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Normanby WomanPrint Page Print this page

12-November-2015
12-November-2015

Photographs supplied by Ian Bevege

The cross commemorates the Normanby Woman.  

There is some doubt as to whether this woman was a European living with the aboriginals or a pale skinned aboriginal woman.  This is not uncommon in the Torres Strait, Papua New Guinea or elsewhere in Melanesia.  

She was enticed away from an Aboriginal Camp by a local storekeeper, mine manager and constable as she was supposed to be a European woman.  The Aborigines attacked and demanded her release.  Shots were fired and in the commotion the woman’s horse bolted and threw her. She died of injuries a short time later on 30th August 1887 in the Cooktown Hospital.

At the inquest she was described as European, however, Cooktown’s medical practitioner Dr Helmuth Kortum stated that "she was apparently aged 60 years or more, her head was that of an Aboriginal woman and he was of no doubt that she belonged to an Aboriginal race from this part of the country.”

 

Location

Address:Charlotte & John Streets, Cooktown Cemetery, Cooktown, 4895
State:QLD
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -15.477346
Long: 145.241761
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Cross
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Indigenous

Dedication

Front Inscription

             IN COMMEMORATION
         of the NORMANBY WOMAN

Who Was Buried In The Vicinity Of This Ground In 1880.  
No One Knows Where She Came From.. Or Who She Was.. 
   ...She Took Her Secret With Her.

• She Was A European Woman, Brought Up By The Normanby 
Aboriginal Tribe... (60 km S.W. Of Cooktown)
• She Was Captured By The European Authorities, And Brought
To "Civilisation" In Which She Could Not Survive....

 

Source: MA
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au