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'Tarenootairer (c.1806–58) was still a child when a band of white sealers bound her and forced her onto a boat. From there unfolded a life of immense cruelty inflicted by her colonial captors. As with so many Indigenous women of her time, even today the historical record of her life remains a scant thread embroidered with half-truths and pro-colonial propaganda.
'But Joel Stephen Birnie grew up hearing the true stories about Tarenootairer, his earliest known ancestral grandmother, and he was keen to tell his family’s history without the colonial lens. Tarenootairer had a fierce determination to survive that had a profound effect on the course of Tasmanian history. Her daughters, Mary Ann Arthur (c.1820–71) and Fanny Cochrane Smith (c.1832–1905), shared her activism: Mary Ann’s fight for autonomy influenced contemporary Indigenous politics, while Fanny famously challenged the false declaration of Indigenous Tasmanian extinction.
'Together, these three extraordinary women fought for the Indigenous communities they founded and sparked a tradition of social justice that continues in Birnie’s family today.
'From the early Bass Strait sealing industries to George Augustus Robinson’s ‘conciliation’ missions, to Aboriginal internment on Flinders Island and at Oyster Cove, My People’s Songs is both a constellation of the damage wrought by colonisation and a testament to the power of family. Revelatory, intimate and illuminating, it does more than assert these women’s place in our nation’s story – it restores to them a voice and a cultural context.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Jennifer Bird Review of Joel Stephen Birnie, My People’s Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Biography and History , no. 8 2024;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography 'Colonisation has disrupted Indigenous communities’ traditional cultural practices across the globe. It has changed how Indigenous peoples have engaged with the world and imposed Western ideals upon them. Their languages were restricted or banned, and many were physically removed from their culture and all it represented. Contemplating the process of colonisation over hundreds of years in Australia and systematic government-enforced child removal practices brings into question what constitutes family for Indigenous communities. Why are the genealogies of Australia’s Indigenous peoples expected to be proved by linear bloodline? This proof seeks to legitimise or delegitimise individuals’ links to their birthright, culture and Country. There is no scope for understanding how these practices may contest Indigenous community cultural beliefs, nor to believe colonial documents may record information in error.'(Introduction)
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[Review] My People's Songs: How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 47 no. 3 2023; (p. 614-616)
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography'Joel Birnie’s achievement in My People’s Songs is to show that Tasmanian Aboriginal people have long had to assert themselves against and with a colonial narrative (mingling sorrow, triumph and self-criticism) that Aboriginal Tasmanians had been wiped out. From the late 1960s, politicians and public servants began to relinquish the idea that only those deemed “full-bloods” are “Aboriginal”, abandoning blood quantum in favour of personal identification. In the 2021 census, 30,186 residents of Tasmania identified themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, a 28 per cent increase from the 2016 census.' (Introduction)
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The Matriarchs
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Inside Story , November 2022;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography'How three extraordinary Tasmanian Aboriginal women fought for their people'
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The Book Corner : Reappropriating Stolen Memory
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 11 September vol. 32 no. 18 2022;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography
-
The Book Corner : Reappropriating Stolen Memory
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 11 September vol. 32 no. 18 2022;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography -
[Review] My People's Songs: How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 47 no. 3 2023; (p. 614-616)
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography'Joel Birnie’s achievement in My People’s Songs is to show that Tasmanian Aboriginal people have long had to assert themselves against and with a colonial narrative (mingling sorrow, triumph and self-criticism) that Aboriginal Tasmanians had been wiped out. From the late 1960s, politicians and public servants began to relinquish the idea that only those deemed “full-bloods” are “Aboriginal”, abandoning blood quantum in favour of personal identification. In the 2021 census, 30,186 residents of Tasmania identified themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, a 28 per cent increase from the 2016 census.' (Introduction)
-
The Matriarchs
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Inside Story , November 2022;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography'How three extraordinary Tasmanian Aboriginal women fought for their people'
-
Jennifer Bird Review of Joel Stephen Birnie, My People’s Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania
2024
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Biography and History , no. 8 2024;
— Review of My People's Songs : How an Indigenous Family Survived Colonial Tasmania 2022 single work biography 'Colonisation has disrupted Indigenous communities’ traditional cultural practices across the globe. It has changed how Indigenous peoples have engaged with the world and imposed Western ideals upon them. Their languages were restricted or banned, and many were physically removed from their culture and all it represented. Contemplating the process of colonisation over hundreds of years in Australia and systematic government-enforced child removal practices brings into question what constitutes family for Indigenous communities. Why are the genealogies of Australia’s Indigenous peoples expected to be proved by linear bloodline? This proof seeks to legitimise or delegitimise individuals’ links to their birthright, culture and Country. There is no scope for understanding how these practices may contest Indigenous community cultural beliefs, nor to believe colonial documents may record information in error.'(Introduction)
Awards
- 2023 shortlisted Educational Publishing Awards Australia — Scholarly Book of the Year
- 2023 shortlisted Ernest Scott Prize
- Tasmania,
