CHAC Against Crowther Statue Removal

Media release – Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, 15 August 2022

CHAC expresses its concern over TAC attempts to rewrite history and defame an Ex-Premier.

Over the last week, the public of Tasmania has been subjected to a blatant attempt by the T.A.C, Nala Mansell and Michael Mansell to create a fanciful story that attempts to rewrite history. The commotion over the removal of the Crowther statue due to outrageous accusations of dismemberment of Lanne’s body and removal of body parts by Crowther is not just fanciful, it is a blatant mistruth and not supported in fact. The actual historical evidence and history tells a completely different story; it also exposes factual mistakes proffered by the T.A.C in their ‘campaign’. For instance, if this is such an important cultural story about Lanne, one would think that the T.A.C and their misinformed experts may have actually got his birth year of c.1829 correct instead of an uneducated guess of 1835. But this is not the first time the T.A.C have attempted such a hoax for their own designs on history.

In the North West of Tasmania, the T.A.C has buried skulls along the North West Coast in some contorted attempt to “repatriate” remains which members of the T.A.C later falsely claimed were long lost ancestors. So, here are the facts about these two skulls.

The skull the T.A.C has described as Lanne’s skull is recorded in the University of Edinburgh in 1888 as a skull donated to the University by Dr Lloyd Oldmeadow with the collection identification of XXX2. This skull was given to Dr Oldmeadow by the son of William Crowther, who had believed it was of an Aboriginal male, possibly Lanne’s. In 1992 this was debunked by two eminent Academics who identified the skull was not Lanne’s (Brocklebank, L.M & Kaufman, M) in their published research paper titled “An investigation into the identity of a skull in the Department of Anatomy Collection, University of Edinburgh, marked as XXX2”, believed to be that of William Lanney, World Archaeological Bulletin 6: 70-5. Further analysis by William White Howells, Professor of Anthropology (Harvard University) concluded the skull was in fact belonging to a woman.

With great fanfare, Greg Lehman of the T.A.C later announced that the skull had been returned to Tasmania and was buried on Lanne’s tribal land. This was despite the University of Edinburgh advising that their records did not indicate this skull was Lanne’s at all, and as is well known this was not Lanne’s lands. But this is just one skull in this sordid story.

The second skull that the T.A.C have tried to convince the public is that of an ancient ancestor, came to light in 2014 when the T.A.C created a story that a female skull allegedly belonging to “Non.gar.re.ker”, who was killed on Robbins Island in 1830, had been located in a Berlin collection and was eventually brought back to Tasmania. The T.A.C insisted the skull must be that of Non.gar.re.ker due to a mention of the death in the “Friendly Mission” by Adolphus Schayer. What makes this unbelievable is that Schayer was not recorded as arriving in Tasmania until 1831, and, in yet another anomaly, the customs of the Aboriginal People of the Peerapper Clan at the time was to cremate their dead. The possibility of the skull belonging to Non.gar.re.ker is unlikely as there is no evidence that the skull could ever be identified as such. Despite this, Nunami Sculthorpe-Green made a statement in the Mercury Newspaper at the time claiming that she was a descendant from Robbins Island, which is completely fictitious and unsupported with any facts or evidence.

So, what we now have is two skulls, complete with false identities, buried in the North West by the T.A.C who appear to be desperately trying to establish links with the North West of Tasmania. This raises some important questions for the Aboriginal People of North West Tasmania who refute any attempts by the T.A.C to subject the North West to a contrived story and opportunistic rewriting of history.

For the North West Aboriginal Custodians in the area we simply ask these questions:

1. Who authorised the burials of these false remains in the North West? There was never any consultation with the Elders of the North West or Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation regarding these burials. This is despite the requirement under the Tasmania Aboriginal Laws to consult with the local Aboriginal People.

2. What attempts has anyone in the T.A.C or the State Government made to authenticate these remains or tribal affiliations, especially when such provenance is disputed by fact?

3. Why has the Hobart City Council simply accepted such nonsense without any attempts to verify the allegations proffered by the T.A.C without a single shred of historical fact. The Family of Crowther have already articulated their concerns to the Hobart City Council that this entire fiasco is so hotly contested?

There is a great deal more factual evidence that is available, we don’t attempt to shorten the facts simply start the conversation. But there is much more to tell the Public about the T.A.C, in our next release we will uncover the true story of Fanny Cochrane Smith and how the very essence of claims of Aboriginality by the T.A.C is yet another great story of the facts getting in the way of their ‘story’.