DARAMALAN COLLEGE

Daramalan College is one of the largest secondary schools in Canberra. In response to the Portrait of a Nation: Australian Schools Portrait Project, Year 9 students, Katherine Grice and Faith Myers, have worked independently to create two unique interpretations of their chosen subjects, Deborah Vernon Hackett and Trukanini.

Deborah Vernon Hackett by Katherine Grice

Truganini
by Faith Myers

'Truganini!'

She looked up, guiltily, and even though her father couldn't see her, hunched further down behind the bush she was using to hide. She knew full well she shouldn't have been watching the strangers. She should have been collecting the shells her mother needed and coming straight back home. The white people had been fighting with her kin since before she was born. She knew she was supposed to avoid them - but still they were oddly interesting. Their language was unusual, high and finicky like a bird, like the little white bird-men they were. Some of them hunted the seals that frequented the beach, some of them wandered into the forest and stole wood, but all of them were so different from Truganini's people and their quiet ways. She was fascinated by them, and somehow repulsed. They seemed so much more powerful and yet so much less.

'Truganini!

She sighed and stood up, running back through the wood with her sack of shells. Her father was waiting for her with her fiancé, Paraweena. Truganini pulled up quickly, suddenly self-conscious. She had been running, and sweating, and she resisted the urge to straighten her cloak.

'Truganini,' her father said severely. He was an elder and should not be kept waiting by his own daughter. Her mother needed the shells and she was taking suspiciously long. If she was this late again there would be consequences.

'Sorry,' she said, panting. Paraweena flashed her a grin, and then pretended to look stern.

'You took a while,' her father said, fully intending to be angry at her. Truganini looked up at her father pleadingly. He sighed, and relented. 'Dinner time. Give the shells to your mother.'

So I was young and happy, beautiful and in love. I had my magnificent Paraweena, a month away from being my husband. We wandered among the trees and the beach, untroubled by the white threat that had already begun to creep upon us.

But that was before my mother was killed and my sister raped, and my poor Paraweena murdered. The sealers and the sailors and the loggers came and they took what they would with no thought for us. That was one of the last days we had, the Nuenonne people, to do what we would on our land.

'At least you're alive,' said Wooraddy, one of the elders, hesitantly. He had stayed with her and her father, and for that she was thankful, but she could feel him looking at the bruises and the old blood: even cleaned and dressed she looked as if she had fallen off a cliff. Yes, she was alive: but that was little comfort. The sealers had taken her and –

She didn't want to think about it.

Her father offered no help, sitting staring into the distance. Her mother was gone, killed by sealers. When her sister had disappeared on top of that, her father held onto her more tightly than ever. They were each other's family - but now after the latest attacks, now with Paraweena and Truganini's future gone, he had nothing. The attacks never stopped, but in the past couple of years they had gotten worse and worse.

She took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. 'My life doesn't mean anything,' she said, surprised at how strong she sounded. 'They've already killed or wounded or r-'

She couldn't bring herself to say the word. 'They're more powerful than we are, and they're here to stay,' she said. 'We've been safer than most in the middle of the forest, because they come from the beaches, but they are killing all of our kin.'

Her father flinched.

'They call it the black war,' she said. 'Did you know that? Some people are fighting back.'

'Stupid,' said her father. 'Why would we fight them? We can trade with them, learn their language –'

'No,' Truganini said. 'Look at me, father.' She knew she had once been beautiful. She also knew that she was not, now. She saw her father glance at her and look away, not wanting to see the bruises and the tear-tracks. 'They did this to me,' she said deliberately. 'Maybe once we had peace, but it's too late now. They have all the power and they don't want peace. They want our land.'

'What do we do?' asked Wooraddy.

She smiled at him sadly. 'I don't know.'

Poor beautiful Wooraddy. I married him, in the end, the both of us following George Augustus Robinson from place to place. We were his servants, I suppose –but I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll see.

The man was short and pompous and white-skinned with flushed cheeks. His hair hung oddly over his face and his clothes were the richest Truganini had ever seen.

'I, George Augustus Robinson, Protector of Aborigines, do declare the making of a new settlement for the purpose of protecting those aboriginals of Bruny Island as still survive…'

Truganini stared at him. He was using a lot of long words, but the little English she understood – 'He wants to take us all away from their homes?' she whispered to Wooraddy.

'Why would he do that?' he said, shocked.

George Augustus Robinson, Protector of Aborigines, rolled up his speech and began walking towards Truganini's father. 'Are you the elder of this – village?' he asked. Her father looked at the pompous man, confused.

'He wants to know if you are the elder of our people,' Truganini said, and then politely explained to George Augustus Robinson that her father did not speak their language.

'Right,' he said, a little flustered. He had obviously never considered the fact. 'Well: um, you natives,' he said loudly and slowly to her father, with a pause between each word, 'you are still alive. But to protect you we have to move you to a different island.' He said a word she didn't know. 'What is a settlement?' she asked.

'All the aborigines in the area will be moved to Flinders Island for their – your own safety. So the fighting stops. We'll get this land and you'll get a safe area to live. We'll integrate you into our society, teach you Christianity and a more civilised way of farming -'

She translated, quickly, for her father. 'Why would we give up our ancestral land to you people?' said her father, through her.

George Augustus Robinson smiled at that, though Truganini couldn't see the reason why.

'No.'

'Father, it's the only way.'

'Absolutely not.'

'They will kill us all,' she said slowly and deliberately. 'This way at least we have a compromise. We will have a life, places to hunt and gather. He has promised us food and housing, and that our customs will be respected. If we stay, the war will go on and eventually there will be nobody left of the Nuenonne people. Which would you prefer?'

'You, girl!'

She turned to see George Augustus Robinson waddling towards them.

'My father is still discussing it with the elders,' she said.

'I don't care,' he said brusquely. 'We've got supplies and things for you, you can stay here a bit if you want. But you're not the only blacks left. I've got to round them all up, God help me, and I don't speak – whatever you people speak. I want you – and a couple others –' he jerked his thumb at Wooraddy and a couple of other men – 'to come with me.' He reconsidered, and added: 'Please.'

Truganini looked at her father. 'He wants me to go with him and translate,' she said.

'What?'

'Wooraddy's going too. I'll be fine. I love you, Father,' she told him, and walked towards George Augustus Robinson.

She sighed as she walked away. She didn't want to leave, but she saw what the elders refused to see: that although going to this 'settlement' was an awful prospect, it was the only chance of safety for her people. Maybe she could make things better by helping this little man. 'What's your name?' he asked as they started moving, a narrow cart and three horses carrying the baggage and goods George Augustus Robinson apparently needed. 'Trugananner?' he repeated. 'Ugh, that's awful. We'll call you – um - Lallah. That sounds suitably aboriginal, doesn't it?'

So I became Lallah Rook, translator, cook, guide. I melted into the background, travelling with George Augustus Robinson, my darling Wooraddy and a few others, guiding him through the bush, helping him find food and water, and talking to the others all through Tasmania. I told them what I had told my father: it's not ideal but it's all we've got. Go with this man. Go to the settlement. We'll come back one day. He promised we would.

Some agreed with me. Some, like my father, thought I should not be helping a white man who wanted to take us all from our homes. And some refused altogether to talk to him, or to me. I tried. I did. I did what I thought was best, because we would have been killed otherwise. I suppose we were doomed from the start – killed if we stayed, killed if we went.

Three years after she had left her father behind, Truganini visited the Flinders Island settlement. She expected to see the thing she had been telling her people of. She walked in the gate with George Augustus Robinson. 'Do you think my father will be here?' she asked.

'I don't know, Lallah,' he said impatiently. Truganini said nothing. Here she could be herself again, among her people. Here she was Truganini, and George Augustus Robinson could do what he liked.

A sound of coughing came from one of the grey buildings. Truganini focused on the sound, only then realising it was the only thing she could hear. 'Is this a settlement?' she asked George Augustus Robinson.

'Yes,' he said. 'Of course it is.' But he sounded uncertain.

'We're not allowed to leave,' said the woman harshly. I had found my way to the centre of the complex and asked to know about the settlement. 'Everybody is ill. We used to be overcrowded –' she coughed –'but that's not a problem anymore!' Some of the other women laughed at that.

I tried to swallow, but my throat wasn't working. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm so sorry.' Because it was my fault, all of it. I had begged and cajoled and pleaded to get my people where I thought they would be safe, and now they were dying.

We left in silence. But from then on, I told every person we talked to that Flinders Island was awful. Don't go to Flinders Island.

'Lallah!'

Truganini sat up from where she was finishing her dinner and sighed. Not a lot had changed, she supposed. She smiled at Wooraddy and got up to see what George Augustus Robinson wanted. 'I've been appointed Protector of Aborigines,' he said. 'Seeing as I did such a good job, I've been given charge of the new settlement at Port Phillip.'

Good job?

Truganini said nothing. It won't work any better, she wanted to say. I think I hate you for what you've done to my people, she wanted to say. But she didn't. She just nodded, and went back to cry with Wooraddy. All she could do was hope they did better the second time around.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it. George Augustus Robinson became too high-and-mighty for us.

People died at Port Phillip through bad food and bad water, diseases and malnutrition. One of them was my Wooraddy, and I was alone after that.

I tried to help when the last few inhabitants of the Port Phillip rose up, and we were stopped. The last forty or so of my people were 'moved' to what the British call Oyster Bay. It was very close to where I had lived at a child, and so for a time I was happy.

Truganini sat in a little building, her tiny room, in the settlement. She hated that word, settlement.

'Lallah,' said a voice hesitantly.

George Augustus Robinson, she thought. But she didn't turn around.

She heard him enter the room behind her. 'You look – nice,' he said.

She knew that was a lie. She was old now, a life spent trying to help her people.

'Are – are you going to turn around?'

No.

'Well, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry – and all that. Sorry –well – you know, Flinders Island wasn't the biggest success.' He lauged nervously.

'Lallah,' he said. 'Please look at me. I just wanted to say thank you, I mean, uh, you helped a lot. I don't think there would be any of you people left without you by now. Ah, and well done, I suppose. I'm going tomorrow, got a new post –'

Of course he did. George Augustus Robinson was moving on again, leaving her further behind. And he would remember Lallah, she supposed. But he never knew Truganini, not really. So she didn't turn around and eventually he left.

I'm sixty-four. I know I've been lucky to survive as long as I have. I am one of the last of my generation. Wooraddy and I had no children.

My people have bred with the white people, and little brown babies run everywhere. Perhaps it's a good thing. There's no place here for us anymore.

I don't trust the British, though. Not after all I've seen them do. So my last request is that they respect my body. Cremate it, please. Don't dissect me or put me on display. I'm leaving now, for the last time, I think.

My time here is done.