TASMANIAN Aboriginal artist Janice Ross is in London this week truth telling and pushing for the return of important objects in British institutions, in particular a doll and pincushion that belonged to stolen Tasmanian Aboriginal girl Mathinna. 

Mathinna was born at Wybalenna on Flinders Island, Lutruwita/Tasmania in 1835 during the brutal Black War. 

She was stolen from her parents for Tasmanian Governor ‘Sir’ John Franklin and ‘Lady’ Jane Franklin when she was just four years old. 

Jane Franklin herself wrote that Mathinna was a ‘civilising experiment’, listing her alongside a collection which included the skulls of…