Historical Narrative Task 8-
Source chosen: B
Truganini’s Last Gift
Melanka started to become agitated as he heard a noise. His long lanky legs dangled over the edge of the rock face as he concentrated intensely on the water close to his feet. The more he tried to block out the background noise the harder it became to concentrate. Finally giving up on what he was intending to do, he silently spun his head to try and locate where the noise was impending from. In the distance, he watched a tall and wiry figure dig a slight hole, place a spherical bag in it and cover it back over with dirt. Not thinking anything of what he had just witnessed, Melanka turned his attention back to the fresh water.
People flooded around the small broken glass case in the middle of the National Gallery of Australia. Silence fell upon the gallery as the Museum officials walked to the centre of where the attention was on.
“Truganini’s famous shell necklace” moaned one of the officials when seeing the tiny pieces of shattered glass.
Everyone was still silent, in shock of what just occurred. Truganini was widely considered as the last full blood Tasmanian Aboriginal and the necklace showed a special message of love and peace.
“Report the incident to police and tell them a rare antique has been stolen from the National Gallery of Australia” barked a short and plump man to one of the guards standing close behind him.
Within minutes of the priceless Tasmanian Aboriginal necklace being stolen, dozens of TV crew trucks and cars begun arriving.
When Melanka awoke early the next morning he opened his window to get some of the fresh Canberra air. He got dressed for school, had breakfast and went to fetch ‘The Canberran Times” for his mother. Something caught his eye on the front page of the newspaper, so he went on to read the article like he sometimes did. The headline read, ‘Truganini’s Shell Necklace Stolen from Museum’. “How awful” muttered Melanka as he got his school bag and prepared himself for another gruelling day of year 9 high school. He had been studying the Tasmanian Aboriginals in one of his subjects at school and knew the significance of the necklace, especially to indigenous people like himself. As the hours passed at school Melanka became concerned about the newspaper article he had read earlier. He sensed inside him that he knew something about it no one else did.
It was three days after the robbery and there was still no trace of the stolen rarity. The National Gallery of Australia continued to raise the sum of money rewarded for any clues to help find where the shell necklace was. Newspapers and worldwide TV channels kept posting updated stories of the incident.
Melanka knew what he was doing was wrong but he persisted trudging on through the bush. He realised this was not the situation a 13 year old should be dealing with. Melanka looked around to see if he could see anyone and went straight to where he thought he had seen the tall and wiry figure dig the hole. Just as he bent down to dig where he thought the hole was, ‘Thud’…
Melanka awoke with excruciating pain in the back of his head. This was unfamiliar surroundings he thought as he tried to get up only to realise he was chained to something beside him. He heard the noise of footsteps, big thuds into the ground coming towards the place he was enclosed in.
“What do you think you are doing you stupid schoolboy?” boomed the voice of a tall and wiry man.
Melanka became scared. The man was enormous with facial hair like he had never seen before and he had earrings and hundreds of studs in his face. His huge boots stood right beside Melanka’s head as he was looking down on the small, brown and swollen head before him. Melanka didn’t know what to say. He just lay on the muddy ground silently as the tall man shouted and cursed.
“Well I was just going for one of my daily bushwalks” Melanka lied.
“I know what you were doing, you were entering into something you should have left alone,
