Alas Poor Yagan is an editorial cartoon, drawn by Dean Alston and published in The West Australian newspaper on 6 September 1997. It consists of a panel of eight drawings of Noongar activist Ken Colbung speaking to a group of three Indigenous Australian children. The cartoon's content offended many Australians, and resulted in a complaint of racism to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The commission eventually ruled that the cartoon made inappropriate references to Noongar beliefs but did not breach the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. This ruling was subsequently upheld on appeal to the Federal Court of Australia. Background Alas Poor Yagan was published shortly after the return of Yagan's head from the United Kingdom. Yagan was a Noongar warrior who resisted the European settlement of Western Australia. He was shot dead by a settler in 1833, and his head was removed and sent to the United Kingdom for display in a museum. In 1964, it was buried in an unmarked grave in a local cemetery. The Noongar community began efforts to locate and repatriate the head in 1990. Yagan's head was finally exhumed in September 1997, but organisation of the handover "was accompanied by a degree of sometimes undignified acrimony over who had the appropriate cultural claims, by descent, to bring the remains back". These conflicts within the Noongar community were publicly aired, and at one point even involved litigation in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. Publication The West Australian provided coverage of the repatriation of Yagan's head, including the conflict within the Nyungar community. Alas Poor Yagan was published on 6 September 1997. It was critical of the fact that the return of Yagan's head had become a source of conflict between Noongars instead of fostering unity, and it lampooned the conduct of those involved in the conflict. It could also be interpreted as insulting aspects of Indigenous Australian culture, and casting aspersions on the motives and legitimacy of Indigenous Australians with mixed racial heritage. Complaint On 24 September 1997, a complaint about the cartoon was lodged with the Race Discrimination Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The complaint was made by human rights lawyer Hannah McGlade on behalf of a group of people calling themselves "The Nyungar Circle of Elders", and comprising Albert Corunna, Richard Wilkes, Violet Newman, Mingli Wanjurri, Leisha Eatts, Robert Bropho and Ken Colbung. The complainants alleged that