There is something primordial about a Tasmanian Aboriginal maireener. There’s something there that refuses to be diluted by colonialism, golobalisim or cultural imperialism. Given the colonial appropriation of, the sanctioned plunder of, and the global commodification of these ‘appropriated necklaces’ by the thousands, the question is, is all that tantamount to the theft of identity and innocence?
On the one hand, appropriated Tasmanian shell necklaces are exactly what they are, mere shadows of the maireeners they mimic. They are simply a ‘commodity’ analogous to grain before it becomes bread – cake even. You cannot steal, subsume or overtake history.
Then again, when a shell necklace is understood as “a flapper’s Art Deco necklace” on eBAY, somehow in that disconnected naivety there is a glimmer of innocence. Despite the cliché, Truganini’s maireeners are right there in all their glory waiting to be known for what they are.
Aided and abetted by the spectre of Truganini’s persistence in various histories, contemporary Aboriginal maireener-makers have taken back their cultural presence from the colonial appropriation of, and commodification of, their ‘necklace maireeners’. Curiously, and somewhat counter intuitively, eBAY and the Internet have turned out to be agencies for the reclamation and deblanding of euphamistic Truganini necklaces that carry her memory.
Undoubtedly, the ways in which Truganini’s necklaces are envisioned is changing. Whatever else, her necklaces, those that mimic hers and those made today as a celebration of the cultural continuum of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, each in their own way are quintessential exemplars of Tasmaniana. There are stories there that time refuses to sweep away.
Ray Norman Launceston, June 2010
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