Wauba Debar was a female Tasmanian aborigine. Her grave is a historic site located in the east coast Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

n town of Bicheno

Bicheno, Tasmania

Bicheno is a town on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia, 185 km north-east of Hobart on the Tasman Highway, with a population of 640. It is part of the municipality of Glamorgan/Spring Bay...

, which memorialises her rescue of two sealers, one of them her husband, when their ship was wrecked about 1 km from shore during a storm. She assisting first her husband, then the other sealer safely to shore.

The grave site overlooks Waubs Bay and Warbs Harbour both of which were named after her, and is listed on the Tasmanian Heritage list.

Wauba Debar, as a teenager, was one of many aboriginal women kidnapped and enslaved by sealers and whalers for sexual partners during the European colonisation of Tasmania. She was a strong swimmer.

She died in a boat off the coast whilst travelling towards the Furneaux Group and her body was brought ashore and buried. Local settlers raised funds in 1855 to erect the headstone on her grave, immortalising her act of heroism.

See also

• Tasmanian Aborigines
  Tasmanian Aborigines
  The Tasmanian Aborigines were the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Before British colonisation in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Parlevar. A number of historians point to introduced disease as the major cause of the destruction of the full-blooded...
  
  
• Bicheno, Tasmania
  Bicheno, Tasmania
  Bicheno is a town on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia, 185 km north-east of Hobart on the Tasman Highway, with a population of 640. It is part of the municipality of Glamorgan/Spring Bay...