent heritage assessments and appraisals of the precinct of the Round House incorporate Arthur Head...
at Fremantle. Yagan was sentenced to death, but he was saved by the intercession of a settler named
Robert LyonRobert Menli Lyon was a pioneering Western Australian settler who became one of the earliest outspoken advocates for Indigenous Australian rights and welfare in the colony. He published the first information on the Aboriginal language of the Perth area.-Early life:Robert Menli Lyon was born Robert...
, who argued that Yagan was defending his land against invasion, and was therefore not a criminal but a
prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
, and was entitled to be treated as such. At the recommendation of
John Septimus RoeJohn Septimus Roe was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, and a Member of Western Australia's Legislative and Executive Councils for nearly 40 years.-Early life:...
, Yagan and his friends were instead exiled on
Carnac IslandCarnac Island , Western Australia .Is an A Class nature reserve approximately 10 kilometres south west of FremantleIn 1803, French explorer Louis de Freycinet, captain of the Casuarina, named the island Île Pelée . It was also known as Île Lévilian and later Île Berthelot...
at the
Governor'sThe Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...
pleasure, under the supervision of Lyon and two soldiers.
Lyon was convinced that he could civilise Yagan and convert him to
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
, and hoped to use his tribal standing to obtain the Noongars' acceptance of white authority. To this end Lyon spent many hours with Yagan learning his language and customs. However, his efforts were cut short when, after a month, Yagan and his companions escaped by stealing an unattended
dinghyA dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel. The term can also refer to small racing yachts or recreational open sailing boats. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor, but some are rigged for sailing...
and rowing to
Woodman PointWoodman Point is a headland on the west coast of Western Australia. It is located in the Perth suburb of Munster, 22km south-south-east of the city centre and 8km south of Fremantle. It extends westward into the Indian Ocean. The coastal waters immediately to the north of the point are known as...
on the mainland. No attempt was made to recapture the men; apparently, the Government considered that they had been sufficiently punished.
In January 1833 two Noongars, Gyallipert and Manyat, visited Perth from
King George SoundKing George Sound is the name of a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Located at , it is the site of the city of Albany.The sound covers an area of and varies in depth from to ....
, where relations between settlers and natives were amicable. Two settlers, Richard Dale and George Smythe, arranged for the men to meet a party of local Noongars in the hope that it might encourage the same friendly relations in the Swan River Colony. On 26 January Yagan led a group of ten formally armed Noongars in greeting the two men near Lake Monger. The men exchanged weapons and held a
corroboreeA corroboree is a ceremonial meeting of Australian Aborigines. The word was coined by the European settlers of Australia in imitation of the Aboriginal word caribberie. At a corroboree Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime through dance, music and costume. Many ceremonies act out events from the...
, though neither group seemed to understand the language of the other. Yagan and Gyallipert then competed at spear throwing, Yagan striking a walking stick from a distance of 25 metres.
Gyallipert and Manyat remained in Perth for some time, and on 3 March, Yagan obtained permission to hold another corroboree, this time in the Post Office garden in Perth. The Perth and King George Sound men met at dusk, chalked their bodies, and performed a number of dances including a
kangarooA kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern and Western Grey Kangaroo...
hunt dance.
The Perth GazetteThe West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed West Australian Newspapers Holdings Ltd . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...
wrote that Yagan "was master of ceremonies and acquitted himself with infinite grace and dignity".
During February and March, Yagan was involved in a series of minor conflicts with settlers. In February settler William Watson complained that Yagan had pushed open his door, demanded a gun, and taken
handkerchiefA handkerchief is a form of a kerchief, typically a hemmed square of thin fabric that can be carried in the pocket or purse, and which is intended for personal hygiene purposes such as wiping one's hands or face, or blowing one's nose...
s, and that Watson had to give him and his companions flour and bread. The following month, he was among a group who received biscuits from a military contingent under Lieutenant Norcott; when Norcott tried to restrict his supply, Yagan threatened him with his spear. Later that month, Yagan was with a group of Noongars that entered Watson's house while he was away. The group left after Watson's wife called on neighbours for help, but were brought back the next day to be lectured about their behaviour by Captain Ellis. The constant conflict prompted
The Perth Gazette to remark on "the reckless daring of this desperado who sets his life at a pin's fee ... For the most trivial offence ... he would take the life of any man who provoked him. He is at the head and front of any mischief."
Wanted dead or alive
On the night of 29 April, a party of Noongars broke into a Fremantle store to steal flour and were fired upon by the caretaker Peter Chidlow. Domjum, a brother of Yagan, was badly injured and died in jail a few days later. The rest of the party then moved from Fremantle to
Preston PointPreston Point is a small headland in the Swan River, Western Australia. It is located in the Perth suburb of East Fremantle, about 12 km south west of the city centre. On the other side of the river is Rocky Bay and the suburbs of North Fremantle and Mosman Park.It was named by Sir James...
, where Yagan was heard to vow vengeance for the death. Between fifty and sixty Noongars then gathered at
Bull CreekBull Creek is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the local government area of City of Melville.-History:Named after the creek within its boundaries. The name was adopted by the City of Melville Council in December 1968. The creek was named after an early settler, Lt Henry Bull to...
, within sight of High Road, where they met a party of settlers who were loading carts with provisions. Later that day, the group ambushed the lead cart, spearing to death two white men, Tom and John Velvick. Tribal law only required a single death; the native Munday later explained that both were speared because they had previously mistreated Aboriginal people. The Velvicks had previously been convicted for assaulting Aboriginal people and coloured seamen. Alexandra Hasluck has also argued that a desire to steal the provisions was an important motive in the attack, but this has been refuted elsewhere.
For the killing of the Velvicks, the Lieutenant-Governor
Frederick IrwinLieutenant-Colonel Frederick Chidley Irwin was acting Governor of Western Australia from 1847 to 1848.Born in 1788 in Enniskillen, Ireland, Frederick Chidley Irwin was the son of Reverend James Irwin. In 1808, he was commissioned into the 83rd Regiment of Foot...
declared Yagan, Midgegooroo and Munday outlaws, offering rewards of £20 each for the capture of Midgegooroo and Munday, and a reward of £30 for Yagan's capture dead or alive. Munday successfully appealed against his proscription. Midgegooroo and Yagan must have realised that they would be hunted by settlers, as their group immediately moved from their territory north towards the Helena Valley. Four days after the murder, Midgegooroo was captured on the Helena River, and after a brief, informal trial was
executedCapital punishment or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences....
by
firing squadExecution by firing squad is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in times of war. The firing squad is generally composed of several soldiers or peace officers. The method of execution requires all members of the group to fire simultaneously, thus preventing both disruption of the...
. Yagan, however, remained at large for over two months.
Late in May, Yagan was seen by
George Fletcher MooreGeorge Fletcher Moore was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one [of] the key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite"...
on his property in
Upper SwanUpper Swan is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located in the City of Swan local government area.It contains Upper Swan Primary School....
, and the two held a conversation in
pidginA pidgin language is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common, in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different to the language of the country in which they reside...
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. Yagan then spoke in his own language; Moore wrote in the Perth Gazette:
Since Moore had little knowledge of Yagan's native language, Hasluck suggests that this conjecture is probably more indicative of "a feeling of conscience on the part of the white men" than an accurate rendering of Yagan's state of mind.
Yagan then asked Moore whether Midgegooroo was dead or alive. Moore gave no reply, but a servant answered that Midgegooroo was a prisoner on Carnac Island. Yagan responded with a warning: "White man shoot Midgegooroo, Yagan kill three." Moore made no attempt to capture Yagan other than to report the sighting to the nearest magistrate; he wrote, "The truth is, every one wishes him taken, but no one likes to be the captor ... there is something in his daring which one is forced to admire."
Death
On 11 July 1833, two teenage brothers named William and James Keates were herding cattle along the Swan River north of
GuildfordGuildford, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, was established in 1829 on the Swan River, being sited near a permanent fresh water supply. During Captain Stirling's exploration for a suitable site to establish a colony on the western side of the Australian continent the early 1820s...
when a group of Noongars approached on their way to collect their rations of flour from
Henry BullLieutenant Henry Bull was an early settler in the Swan River Colony.He entered the Royal Navy in December 1813, and served in the West Indies and South America. He retired as a Lieutenant in 1829, and the following year he arrived in Western Australia...
's house. Being on friendly terms with Yagan, the Keates brothers suggested he remain with them to avoid arrest. Yagan remained with them all morning, during which time the boys decided to kill Yagan and claim the reward. William Keates tried once to shoot him but the gun stopped at half-cock; no further opportunity arose before they were rejoined by the other natives. When the natives attempted to depart, the Keates took their last opportunity. William Keates shot Yagan, and James shot another native, Heegan, in the act of throwing his spear. Both boys then ran for the river, but William was overtaken and speared to death. James escaped by swimming the river and returned shortly afterwards with a party of armed settlers from Bull's estate.
Moore records that a party of soldiers passed by the area shortly after the incident, and speculates that they must have "frightened the natives (I supposed) or they would have carried off the bodies". When the party of settlers arrived, they found Yagan dead and Heegan dying. Heegan "was groaning and his brains were partly out when the party came, and whether humanity or brutality, a man put a gun to his head and blew it to pieces." Yagan's head was then cut from his body, and his back was skinned to obtain his tribal markings as a trophy. The bodies were buried a short distance from where they had been killed.
James Keates successfully claimed the reward, but his actions were widely criticised; The Perth Gazette referred to Yagan's killing as "a wild and treacherous act ... it is revolting to hear this lauded as a meritorious deed." Keates departed the colony the following month; the reasons are unknown, but it is possible that he left from fear of being murdered in retaliation.
Exhibition and burial
Yagan's head was initially taken to Henry Bull's house. Moore saw it there and sketched the head a number of times in his unpublished, handwritten diary, commenting that "possibly it may yet figure in some museum at home". The head was then preserved by smoking, by hanging it in a hollow tree over a fire of
EucalyptusEucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia, and a very small number are found in adjacent parts of New Guinea and Indonesia...
wood for three months.
In September 1833, Irwin sailed for London, partly in order to give his own account of the events leading up to the killing. This was an unusual measure, especially given his regiment were about to leave for a tour of duty in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
; it suggests that Irwin expected the Colonial Office to take a dim view of the killing. Ultimately, however, the Colonial Office indicated that they were satisfied with Irwin's administration of the colony.
Travelling with Irwin was Ensign
Robert DaleLieutenant Robert Dale was the first European explorer to cross the Darling Range in Western Australia.Robert Dale was born in England in October 1812...
, who had somehow acquired Yagan's head. According to Paul Turnbull, Dale appears to have persuaded
Governor IrwinLieutenant-Colonel Frederick Chidley Irwin was acting Governor of Western Australia from 1847 to 1848.Born in 1788 in Enniskillen, Ireland, Frederick Chidley Irwin was the son of Reverend James Irwin. In 1808, he was commissioned into the 83rd Regiment of Foot...
to let him have the head as an "anthropological curiosity". After arriving in London, Dale approached a number of
anatomistsAnatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy...
and
phrenologistsPhrenology is a hypothesis stating that the personality traits of a person can be derived from the shape of the skull. It is now considered a pseudoscience. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century...
attempting to sell the head for £20, claiming that it was worth twice that much. Having failed to find a buyer, he then entered into an arrangement with
Thomas PettigrewThomas Joseph Pettigrew , sometimes known as "Mummy" Pettigrew, was a surgeon and antiquarian who became an expert on Ancient Egyptian mummies...
for the exclusive use of the head for one year. Pettigrew, a surgeon and antiquarian who was well-known in the London social scene for holding private parties at which he unrolled and
autopsiedAn autopsy–also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction–is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
EgyptianAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
mummiesA mummy is a corpse whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness, very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs...
, displayed the head on a table in front of a
panoramic view of King George SoundPanoramic View of King George's Sound, Part of the Colony of Swan River is a panoramic hand-coloured print published in 1834 by Robert Havell, based on sketches by Robert Dale.-Background:...
reproduced from Dale's sketches. For effect the head was adorned with a fresh corded headband and feathers of the
Red-tailed Black CockatooThe Red-tailed Black Cockatoo , also known as Banksian- or Bank's Black Cockatoo, is a large cockatoo native to Australia. This species was known as Calyptorhynchus magnificus for many decades until the current scientific name was officially conserved in 1994. It is more common in the drier parts...
.
Pettigrew also arranged for the head to be examined by a phrenologist. Examination was considered difficult because of the large
fractureA bone fracture is a medical condition in which there is a break in the continuity of the bone...
across the back of the head caused by the gunshot. The findings, which were predictably consistent with contemporary European opinion of Indigenous Australians, were published as part of a pamphlet by Dale entitled
Descriptive Account of the Panoramic View &c. of King George's Sound and the Adjacent CountryDescriptive account of the panoramic view, &c. of King George's Sound, and the adjacent country is a pamphlet written by Robert Dale in 1834, containing description and commentary on the Panoramic View of King George's Sound, Part of the Colony of Swan River, a panorama of King George's Sound...
, which Pettigrew encouraged his guests to buy as a
souvenirA souvenir , memento or keepsake is an object a traveler brings home for the memories associated with it. Souvenirs include clothing such as T-shirts or hats, postcards, refrigerator magnets, miniature figures, household items such as mugs and bowls, ashtrays, egg timers, spoons, notepads, and many...
of their evening. The frontispiece of the pamphlet was a hand-coloured
aquatintAquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
print of Yagan's head by the artist
George CruikshankGeorge Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for Charles Dickens - who was his friend - and many other authors reached an international audience.-Early life: Cruikshank was born on 27 September 1792 in...
.
Early in October 1835, both Yagan's head and the panoramic view were returned to Dale, who was then living in
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. On 12 October he presented them to the Liverpool Royal Institution, where the head may have been displayed in a case along with some other preserved heads and wax models illustrating cranial anatomy. In 1894 the Institution's collections were dispersed, and Yagan's head was lent to the Liverpool Museum; it is thought not to have been put on display there. By the 1960s Yagan's head was badly deteriorated, and in April 1964 the decision was made to dispose of it. On 10 April 1964, Yagan's head was placed in a plywood box, along with a
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico...
vian mummy and a
MāoriThe Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand . The group probably arrived in southwestern Polynesia in several waves at some time before 1300...
head, and buried in
Everton CemeteryEverton Cemetery, Long Lane, Fazakerley. Opened in July 1880 it has been used for both Church of England and Roman Catholic burials. Various buildings at the cemetery are Grade II listed buildings....
's General Section 16, grave number 296. In later years a number of burials were made around the grave, and in 1968 a local hospital buried 20
stillbornA stillbirth occurs when a fetus which has died, in the uterus or during labor or delivery, exits a woman's body. The term is often used in distinction to live birth or miscarriage. Most stillbirths occur in full term pregnancies....
babies and two babies who had lived less than twenty-four hours directly over the museum box.
Lobbying for repatriation
For many years, at least since the early 1980s, a number of Noongar groups sought the return of Yagan's head.
It was unknown at that time, however, what had happened to the head after it left Pettigrew's possession. In the early 1980s,
Ken ColbungKen Colbung, AM, MBE , also known by his indigenous name Nundjan Djiridjarkan, is an indigenous Australian leader. The name Colbung derives from 'kalbin', a term for an Aboriginal high priest....
was entrusted with the search for the head by tribal elders. In 1985 he engaged Lily Bhavna Kauler as a researcher, and a number of unsuccessful enquiries were made to various United Kingdom museums. In the early 1990s, Colbung enlisted the aid of
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
archaeologistArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
Peter UckoPeter John Ucko FRAI FSA was an influential English archaeologist, noted for being the Professor Emeritus of Comparative Archaeology and also the former Executive Director of University College London's Institute of Archaeology. He was also noted for his organisation of the first World...
. One of Ucko's researchers, Cressida Fforde, was funded by the
Government of AustraliaThe Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
to conduct a literature search for information on the head. She successfully traced the head in December 1993, and in April the following year, Colbung applied for permission to exhume it under Section 25 of the
Burial Act 1857The Burial Act 1857 is a British law. It was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1857. Its purpose is to regulate burial grounds. It regulates where and how deceased people may be buried, and provides for the exhumation of remains....
.
Home OfficeThe Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security and order. As such it is responsible for the police, United Kingdom Borders Agency and MI5. It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counter-terrorism...
regulations required
next of kinNext of kin is the term used to describe a person's closest living blood relative or relatives.In many legal systems, rights regarding inheritance serve a decision making capacity where no clear will or instructions have been given, and the person has no spouse, flow to their closest relative Next...
consent for the remains of the 22 babies to be disturbed, but Colbung's
solicitorSolicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter apart from conducting proceedings in courts , with some exceptions. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers, and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
s requested that this condition be waived on grounds that the exhumation would be of great personal significance to Yagan's living relatives, and great national importance to Australia.
Meanwhile, divisions in the Perth Noongar community began to show, with Colbung's role in the repatriation questioned by a number of elders, and one Noongar registering a complaint with the
Liverpool City CouncilLiverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Liberal Democrats and is led by Warren Bradley....
over Colbung's involvement. Media reports indicated a great deal of acrimonious debate within the Noongar community about who had the best cultural qualifications to take possession of the head. However Hannah McGlade claims that these divisions were largely manufactured by the media, particularly The West Australian
, which "aimed to and successfully represented the Nyungar community in terms of disharmony and dissent". She alleges that one West
reporter contacted Noongars known to be in disagreement, and quoted one to the other, so as to elicit provocative responses. The resultant disputes were then "trumpeted" by The West, allowing it to "preach" against the infighting.
On 25 July a public meeting was held in Perth, where all parties agreed to put aside their differences and co-operate to ensure that the repatriation was a "national success". A Yagan Steering Committee was established to co-ordinate the repatriation, and Colbung's application was allowed to proceed.
In January 1995 the Home Office advised Colbung that it was unable to waive the necessity of obtaining next of kin consent for the exhumation. It then contacted the five relatives whose addresses were known, receiving unconditional consent from only one. Accordingly, on 30 June 1995, Colbung and the other interested parties were advised that the application for exhumation had been rejected.
The Yagan Steering Committee then met on 21 September and decided to proceed by lobbying Australian and British politicians for support. This approach led to an invitation for Colbung to visit the United Kingdom at the British government's expense. Colbung arrived in the United Kingdom on 20 May 1997. His visit attracted substantial media coverage and increased the political pressure on the British Government. It also allowed him to secure the support of the former
Prime Minister of AustraliaThe Prime Minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia, holding office on commission from the Governor-General. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful political office in Australia...
,
John HowardJohn Winston Howard, AC was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
, after gate crashing the Prime Minister's June visit to the United Kingdom.
Exhumation
While Colbung was in the United Kingdom, Martin and Richard Bates were engaged to undertake a
geophysicalGeophysics, a major discipline of the Earth sciences and a subdiscipline of physics, is the study of the whole Earth by the quantitative observation of its physical properties. Geophysical data are used in academics to observe tectonic plate motions, study the internal structure of the Earth,...
survey of the grave site. Using
electromagneticElectromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field, a field that exerts a force on particles with the property of electric charge and is reciprocally affected by the presence and motion of such particles....
and ground penetrating radar techniques, they identified an approximate position of the box that suggested it could be accessed from the side via the adjacent plot. A report of the survey was passed to the Home Office, prompting further discussions between the British and Australian Governments.
Of concern to the Home Office were an undisclosed number of letters that it had received objecting to Colbung's involvement in the repatriation process; it therefore sought assurances from the Australian Government that Colbung was a correct applicant. In response Colbung asked his elders to ask the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander CommissionThe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives...
(ATSIC) to tell the British Home Office that he was the correct applicant. ATSIC then convened a meeting in Perth at which it was again resolved that Colbung's application could proceed.
Colbung continued to press for the exhumation, asking that it be performed before the 164th anniversary of Yagan's death on 11 July, so that the anniversary could be the occasion of a celebration. His request was not met, and on the anniversary of Yagan's death, Colbung conducted a short memorial service at the burial plot in Everton. He returned to Australia empty-handed on 15 July.
The
exhumation of Yagan's headThe exhumation of Yagan's head was the result of a geophysical survey and archaeological dig at a grave site in the Everton Cemetery, Liverpool in 1997.-Background:...
eventually proceeded, without Colbung's knowledge, by excavating six feet down the side of the grave, then tunnelling horizontally to the location of the box. Thus the exhumation was performed without disturbing any other remains. The following day, a
forensicForensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
palaeontologist from the
University of BradfordThe University of Bradford is a university in Bradford, West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. Formed from a technical college in 1966, there are three campuses: the main campus, located on Richmond Road, the School of Health, on Trinity Road, and the School of Management, at Emm Lane...
positively identified the
skullThe skull is a bony structure found in the head of many animals. The skull supports the structures of the face and protects the head against injury....
as Yagan's by correlating the fractures with those described in Pettigrew's report. The skull was then kept at the museum until 29 August, when it was handed over to the Liverpool City Council.
Repatriation
On 27 August 1997, a delegation of Noongars consisting of Ken Colbung,
Robert BrophoRobert Charles Bropho is an indigenous Australian and activist and convicted serial child sex offender from Perth, Western Australia. A judge described his crimes as the "lowest form of abuse imaginable"...
, Richard Wilkes and Mingli Wanjurri-Nungala arrived in the UK to collect Yagan's head. The delegation was to have been larger, but Commonwealth funding was withdrawn at the last minute. The handover of Yagan's skull was further delayed, however, when a Noongar named Corrie Bodney applied to the
Supreme Court of Western AustraliaThe Supreme Court of Western Australia is the highest state court in the Australian State of Western Australia. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters , and hears the most serious criminal matters.The Supreme Court consists of a General Division The Supreme Court of Western...
for an injunction against the handover. Claiming that his family group has sole responsibility for Yagan's remains, Bodney declared the exhumation illegal and denied the existence of any tradition or belief necessitating the head's exhumation and removal to Australia. Another Noongar, Albert Corunna, then came forward with a claim to be Yagan's closest living relative. The Supreme Court had no power to grant an emergency injunction binding the
Government of the United KingdomHer Majesty's Government is the government of the United Kingdom. Under the Constitution of the United Kingdom, executive authority notionally lies with the monarch but is exercised in practice by her ministers...
, so instead it asked the
Government of Western AustraliaThe formation of the Government of Western Australia is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1890, although it has been amended many times since then...
to object formally to the handing over of Yagan's remains. The United Kingdom Government responded favourably to the objection, agreeing to withhold the head until the injunction application had been considered. On 29 August the court rejected the injunction application, on the grounds that Bodney had previously agreed to the current arrangements, and on the evidence of another Noongar elder and an anthropologist, both of whom refuted Bodney's claim to sole responsibility.
Yagan's skull was handed over to the Noongar delegation at a ceremony at the
Liverpool Town HallThe Liverpool Town Hall is a Grade I Listed Building built in a striking style of architecture.-History:Designed by John Wood, the Elder, the first stone of the building was laid in 1749, and the hall was opened in 1754...
on 31 August 1997. In accepting the skull, Colbung made comments that allegedly linked Yagan's death with the death of
Princess DianaDiana, Princess of Wales, was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales. Their sons, Princes William and Harry, are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms.A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana...
, who had died that day:
"Because the Poms did the wrong thing they have to suffer. They have to learn too, to live with it as we did and that is how nature goes."
Colbung's comments prompted a media furore throughout Australia, with newspapers receiving many letters from the public expressing shock and anger at the comments. Colbung later claimed that his comments had been misinterpreted.
Throughout the repatriation process, many sections of the international media treated the story as a joke. For example, the US News & World Report
ran a story under the headline Raiders of the Lost Conk, in which Yagan's head was referred to as a "pickled curio", and Colbung's actions were treated as a publicity stunt.
Reburial
On its return to Perth, Yagan's head continued to be a source of controversy and conflict. Responsibility for reburial of the head was given to a "Committee for the Reburial of Yagan's Kaat", headed by Richard Wilkes. However, the reburial was delayed by disputes between elders over the burial location, mainly due to uncertainty of the whereabouts of the rest of his body, and disagreement about the importance of burying the head with the body.
A number of attempts were made to locate the remains of Yagan's body, which were believed to be on a property on West Swan Road in the outer Perth suburb of
BelhusBelhus is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. It is in the City of Swan local government area. It was named after the original English family estate owned by Edmund Barrett-Lennard, one of the pioneers of the Swan Valley table grape industry, in 1897....
. A
remote sensingRemote sensing is the small or large-scale acquisition of information of an object or phenomenon, by the use of either recording or real-time sensing device that are wireless, or not in physical or intimate contact with the object...
survey of the site was carried out in 1998, but no remains were found. An archaeological survey of the area was undertaken two years later, but this also was unsuccessful. Disputes then arose over whether the head could be buried separately from the body. Wilkes has claimed that it can, so long as it is placed where Yagan was killed, so that Dreamtime spirits can reunite the remains.
In 1998 the Western Australian Planning Commission and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs jointly published a document entitled Yagan's Gravesite Master Plan, which discussed "matters of ownership, management, development and future use" of the property on which Yagan's remains are believed to be buried. Under consideration was the possibility of turning the site into an indigenous burial site, to be managed by the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board.
To date, Yagan's head remains unburied. It spent some time in storage in a bank vault, before being handed over to forensics experts who reconstructed a model from it. Since then it has been in storage at Western Australia's state
mortuaryA morgue or mortuary is a building or room used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or burial, cremation or some other post-death ritual...
. Plans to re-bury the head have been repeatedly deferred, causing ongoing conflict between Noongar groups. In September 2008 it was reported that Yagan's head would be reburied in November, and a Yagan Memorial Park created as a projected cost of AU$996,000; but in November is was announced that the reburial had been rescheduled for July 2009 because of logistical problems. In March 2009, it was announced that the Department of Indigenous Affairs had given the City of Swan more than AU$500,000 to develop the park.
Legacy
Yagan is now a famous historical figure throughout Australia, with material about him appearing in such publications as the
Australian Dictionary of BiographyThe Australian Dictionary of Biography is a multi-volume project published by Melbourne University Press.The ADB project has been operating since 1957 with staff located at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University...
, and Western Australia's school
curriculumIn formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
. He is of greatest significance, however, to the Noongar people, for whom he is "a revered, cherished and heroic individual... patriot and visionary hero of WA's South-West". The return of his head was likened by some Indigenous Australians to the November 1993 ceremonial repatriation from
GallipoliThe Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east...
of Australia's
unknown soldierThroughout history, many soldiers have died in wars without their remains being identified. In modern times, nations have developed the practice of having a symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that represents the war grave of those unidentified soldiers...
.
Alas Poor Yagan
On 6 September 1997
The West AustralianThe West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed West Australian Newspapers Holdings Ltd . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...
published a Dean AlstonDean John Douglas Alston is an Australian cartoonist who joined The West Australian newspaper in 1986.Dean Alston was born in South Perth, Western Australia in 1950, and grew up in Mount Pleasant. In 1967 he started a cadetship in cartography with Western Australia's Lands and Surveys Department...
cartoonThe word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time....
entitled Alas Poor YaganAlas Poor Yagan is an editorial cartoon, drawn by Dean Alston and published in The West Australian newspaper on 6 September 1997. It consists of a panel of eight drawings of Indigenous Australian activist Ken Colbung speaking to a group of three Indigenous Australian children...
, which was critical of the fact that the return of Yagan's head had become a source of conflict between Noongars instead of fostering unity. The cartoon could also be interpreted as insulting aspects of Noongar culture, and casting aspersions on the motives and legitimacy of indigenous Australians with mixed racial heritage. The content of the cartoon offended many indigenous Australians, and a group of Noongar elders complained about the cartoon to the
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity CommissionThe Australian Human Rights Commission is a national independent statutory body of the Australian Government. It has the responsibility for investigating alleged infringements under Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation...
. The commission ruled that the cartoon made inappropriate references to Noongar beliefs but was not in breach of the
Racial Discrimination Act 1975The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 is a statute passed by the Australian Parliament during the Prime Ministership of Labor Gough Whitlam....
because it was "an artistic work" that was published "reasonably and in good faith", and was therefore exempt. This ruling was upheld on appeal by the
Federal Court of AustraliaThe Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...
, Some academic commentators have since expressed concern that the protections offered under the act have been undermined by the ruling's broad interpretation of the exemptions.
Yagan's statue
From the mid-1970s, members of the Noongar community lobbied for the erection of a
statueA statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
of Yagan as part of the
WAY 1979WAY '79, also referred to as WAY 79 and WAY 1979, was the official 1979 sesquicentennial celebration of the establishment of the Swan River Colony, the first permanent European settlement in Western Australia.-Planning:...
sesquicentennial celebrations. Their requests were refused, however, after then
Premier of Western AustraliaThe Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
Sir Charles CourtSir Charles Walter Michael Court, AK, KCMG, OBE, was a Western Australian politician, 21st Premier of Western Australia and member for the seat of Nedlands for the Liberal Party for nearly 30 years.-Early life:...
was advised by one prominent historian that Yagan was not important enough to warrant a statue Colbung claims "Court was more interested in spending tax payers' money on refurbishing the badly neglected burial place of
Captain James StirlingAdmiral Sir James Stirling RN was a British marine officer and colonial administrator. He was the first Governor of Western Australia and on his own initiative signed Britain's first limited treaty with Japan in 1854....
, WA's first governor." Despite this setback, the Noongar community persisted, establishing a Yagan Committee and running a number of fund-raising drives. Eventually, sufficient funds were collected to allow the commissioning of Australian sculptor Robert Hitchcock to create a statue. The result was a life-size statue in
bronzeBronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon. It was particularly significant in antiquity, giving its name to the Bronze Age...
, depicting Yagan standing naked with a spear held across his shoulders. Hitchcock's statue of Yagan was officially opened by Yagan Committee chairperson Elizabeth Hanson on 11 September 1984. It stands on
Heirisson IslandHeirisson Island is an island in the Swan River in Western Australia at the eastern end of Perth Water . The city of Perth and the Town of Victoria Park are linked by The Causeway which is actually two bridges which span the two foreshores and the island...
in the Swan River near Perth.
In 1997, within a week of the return of Yagan's head to Perth, vandals beheaded the statue and stole the head. After restoration, it was beheaded again. Credit for the act was anonymously claimed by a "British loyalist" as an act of retaliation for Colbung's comments about Princess Diana. The
Western Australia PoliceThe Western Australia Police services an area of 2.5 million square kilometres, the world's largest non-federated area of jurisdiction. In 2008, its 7,526 employees include 5,647 police officers.-History:-Early history:...
did not succeed in identifying the vandals, nor in recovering the heads, and deemed it infeasible to have the status fenced off or placed under guard. Western Australian media coverage found humour in the beheadings; Stephen Muecke, for example, has identified what he calls the "satirical trivialising of Aboriginal concerns" in The West Australian
's coverage, which in one article referred to the head as a "bonce" and a "noggin", and finished with a pun on "skullduggery". Speaking of the same piece, Adam Shoemaker writes "This is the stuff of light humour and comic relief. There is no sense of the decapitation as being an act of vandalism, even less that it could have been motivated by malevolence. And, as an editorial, the piece has a definite authorising function...." On the other hand, academic analysis has treated the act with much more gravity. In 2007, for example, David Martin described the decapitation as "an act which speaks not only to the continuance of white settler racism, but also to the power of mimesis to invigorate our modern memorials and monuments with a life of their own."
In 2002
Member of the Western Australian Legislative AssemblyIn Western Australia, a Member of the Legislative Assembly or MLA is a person elected to sit in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Western Australia. Each member is elected by the residents of an electoral district to represent the interests of that...
Janet WoollardJanet May Woollard is the sitting member for the seat of Alfred Cove in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly.She stood for the seat in the February 2001 State election as an Independent candidate , and defeated the incumbent and frontbencher Doug Shave who as Fair Trading Minister, was...
called for the statue's
private partsAn intimate, personal, or private part is a place on the human body which it is usually customary to keep covered with clothing in public areas, as a matter of decency...
to be covered up, but nothing was done. In November 2005 Richard Wilkes again called for the statue's private parts to be covered, on the grounds that such a depiction would be more historically accurate as Yagan would have worn a covering for most of the year. Also under consideration is the creation of a new statue with a head shape that accords better with the forensic reconstruction of Yagan's head.
Literature and film
Mary DurackMary Durack AC DBE was an Australian author and historian. She is the author of Kings in Grass Castles and Keep Him My Country.-Childhood:...
published a fictionalised account of Yagan's life in her 1964 children's novel The Courteous Savage: Yagan of the Swan River
. When reissued in 1976, it was renamed Yagan of the Bibbulmun
because the word "Savage" was by then considered racistRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
.
The repeated beheading of Yagan's statue in 1997 prompted indigenous writer Archie WellerArchie Weller is an Australian award winning writer of novels, short stories and screen plays.Weller was born in Cranbrook, Western Australia, and grew up on a farm called Woonenup in the South west of that state....
to write a short story entitled Confessions of a Headhunter
. Weller later worked with film director Sally Riley to adapt the story into a script, and in 2000 a 35 minute movie, also named Confessions of a Headhunter
, was released. Directed by Sally Riley, the movie won Best Short Fiction Film at the 2000 AFI AwardsThe Australian Film Institute Awards are awards of merit presented annually by the Australian Film Institute. The awards recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry and television industry, including directors, actors and writers...
. The following year the script won the Script Award in the 2001 Western Australian Premier's Book AwardsThe Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an award for books and scripts written by Western Australians or about Western Australia. Awards are provided by the Government of Western Australia, and the awards process is managed by the State Library of Western Australia...
.
In 2002 the South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
n-born Australian poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
John MateerJohn Mateer is a South African-born Australian poet and author.He was born in Roodepoort, South Africa in 1971, and grew up on the outskirts of Johannesburg. He spent some of his childhood in Canada, before returning to South Africa in 1979. In 1989 he moved to Australia with his family. He...
published his fourth collection of poems, entitled Loanwords
. The collection is divided into four sections, of which the third, In the Presence of a Severed Head
, has Yagan as its subject.
Other cultural references
In September 1989 an early maturing cultivar of barleyBarley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. It is used in soups, stews and barley bread in various countries, such as Scotland and in Africa...
, bred by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture for performance on sandy soils, was released under the name "Hordeum vulgare (Barley) c.v. Yagan". Commonly referred to simply as "Yagan", the cultivar is named for Yagan, continuing a tradition of labelling Western Australian grain cultivars after historic people of Western Australia.
External links