Walyer

Walyer , actually Tarenorerer (* around 1800, † 1831 ), was the leader of a rebel group of Tasmanian Aborigines who fought the British invaders of the island.

biography

Walyer was born near Emu Bay around 1800 and belonged to the Tasmanian people of the Tommeginner . She is also known under the name Tarenorerer or Tarereenore , which means something like "wife of a sealer". Sources, however, disagree about how Walyer came to the sealers. Some report that she was caught by the sealers. Others suggest that she was kidnapped by a tribe of Tasmanian Aborigines from the Port Sorell region and sold or prostituted to British sealers. Walyer used her time as a sex slave to learn the English language and how to handle firearms.

In 1828 she returned to northern Tasmania and gathered a group of women and men around her, inspired by the desire to take revenge on the British invaders and their tormentors. The self-proclaimed savior of the Tasmanian Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson , who narrated a multitude of ethnographic facts, described their hatred as follows: “She liked a luta tawin as she did a black snake” (Eng .: “Her hatred of a white man was greater than the one on a black snake ”). Under her guidance, the warriors trained to attack the white settlers. Walyer taught her followers how to handle guns and their weak points; so it was z. B. to take advantage of the moment of reloading the rifle, in which the enemies were defenseless.

From George Augustus Robinson we learn that Walyer was called an Amazon by the British sealers who organized attacks on white settlers and their cattle. She cursed the settlers from a hilltop and asked them to approach her and her group so that their spears pierced them. Robinson himself attempted to arrest Walyer on his reservation on Flinders Island . Walyer and her followers were able to bypass Robinson's "capture attempts", however; Robinson himself narrowly escaped an attack by the Tasmanian rebel group in 1830. However, it is also reported that Walyer was not very squeamish about Aboriginal rival tribes. Some sources indicate that she killed members of other groups.

But Walyer's claim to leadership was questioned by competitors on his own side; together with her sisters and brothers, she escaped to Port Sorell. There, however, they were picked up by sealers who took them to Hunter Island and then to the Whitsunday Islands (also called Bird Island), where they were supposed to catch "mutton birds" (German: dark shearwaters ) and seals. She was eventually married to John Williams, also known as Norfolk Island Jack , under the name "Mary Ann" . She lived on Forsyth Island with him and other Aborigines .

Their hatred of the whites was still unbroken. In December 1830, she planned an attack on one of the sealers, but it was thwarted by Robinson's agents. Then she was brought to Weddell Island (then Swan Island; Eng .: Swan Island); her identity was eventually revealed after she was betrayed by her dog "Whiskey" and some Aboriginal women. Robinson was very satisfied with this successful coup: In his opinion, with the arrest of the rebel, the “barbaric activities and aggression” would finally come to an end; Peace and quiet could return to the reserve areas. He judged the capture to be a stroke of luck that stopped this woman's murderous career.

After her capture, Walyer was isolated from the rest of the Aborigines, as Robinson feared she might rekindle a revolt. In 1831 he noted in his diary that “almost all of the calamities” that had befallen the various settlements came from Walyer and her fighters.

Then the sources diverge again. The Australian Dictionary According ill Walyer after moving to Vansittart Iceland (then "Gun Carriage") of influenza and died on June 5, 1831. In Probelatter instead says is that Walyer managed to escape in 1832 and again covered the area with terror. Allegedly, she was finally murdered from behind by another Aborigine with a spear; but this report is not proven.

Literature on the subject

• Vicki maikutena Matson-Green, Tarenorerer [Walyer] (c. 1800 - 1831) , in: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volume, Melbourne 2005, p. 376.
• NJB Plomley, Friendly Mission (Hobart 1966)
• D. Lowe, Forgotten Rebels (Melbourne 1994)
• H. Felton, Adapting & Resisting , book 6 of Living With the Land (Hobart 1991)
• L. Ryan, The Aboriginal Tasmanians (Sydney 1996); Papers and Proceedings (Tasmanian Historical Research Association), vol 5, no 4, 1957, p. 73, and vol 23, no 2, June 1976, p. 26.
• Matthew Kneale: English Passengers , London, Hamish Hamilton 2000, ISBN 0-241-14068-4 (original edition)
• Matthew Kneale: English Passengers , Stuttgart; Munich, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2000, ISBN 3-421-05274-3 (German translation)

swell

1. ^ GA Robinson, Journal, 30/12/1830
2. ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography
3. ↑ PROBELATTER, a 'native', quoted in GA Robinson, Journal, 01/24/1834

Web links

• Walyer (Tarenorerer) on "Australian Dictionary of Biography"