‘mannalargenna’ a powerful new song by Shane Howard featuring Bart Willoughby and David Bridie has been released to accompany an extraordinary book, Trouwerner, by Aunty Patsy Cameron and Martin Flanagan
Aunty Patsy Cameron is an Aboriginal Elder of Northeast Tasmania. The writer, Martin Flanagan introduced Shane Howard to Aunty Patsy in 2023 and he went to visit her at home in Tomahawk in Northeast Tasmania, her ancestral Aboriginal country.
“Aunty Patsy made the history come alive, “ says Howard. “She told stories of her Aboriginal ancestors and the rich lives they led until the desperate times of invasion and colonisation by squatters and the red coats of the British army. She spoke of pirates and bushrangers, escaped convicts and ticket of leave men who roamed that country and that island coastline in the early 1800s, as well as the Straitsmen and Aboriginal women eeking out a living on the Furneaux Islands. But the stories Aunty Patsy tells are not just about tragedy. They’re about a thriving and dynamic community before the colonisers came.”
“She told extraordinary tales of ‘grandfather’ Mannalargenna, the apical ancestor of so many Tasmanian Aboriginal people, a bungunna, a clever man of law and a highly regarded and respected leader of his people in the Northeast of Tasmania, who tried desperately to make a peaceful settlement, a ‘Treaty’, with these new invaders.”
Aunty Patsy said to me, “You might write a song for Mannalargenna.”
“Martin forwarded me a copy of the draft of the book, Trouwerner and I soon found myself adrift on an ocean of history that was inspiring, revealing, compelling, awakening, heartbreaking, anger-inducing and filled with the truth we all need to hear.”
Mannalargenna’s story is epic. It’s also one of heartbreaking betrayal. But the survival and endurance of his four daughters and their ongoing descendants, is inspirational. The clapsticks that begin the song and continue through it were made by Aunty Patsy’s son Matt and generously given to Howard at Mannalargenna Day 2024, when he performed the new song for the first time to an audience of Mannalargenna’s descendants.
“It was possibly the most nervous I’ve ever been before a performance. I wanted to honour them and their towering ancestor. The song was warmly and generously received.”
trouwerner is an extraordinary book full of remarkable stories and if you want to know more about what happened in Tasmania’s and this continent’s early colonial history, read it. If you have a heart and a soul, you will laugh, you will weep and you’ll be profoundly moved for what was lost and what has survived and what is now in vibrant recovery.
trouwenner by Aunty Patsy Cameron and Martin Flangan is available through Magabala Books
Mannalargenna by Shane Howard featuring Bart Willoughby and David Bridie is out now on all digital streaming platforms.
Mannalargenna
© 2025 Shane Howard/Patsy Cameron/Martin Flanagan
Mannalargenna
Stood on the shore
Saw the white sails coming
Like he’d seen before
This time was different
More soldiers and guns
He talked with his spirit,
Watched the strangers come
We spoke a language
They could not understand
Then came the killings
In our Vanishing Land
Mannalargenna, On Trouwerner’s shores,
Proud Bunganna, Clever Man of Law
We put up resistance
To the drum and the gun
Redcoats and squatters
Tore our world undone
They made a Grand Army
Four thousand strong
A Line, East to West
Just to drive us from our homes
Mannalargenna, Did not want a war
Proud Bunganna, There on Trouwerner’s shores
We were promised a Treaty
For an end to the War
If we agreed to leave and go
To the distant island shores
They promised we could return
When the war was through
They lied and broke every promise
Every heart too
Mannalargenna, Was a man of his Word
Proud Bunganna, Staring back to Trouwerner’s shore
Why couldn’t they leave us
Just leave us be
To live as we lived,
So real and free
Mannarlargenna
He was a clever man
He foresaw a future
For his Pairrebeener/Trawlwoolway clan
His daughters promised
To the Straitsmen of the Isles
They lived to carry the memory
Their descendants tell the tale
Of Mannalargenna, On Tebrakunna’s shores
Proud Bungunna, Of the Tyereelore
Mannalargenna, on Trouwerner’s shores
Proud Bungunna, Clever man of Law