ABORIGINAL WEST AUSTRALIANA –

Yagan Square in Central Perth [Western Australia] recognises Yagan, the son of Midgegooroo, the leader of the Beeliar tribe, a territory on the southern side of the Canning River and within the greater metropolitan area. He was born about 1800 but remembered only for his brief interaction with the British settlers who began taking up land at the Swan River in 1829. Yagan’s recorded history is limited to the years 1831 to 1833 yet since then, as seen in the bibliography filling the last pages of this booklet, he has generated more books, articles and letters to the Press than any other Indigenous Australian of the 19th Century. In the final months of his life he was described as the Wallace of his Age, a reference to the Scottish Patriot, William Wallace whose head was displayed in the London.

Yagan was shot for a reward by a boy he had welcomed as a friend and the preserved head was taken to England in 1834. The second part of this booklet covers the 20th century search for Yagan’s skull and its discovery and triumphant return to Western Australia.

The author, Dr Neville Green, first read about Yagan in 1961 and the following year completed a short thesis on the Aborigines of the Swan and Canning Rivers; Yagan’s territory. In the years since Aboriginal history has been a life study and in 2012 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his contribution to Aboriginal history and Aboriginal education.

• x, 53 pages : illustrations (some colour), one map, portraits (some colour) ; 22 cm. First Edition #060426

• First Nations (AIATSIS) Subject:

  • History – Biographies – Indigenous
  • Death – Human remains – Removal
  • Stories and motifs – Cultural heroes
  • Death – Human remains – Reburial
  • Settlement and contacts – Settlers
  • History – Battles
  • Settlement and contacts – Colonisation – 1788-1850
  • Law enforcement – Prisons – Prisoners – Men
  • History – Genealogy and family history
  • Law enforcement – Punishment – Executions
  • History – Frontier conflict – Western Australia
  • History – Frontier conflict – Leaders
  • Cultural heritage – Repatriation – Human remains
  • Settlement and contacts – Government settlements, reserves
  • Race relations – Violent – Massacres, murders, poisonings etc. – To 1900
  • Noongar / Nyungar / Nyungah people (W41) (WA SI50)
  • Djarlgarra / Canning River (SW WA SI50-02)
  • Swan River (SW WA SH50-14)
  • Heirisson Island (SW WA SH50-14)
  • Fremantle (Perth SW WA SI50-02)

  Subject:

  • Yagan -1833
  • Aboriginal Australians — Western Australia — Swan River Region — Biography
  • Human remains (Archaeology) — Repatriation — Western Australia
  • Aboriginal Australians — Western Australia — Swan River Region — History
  • Restorative justice — Western Australia
  • Australian