All language subtitles for Stuff.The.British.Stole.S01E06.480p.x264-mSD.Eng-Hi

[pensive music playing]

The world is in shock.

[marc] August 31st, 1997.

On a night of tragedy...

[marc] if you were alive
and old enough,

I promise,

You will remember
where you were on this day.

[newsreader] diana,
princess of wales, is dead,

And britain is
in mourning.

The 36-year-old princess
was killed

In a high-speed car chase
in paris

Early Sunday morning,
australian time.

[marc] newspapers, magazines,

They were all screaming
with headlines.

But for one community
here in perth

In western australia,

This day

Means something else entirely.

[pensive music continues]

[esandra] I remember
going to the airport,

And there was just
a wave of our people.

[polite clapping]

To see all the colours,
red, black, and yellow.

You hear the cries,

And it's something
you don't forget.

They lost their daughter,
and we brought home our son.

[marc] there were hundreds
of people wailing

In this very airport,

But, they weren't crying
for a princess.

They were crying
because something,

Someone, for years,

Had been missing.

[theme music playing]

[marc] in the days
of the british empire,

Things were taken.

They usually ended up
in museums and galleries

With polite plaques.

My name is marc fennell,

And this is
the not-so-polite story

Of how they really got there.

[pensive music playing]

Welcome to perth,
western australia,

Home to the indigenous
noongar people

For thousands of years.

And this place is
the beginning and the end

Of one of the wildest

Archaeological
detective stories.

[hannah] when he
turned his back...

[ted] he was shot
by a young bloke.

[hannah] ...He thought
were his friends.

[ted] the bullet went into
the back of the skull.

[gunshot echoes]

[marc] this is the story
of a leader

Who stood against an empire,

Only to find himself lost,

Right at the heart
of great britain.

And that man is why I'm here
to meet this woman,

Vanessa corunna.

-Kaya.
-[marc] hello.

[marc] like a lot
of noongar mob,

Vanessa can draw a bloodline

Right back to that warrior.

My connection to yagan
is through my dad.

He'd be one of my
grand-grand-grand-pops.

-Grandfathers, yeah. Yeah.
-Yeah, right.

[solemn music playing]

[marc] yes, yagan.

Born in the late 1700s,
yagan was a noongar leader

At a crucial time.

[indistinct chatter]

[marc] a time when the water
brought pale-skinned visitors

To noongar land.

The british.

[music continues]

[marc] in the beginning,
the noongar were welcoming.

But the settlers started
carving up the land

As they saw it.

Suddenly, fences like this

Start popping up all around

As the british start dividing
up the land like this.

Yeah, completely different.

They brought in laws that
restricted our people

From actually going
into places.

Yeah, look, I think
it would've been very difficult

For our people
because, you know,

We want to go into
our country,

And hunt and do
what we used to do.

-We know that's our land.
-Mm.

Why can't we
go in there anymore?

Who are these people?

[marc] and that is
when the reality

Of colonisation, invasion,

Starts to be realised
by everyone.

[vanessa] our people did
put up a big resistance

Against this colonisation.

And then we see that

There is these early pockets
of conflict

That take place,
and killings.

[marc] if you go
flicking through the records,

It seems like
the first conflict

That's recorded, at least,
by the british,

Is that noongar men
take potatoes

From some of these
british farms.

That, like, that's how they see
this conflict starting.

That is so ridiculous.

I mean, the conflict started

When they came in
and took the land,

That's where it started.

And you can't say that
it started over a potato.

No way.

Settlers kill noongar people

For what they perceive to be
trespassing and taking food,

Which, in yagan's noongar law,
demands a response.

[vanessa] you know, with yagan,
it was an eye for an eye.

And so, if someone in his
clan group had been killed,

Then there was
a need to give payback,

And...

And that happened.

[marc] when the british,
at the time,

Write about yagan,

They call him an outlaw.

-Mm.
-They call him a murderer.

They're labels that
they've put on him,

But we know that what he did

Was the right thing
for his people.

[marc] and so
what did the british do?

[vanessa] well, they put out
a price on his head,

Really, don't they?

[marc] by his law,
noongar law, he's done right.

But according to british law,

Yagan now
finds himself a criminal.

And so, you have
this situation

Of two laws on one land
with one man.

[marc] and that is
why we're here.

[hannah] so we're headed to
the old court house in perth.

This was the original
courthouse,

And apparently also the first
public building here.

[marc] dr hannah mcglade

Is a noongar woman
and human rights lawyer.

My interest is
aboriginal justice,

And that's what I've done

Using the law
any which way we can

To fight for
aboriginal justice.

[marc] for hannah,
the story of yagan

Has been misrepresented
for a very long time.

Hi, welcome, hannah.
I'm natasha fenner.

-Hi, I'm marc. Nice to meet you.
-Hi, I'm...

[marc] historian natasha fenner
is opening up archives for us.

[natasha] okay, I've
pulled out some documents

For you both today
to have a look at.

[marc] and these pages reveal,

Really, a war with yagan

And those closest to him
at the heart of it.

[clamour]

The violence between
the british

And these noongar men
escalates.

Yagan's brother is killed,

And his father, midgegooroo,
is captured by the british.

[natasha] and they
blindfold him,

Tie him to the door,

And he's executed by
firing squad

By the military.

Yagan does hear
of his father's death,

And he vows to take revenge.

[hannah] I think in this story
that I'm reading here,

Yagan has said, basically,

That he has speared
three white men,

And he's saying,
my brother was killed,

His father was killed.

He's doing what he had to do
by aboriginal law.

[marc] what actually happens
to yagan in the end?

There was a bounty
put on his head.

He came across
two young men that he knew,

Some settlers,

And he was friendly to them.

[marc] they were
two teenagers, boys.

[hannah] and I never
forget this growing up,

We don't forget this.

When he turned his back,

That's when they took
the opportunity

To shoot him in the back.

And for yagan,
who was a warrior,

It's shocking
that he was killed

In such a cowardly way.

[pensive music playing]

[marc] but in the end,

The british didn't just
take yagan's life.

They took something else.

[birds crying]

[hannah] his body
was violated.

His head was paraded
around the colony.

And it was really
to send a strong message

Of who were the superior race--

Apparently,
the white colonists--

And to send a message
to the noongar people

Not to resist,
not to fight as yagan did.

[marc] yagan's
decapitated head

Became a brutal trophy
for the british.

But where exactly
were yagan's remains taken?

That is a mystery

That would take over
a century to solve.

[marc] the mystery
of the missing head

Of the indigenous
leader yagan

Might never have been
solved at all

Were it not for the obsession
of one person.

-Hello. How are you?
-Hi.

Good, thank you.
You want to come in?

[marc] this is
esandra colbung.

Her dad was
noongar leader ken colbung.

[marc] so where does yagan
and ken's story intersect?

[esandra] probably even
before my time.

[both laughing]

I would say.

I grew up just hearing about
yagan constantly.

It's always been
a part of my upbringing.

Yagan's always been that part.

[indigenous-style
music playing]

[marc] ken spent decades

Amassing any information
or records

On what happened
to yagan's head.

It was actually 30 years
of voluntary research

That he'd done, specifically,
to find yagan.

I believe that the spirit
of his old father

Or one of his relatives
could be inside of me,

And I'm, probably,
I'm the reincarnation

Of that spiritual being.

[marc] it's decades.

It's decades of his life

That he's dedicated to this.

Was there a sense that yagan's
remains would never come home?

Like that, that they just
would never find it?

I think there was
a little bit of it.

But... My dad being who he was,

Would never let that up.

It was something that he just
saw and he visioned,

And that was it.

[marc] but ken wasn't alone
in his quest.

He had help.

Back in the 1990s,

Cressida fforde
and lyndon ormond-parker

Were two researchers
living in london.

And that's when they were
put in contact with ken.

[cressida]
ken had a big file.

Like, he'd been
doing his work

As much as he possibly could,

Using all these ways
that were available to him.

And he never wavered
from his search for yagan.

[marc]
and that search paid off

When one day, ken colbung got
a crucial piece of evidence.

A british newspaper clipping.

[cressida] a clipping
saying that yagan's head

Had been on display

At the surgeon-antiquarian
thomas pettigrew's house

In london.

[marc] just months
after his death,

Yagan's head reportedly appears

In a house
of an english doctor,

This thomas pettigrew.

It was brought to pettigrew
and the uk

From western australia

By a lieutenant, robert dale.

[cressida] lieutenant dale,

Who was trying
to sell yagan's head,

And as part of that,
he had given it to pettigrew,

Really as a
"do you want to buy?"

[marc] this surgeon,
thomas pettigrew,

Is one of the weirder figures
in british medical history.

He used to throw
private parties in the 1800s

Where he unwrapped
egyptian mummies for science.

Now, pettigrew had yagan's
head studied in detail,

But as for buying it...

So pettigrew clearly didn't
want to buy yagan's head,

Or didn't want to buy it
for the amount

-That dale was wanting.
-Right.

So then the question is,
where is dale?

[marc] thanks to
family diaries,

They find that dale ends up
in the city of liverpool.

But does he bring
yagan's head with him too?

He couldn't sell the...
Yagan's head.

What's he going to do with it?

So then the first
obvious thing is,

You give it
to the local museum.

[marc] that would
be the liverpool museum,

And so off cressida went
to go ask around there.

[cressida]
I was talking with

One of the curators at the time,

And this wonderful woman
said, "well, actually,

I think we buried some remains
in the 1960s

In the local cemetery.

Let me go
and pull you the file."

And in that file,
there was correspondence,

Administrative correspondence
in the 1960s,

About the need to bury
the head of yagan,

Chief of swan river,
in the everton cemetery.

It was pretty extraordinary.
[laughing]

-A pretty extraordinary moment.
-What goes through your head

When you see that,
when you finally see this name?

I was blown away.

I was like, "oh my god,
I've got to tell ken."

I think I ran out
of the museum

And I went to a, you know,

'cause there was
no mobile phones.

I went to a phone box with it,

And my coins,
you can imagine.

It was just joy all around,

Just to see how dad reacted
just with that.

But it's a sense of relief,

Of, we're getting
that little bit closer.

-Mm.
-To getting him home, and...

The healing process
for everyone really, you know?

[pensive music playing]

[marc] but in
everton cemetery,

Liverpool, England,

There's no gravestone
for a yagan.

No map.

And cressida has no leads.

[cressida] we decided that
the only thing to do

Was actually go
and talk to the gravediggers.

-How'd that go?
-I knocked on the door

Of a... [laughs]

Of a pre-fabricated office.

They were temporarily in,
and I said,

"can I talk to the...

Can I talk
to whoever's in charge,"

Or something like that.

And I said, I said, "look,

I'm looking for
a museum box

That was buried here
in the 1960s."

And he went, "oh, you mean
the two aboriginal heads

And the peruvian mummy,
cressida."

And I went,
"yes. I do actually."

And he said, "yeah, I know
exactly where they are."

-What?!
-Yeah, yeah.

And I think he either went out

Or he had in his office
a grave plan,

So this is the working plan
that the gravediggers use.

And he took it out, and

Annotated on the side
of the grave plan was,

"buried in
grave number 296."

And I was completely, you know,

"oh my gosh. This is..."
I don't know.

I'm speechless.
I don't know how to...

I don't know how to...
It was extraordinary.

[marc] but the thing is,

When they did find
where he was buried in the uk,

He wasn't buried
down there alone.

[sombre music playing]

[marc] missing for decades,

The head of
the indigenous leader yagan

Has been found
in a british graveyard.

But there's a problem.

[lyndon] when yagan
was buried,

It was a pauper's grave,

And, of course,
they buried other people.

You weren't just buried
by yourself.

There was stillborn babies
that was buried above yagan.

[reporter] the problem is,
it's now beneath the bodies

Of 22 babies who died at birth,

And some families have
refused permission

For the remains to be moved.

[lyndon] then hence became
a long process

Of trying to lobby
the british government

For an exhumation licence.

We know that
the end of the road is near

And that we will return
with yagan's head to australia.

The british government refused
the exhumation licence request

Because there were these
stillborn children buried.

Ken, he was using
all of his skill

To speak at the highest levels
to state that

This was an incredibly important
thing that would happen.

Yagan's head must return
to australia with me,

And I'm not going to leave
without it.

[esandra]
and that's who dad was.

He made sure that
if he was going to

Follow through with a task,
he did it.

[marc] ken actually tried
to get permission

From the families of all of
those stillborn babies.

Ultimately, to no avail.

But what if there was
another way?

[bright music playing]

They decide to access
the grave from the side,

And use survey equipment
to sense the metal hinges

Of yagan's box,
and then extract him.

[cressida] and they started
very early in the morning,

I think about four o'clock
in the morning.

They emptied
the grave next door.

Then, they began
retrieving the box,

And then found yagan.

[marc] they did a forensic
report, and weirdly,

Thanks to thomas pettigrew's
skull studies of yagan,

They could confirm
they'd finally found him.

[esandra] that's actually
at the grave site.

[marc] that's the grave site?

That's the grave site for yagan.

Wow.

Yeah.

[ken] I feel grateful,

I feel happy,

And I'm awaiting now

To take him back

To all the other members
of the tribal groups,

Who will also now be so happy.

[marc] a delegation
of noongar elders

Travelled to the uk
to escort yagan home.

And among them was one woman.

Mingli mcglade, who,
as it turns out,

Is the mum of hannah mcglade.

-Hi, mum. Marc's here.
-[marc] hello.

Good to see you.

Mum's like
this nice old lady now,

But this is not the mum
that I knew at that time.

I'm sorry. She was fierce.

-Yeah?
-And determined and very strong.

[marc] so, when you first
came in contact

With yagan's remains
after over a century,

What did you do?

[mingli] well,
I'd taken sand from

About near the area
where he was buried,

And took it to london

And put it on his head

And said,
"this is your country."

[marc] mingli held him
until the moment

They walked through
those gates at the airport.

[hannah] that was another

Incredibly momentous occasion

Of hundreds of noongars
at the airport.

[polite clapping]

[esandra] seeing them
come through the gates

With the box
and the buka and that,

It was a pretty overwhelming
time for everybody.

I guess it was
a sense of relief.

Because we've brought him back
and he's at rest now.

He can be at peace.

Before, there wasn't any peace.

[marc] with the return
of yagan to noongar country,

The job of holding him
until he was finally buried

Fell to the wilkes family.

This is ian and his father,
ted wilkes.

[ted] and when I brought him up
for the burial that final day,

I remember touching him
and going into the swan river,

And putting my hand
into the water and saying,

"yagan's back. Hey,
yagan's back everybody."

I saw things that were just
a little bit different

On that morning,

And we buried him there
that day.

[esandra] sadly, my father
didn't get to see that

Because it was only six months
prior that we lost him

From when we buried yagan.

-After all this...
-[esandra] yeah.

He didn't get to see
him reburied.

No, no, which was quite sad,

But, you know,

I know that their spirits
would've been connected

Somewhere along the line.

[esandra laughs]

[marc] why do you think
he took that, I guess,

That mission,
and took it so seriously,

And kind of committed to it?

Like, what was it about him?

[esandra] I think probably
because of where he came from.

[marc] yeah.

[esandra] so, as a child,

He never knew his father.

He never got to meet his mum.

He lost his mum
when he was a baby.

So, he's always understood
and learned from that,

That the importance of keeping
those cultural connections.

It was one part of him
that he never let go,

Even though he was
taken from it,

He'd always hang onto it
and ensured that part

Was still within him.

[river water running]

[calm music playing]

[marc] there used to be
this saying,

"the sun never sets
on the british empire."

And, in a sense, it's true.

The impact of the events
here, the pain of it,

It never really ends.

Instead, it reverberates
throughout history,

Through families,

Through generations.

And yet, today
on the mouth of that river

That brought so much
unwelcome strife,

Noongar people still stand.

[trevor] I'm quite privileged
to stand here with you

And welcome you
to this country,

And hoping you have a safe
journey on our country.

Thank you.
Thanks for having me.

[sticks clicking]

[man singing in
indigenous language]

[soft music playing]

[trevor] at the end
of the day, it's our job,

Sharing the culture.

It's who we are.

That's why we survive,

And we'll always survive.

[marc] I have spent months
all over the globe

Tracing stolen histories.

And it's easy to forget that

There are just some things

You can't take from a people.

[vanessa] it's really hard
to capture in words

Of what it means to be
a colonised person.

To be born a colonised person.

But even though I, we,
are colonised,

We didn't give our land away,

And I still feel
that strong sense

Of connection to my country.

They can't take that from me.

The genocide has not
been complete.

We're here today,
we're different,

But we're still, fighting,
we're still speaking up,

Still caring about
our people too.

[vanessa] having an ancestor
like yagan

Spurs me on to be proud
of who I am.

My country knows me,
and I know my country.

That strength of my culture,
what I carry in me,

Is in my blood.

It can't be colonised.

[soaring, inspirational
music playing]

-[sticks clacking]
-[chanting]

[inspirational music continues]

[trevor] we,
as a race of people,

Must stand up.

We must take note of yagan
and stand up and fight.