Aunty Ida West was an Aboriginal elder and writer. In 1984, her memoir Pride Against Prejudice: reminiscences of a Tasmanian Aborigine, was published by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, the first published autobiography by a Tasmanian Aboriginal person. In the preface, she wrote “We have had Europeans writing about us for years. As a child, I can remember people writing about us, they called us half-castes then, they might just as well have called us outcasts.”
Aunty Ida West was an active member of the Aboriginal Community. She was president of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, travelled with the Aboriginal Information Service collecting information about Tasmania’s Aboriginal population, and attended the closed funeral service for Trukanini in 1976. These experiences are preserved in her memoir. She was appointed Member of the Order of Australia in 2002, received the Female Elder of the Year award at the 2002 NAIDOC Awards, and was one of the first people to be inducted into the Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women.
