WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following article contains images of deceased persons.
This Sunday, the 8th of March is International Women’s Day. It’s a day celebrated all over the world when all women are recognised for their achievements – both great and small.
Speaking of IWD, listen to the GOAT team chat to Sandra Sully about the importance of using your voice on It’s Been A Big Day For…below:
While there are countless women both here, and overseas, that are at the forefront of improving gender equality and fighting against sexual discrimination and injustice, there are just as many trailblazers who have sadly passed away.
These women paved the way and smashed glass ceilings for generations to come and deserve just as much recognition this International Women’s Day.
One of those people is Fanny Cochrane Smith, a proud Aboriginal woman who is widely considered to be the last surviving fluent speaker of the Tasmanian language.
According to Amnesty International, Fanny Cochrane Smith was taken away from her parents at just five years old and orphaned at the Queen’s Orphanage in Hobart. She spent her childhood in domestic service, but once she gained her freedom it reportedly became apparent that she had “an entrepreneurial flair.”
After settling in Nicholls Rivulet with her husband William Smith, the ABC reports that Cochrane Smith “became an esteemed community member and a trailblazer for her people.”
Between 1899 and 1903, recordings of Fanny Cochrane Smith singing and speaking in the Tasmanian Aboriginal Language were made on wax cylinders and preserved through TMAG. They have since been officially inscribed on UNESCO’s Australian Memory of the World Register at a ceremony in Canberra.
“She was a strong woman, a woman who stood up and spoke about what was going on,” Fanny’s descendant, Palawa elder Rodney Dillon told ABC. “Bearing in mind she would have known of the atrocities of the things that happened in the past to her families… She was singing about what was important to her as an Aboriginal person.”
Amnesty International describes Fanny Cochrane Smith as “an influential matriarch for her family members who maintain those traditions to this day.”
Fannny Cochrane Smith passed away on the 24th of February 1905 at 70 years old, but the legacy she leaves behind for Indigenous people, and Indigenous females in particular, will always be respected and remembered.
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