IDNO

LS.109225.TC1

Description

On Catalogue Card: "Tasmania.
Preserved head of man (front & side views) (Roy. Coll. o Superius, Dublin).
(Presented by W. J. F. Clarke c. 1845-6)
'Shinery'." [manuscript in ink]

Documentary photograph of the human remains of John Shinall (also known as Shiney), a Mumirimina man of Carlton, Tasmania. Shinall's remains were repatriated to Tasmania in 1990. [JD 24/10/2018]

Place

Oceania Australasia; Europe British Isles; Australia; Ireland; Tasmania; Dublin

Cultural Affliation

Mumirimina

Named Person

John Shinall, also known as Shiney

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Ling Roth, Henry

Date

1896

Collection Name

Teaching Slide CollectionHaddon Unmounted Collection

Source

?Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Lantern Slide Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Image published in 'The Aborigines of Tasmania'
by Henry Ling Roth, Marion E. Butler, James Backhouse Walker, John George Garson, Edward Burnett Tylor. (F. King & Sons, 1899), p.41, and captioned: "Head of a Tasmanian known as 'Shiney' preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, presented by Dr John Frederick Clarke, F.R.C.S.I., Inspector General of Hospitals, about 1845-6. 'This head has been placed in spirit which evaporated, and the air being very dry no decomposition took place.' Photographed in 1896." [JD 24/10/2018]

Named Person: In 'Mumirimina people of the Lower Jordan River Valley', by Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, 12 September 2010; April 2012, is the following biographical information: "Shiney (John Shinall, Aboriginal name unknown), born about 1809 in the Carlton area of the Mumirimina, lived a tribal life with his family until land grants were given in that area after 1812, after which he lived with a white family; it is not known what happened to his own family. He worked as a farm labourer and was unique among the Mumirimina of his time in being able to live peaceably in the area of his birth all his life – although this was only possible at the cost of losing his traditional way of life among his own people. That benign acceptance by white society was based entirely on his usefulness as a labourer – after his death in 1839 his body was mutilated because of his race and his severed head preserved in alcohol was only eventually returned from Dublin University to Aborigines in 1990." [Information provided by Dr Gaye Sculthorpe, Curator & Section Head, Oceania, The British Museum, JD 24/10/2018]