Palawah - History - 20th Century To Present

20th Century To Present

Body parts and ornaments are still being returned from collections today, with the Royal College of Surgeons of England returning samples of Truganini's skin and hair (in 2002); and the British Museum returning ashes to two descendants in 2007.

During the 20th century, the absence of "full blood" Aboriginals and a general unawareness of the surviving populations, mean many non-Aboriginals assumed they were extinct, after the death of Truganini in 1876. Since the mid-1970s Tasmanian Aboriginal activists such as Michael Mansell have sought to broaden awareness and identification of Aboriginal descent.

A dispute exists within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, however, over what constitutes Aboriginality. Since splitting from the Lia Pootah in 1996, the Palawa minority 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. 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.

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 Indigenous women. Research found that both were white convict women. A further problem was the number of non-European settlers. Up to 600 of the convict settlers were Afro-American and it is also known that a percentage of free settlers were not of European descent. An Aboriginal community that survived on Bruny Island is possibly descended from two Africans who took up land grants on the island. The 1818 Hobart census lists 20 Afro-Americans and Lascars and the passenger list of one vessel, the Lady Nelson included ten Indians and Africans who had been given land grants in the Tasmanian interior. The children of these settlers effectively disappeared into the community as they were never identified as "negro" or "coloured" as no distinction was made between them and the European settlers.

The Tasmanian Palawa Aboriginal community is making an effort to reconstruct and reintroduce a Tasmanian language, called palawa kani out of the various records on Tasmanian languages. Other Tasmanian aboriginal communities use words from traditional Tasmanian languages, according to the language area they were born or live in.