Born and Live as an Indigenous

Hello my name is Shuta Sugan Negan and I’m one of the generations of the Nyungar tribe. Yagan is my great-grandparent and I truly remembered when my mom told me about how great he is and how awesome the Nyungar tribe is, and at that moment I also realized that I had never felt that kind of proud and sad moment at the same time before.

But before I share the history of my tribe and my great-grandparent. I want to share some of my personal and unimportant things that had often happened in my life since I lived in this new modern world.

Does anyone know that kind of feeling when you walk and go outside of your house and then people started to give you that dirty and weird look, as if you're a very very bad, ugly and weird person. I know that I'm not that good looking but why do they do that to me? and not only that bad and weird look that they give it to me.  Sometimes I feel excluded and that I'm not there with them, I mean inside a circle of people. I feel like everyone is ignoring me, because they think I'm weird and different and the last horrible thing is that many of them are showing their arrogant character. I think they don't realize that my tribe and many other indigenous tribes such as pemulwuy and many more are here first. We stepped our foot on this land first, not them! Well let’s move on to the history, because I think it's not going to be good if I wrote too much about my personal life.

My great-grandparent named Yagan, Yagan was the son of Midgigoroo, chief of the tribe. At first, the Nyungar tribe lived in harmony with the Europeans. But then the British mistook the Nyungar tradition of burning the land as an act of aggression. Then in 1831, a Nyungar was shot while taking a potato from a settler's garden, because the settler saw it as a theft. After the killing accident nothing good ever happened. Yagan sought revenge and more battles. Yagan was exiled to a small rocky Island, but then he escaped 6 weeks later. He then made the colonists angry, which caused the colonist to kill Yagan's brother and father . In 1833, William Keats shot him and Yagan's head was sent to England. They gave a decoration on his head and hair such as feathers.

Almost 165 years after being sent to England, Yagan's head was returned to Australia for a proper burial.

Well I think that's all of the history about him and my tribe. For your information this is just a summary of my great-grandparent’s battle and I'm sure it is way much more longer, harder, tougher and heroic then how I explained the history.So I'm very proud of his fight and sacrifice.

I really hate those people who easily miss understood .Because it won't make the condition get any better. And I have tried not to be ashamed of who I am or where I came from. Whether I knew it wasn't that easy for me to handle my emotions. I hope that in the future I will be a great leader that will succeed on handling my people and the conflict. And I am also hoping that I can make this world be a better and more beautiful place to live in.