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The head of an aboriginal warrior who died resisting the British colonisation of Western Australia has been laid to rest near the city of Perth.
Yagan was killed by a settler in 1833 and his severed head sent to England where it was displayed in a museum. Prior to his death, Yagan had speared a number of settlers to death during the Noongar resistance to British claims over their land and a bounty was put on his head.
Leaders of the Noongar tribe succeeded in having the head repatriated in 1997, and have now buried it in a traditional ceremony in a memorial park. The rest of Yagan's body is believed to have been buried somewhere in the park.
Western Australia's indigenous affairs department said the burial concluded a "long campaign by the Noongar people to reunite the head of the warrior Yagan with his body... (He was) a leader of his people, a man who fought for his beliefs... (and) was killed doing what he believed was right," the department said in a statement.
Campaigners brought Yagan's head back to Australia in 1997
After he was shot dead, his head was cut off and his back was skinned in order to obtain his tribal markings. The head was shipped to England to be studied and put on display and it was eventually buried in Liverpool's Everton cemetery in 1964. The Noongar tribe campaigned for decades before it was exhumed and returned to Australia.
Since its return to Australia, the warrior's head has been at the centre of a wrangle over where it should be buried. Some groups wanted it buried in the memorial park in the Swan Valley, but others said it should never have been returned. One tribal elder blamed a heart attack he suffered on Yagan's "angry spirit".
Noongar spokesman Richard Wilkes, who travelled to the UK to collect the head, told Australian broadcaster ABC before the ceremony: "We are all proud that Yagan will be buried with dignity."
At a handover ceremony at Liverpool Town Hall on 31st August 1997, the City Council handed Yagan’s head in an inscribed wooden box to a representative of the Australian High Commission. Photo: Liverpool Echo
Portrait of Yagan's severed head by George Cruikshank.
Information and newspaper images provided by member Glossy on the My Liverpool Forum, @Liverpool1207 on Twitter, https://www.bbc.com/news/10585852.
This portrait was painted from observations of Yagan's severed head, which had shrunk substantially during preservation by smoking. George Fletcher Moore said it bore little resemblance to the living Yagan, whose face was "plump, with a burly-headed look about it." It occurs to me that the memorial statue set up to keep the memory of the slain warrior, shown below, probably doesn't look like the real-life man either!
Yagan statue. Heirisson Island, Perth, Western Australia. The statue was sculpted in 1984 by Robert Hitchcock. Photo by Nachoman-au. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagan
Yagan was killed by a settler in 1833 and his severed head sent to England where it was displayed in a museum. Prior to his death, Yagan had speared a number of settlers to death during the Noongar resistance to British claims over their land and a bounty was put on his head.
Leaders of the Noongar tribe succeeded in having the head repatriated in 1997, and have now buried it in a traditional ceremony in a memorial park. The rest of Yagan's body is believed to have been buried somewhere in the park.
Western Australia's indigenous affairs department said the burial concluded a "long campaign by the Noongar people to reunite the head of the warrior Yagan with his body... (He was) a leader of his people, a man who fought for his beliefs... (and) was killed doing what he believed was right," the department said in a statement.
Campaigners brought Yagan's head back to Australia in 1997
After he was shot dead, his head was cut off and his back was skinned in order to obtain his tribal markings. The head was shipped to England to be studied and put on display and it was eventually buried in Liverpool's Everton cemetery in 1964. The Noongar tribe campaigned for decades before it was exhumed and returned to Australia.
Since its return to Australia, the warrior's head has been at the centre of a wrangle over where it should be buried. Some groups wanted it buried in the memorial park in the Swan Valley, but others said it should never have been returned. One tribal elder blamed a heart attack he suffered on Yagan's "angry spirit".
Noongar spokesman Richard Wilkes, who travelled to the UK to collect the head, told Australian broadcaster ABC before the ceremony: "We are all proud that Yagan will be buried with dignity."
At a handover ceremony at Liverpool Town Hall on 31st August 1997, the City Council handed Yagan’s head in an inscribed wooden box to a representative of the Australian High Commission. Photo: Liverpool Echo
Portrait of Yagan's severed head by George Cruikshank.
Information and newspaper images provided by member Glossy on the My Liverpool Forum, @Liverpool1207 on Twitter, https://www.bbc.com/news/10585852.
This portrait was painted from observations of Yagan's severed head, which had shrunk substantially during preservation by smoking. George Fletcher Moore said it bore little resemblance to the living Yagan, whose face was "plump, with a burly-headed look about it." It occurs to me that the memorial statue set up to keep the memory of the slain warrior, shown below, probably doesn't look like the real-life man either!
Yagan statue. Heirisson Island, Perth, Western Australia. The statue was sculpted in 1984 by Robert Hitchcock. Photo by Nachoman-au. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagan
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