Genocide, coupled with making objects
from human-skin,
was a charged made at the Nazis. But it appears that some
of us Brits had a penchant for making human-skin objects,
when we perpetrated the most total genocide in history
was a charged made at the Nazis. But it appears that some
of us Brits had a penchant for making human-skin objects,
when we perpetrated the most total genocide in history
The last
four full-blooded Tasmanians, Truganini
on the right,
Willian
Lanner next to her. Photographed in the
1860s
Jared Diamond writes about the treatment
of the last ever Tasmanians
"By 1869 only Truganini, one other woman, and one man remained alive. These last three Tasmanians attracted the interest of scientists, who believed them to be a missing link between humans and apes. Hence when the last man, one William Lanner, died in 1869, competing teams of physicians, led by Dr George Stokell from the Royal Society of Tasmania and Dr W.L. Crowther from the Royal College of Surgeons, alternately dug up and reburied Lanner's body, cutting off parts of it and stealing them back and forth from each other. Dr Crowther cut off the head, Dr Stokell the hands and feet, and someone else the ears and nose, as souvenirs. Dr Stokell made a tobacco pouch out of Lanner's skin.
Before Truganini, the last woman, died in 1876, she was terrified of similar post-mortem mutilation and asked in vain to be buried at sea. As she had feared, the Royal Society dug up her skeleton and put it on public display in the Tasmanian Museum, where it remained until 1947. In that year the Museum finally yielded to complaints of poor taste and transferred Truganini's skeleton to a room where only scientists could view it. That too stimulated complaints of poor taste. Finally, in 1976—the centenary year of Truganini's death—her skeleton was cremated despite the Museum's objections, and her ashes were scattered at sea as she had requested."
