Torres Strait Islanders

Torres Strait Islanders

Capsule Summary:

Location:  Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia, located between mainland Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Total population:  Approximately 30 000, of whom 6 000 live in Torres Strait.

Language:  English, Meriam Mer, Kala Kaway Ya, Kalaw Lagaw Ya., Torres Strait Creole

Religion: Christian.

Essay:

One of Australia’s two Indigenous groups, Torres Strait Islanders are a seafaring people who inhabit the islands between southern Papua New Guinea and north east mainland Australia, in the state of Queensland. The majority of Torres Strait Islanders now live in the Queensland cities of Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Mackay and Rockhampton.  The Torres Strait islands, comprising  over 100, are divided into four groups, with the inhabited ones being:

The top western islands comprising Boigu, Dauan and Saibai Islands

The eastern islands comprising Stephen (Ugar), Murray (Mer) and  Darnley (Erub) Islands.

The central and near western islands comprising Badu, Mabuiag, Moa, Yam, Coconut (Waraber), Sue (Poruma) and  Yorke (Masig) Islands

The inner islands comprising Prince of Wales (Muralag), Hammond (Kiriri), Thursday and Horn (Narupai) Islands.  There are also  two significant mainland islander communities, Bamaga and Seisia, which are located on northern Cape York Peninsula at the southern end of Torres Strait.  Thursday Island is the commercial and administrative centre.

Melanesian in origin, the population was enriched by a significant influx of Pacific Islanders, Japanese, Malays, Filipinos, Indians, Chinese and Singhalese in the late 19^th century. The language of the eastern Torres Strait is Meriam Mer, which is related to the Papuan language groups. Kala Lagaw Ya, which is related to Aboriginal languages, is the central islands language, while Kalaw Kawaw Ya, a dialect of Kala Lagaw Ya, is the language of the top western islands. Kalaw Kawaw Ya is still widely spoken, but the others are considered to be endangered.  Torres Strait Creole is the lingua franca, with English being used for official purposes

History:

The first European explorer to sail into the area was the Spanish navigator Luis Vaez de Torres, in 1606, but it was not until the early 19^th century, when the strait became an important navigation route for ships travelling from the Australian colonies to Great Britain, that interaction with islanders increased.

The discovery of commercial quantities of beche-de-mer and pearl shell in the 1860s led to a rapid influx of fishing interests and the beginning of colonial occupation.  The introduction of Christianity  by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in 1871 also had a profound impact.  The colony of Queensland moved swiftly to bring the islands under its control, annexing the northern ones. In 1877 Thursday Island was established as the commercial and administrative centre.

The impact of European expansion into the Torres Strait was dramatic. Islanders were decimated by introduced diseases  and Christianity propagated and adopted.  Pacific Islanders and other foreigners who crewed the fishing boats settled and married local women, while many islanders now had to work on the boats to pay for European goods and dowries.

Under the benevolent Government Resident John Douglas, (1885-1904), the power of the LMS was curbed and elected councils formed to advise the European teacher-supervisors who administered the island communities.  Following Douglas’ death, Islanders were brought under the same restrictive legislation applying to Australian Aborigines.  They were forced to endure a form of internal colonialism, which treated them as a separate race who would gain little by participation in Australian life.

Resentment over restrictive conditions in the Torres Strait fishing industry culminated in the Maritime Strike of 1936, the first organised Islander challenge to European authority.  The vital role played by Islanders against the Japanese during World War II, when over 700 men enlisted in the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, was recognized, resulting in a gradual lessening of state government restrictions.  The post war period was also characterized by extensive migration to mainland Queensland, primarily in search of  improved employment opportunities and living conditions.

With Commonwealth involvement in Torres Strait affairs from the 1970s, the period of internal colonialism ended.  The Mabo native title decision of 1992, recognising Torres Strait Islander occupation prior to British colonisation, was followed by further successful land and sea claims.  In 1994 the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA),  a Commonwealth statutory authority, was established, and there is an ongoing campaign for self determination and autonomy.

Society:

Traditional Torres Strait society was a rich and complex culture, revolving around the oceans and the seasons.  There was an extensive trade and bartering system between the inhabited islands and with the mainland peoples of New Guinea and Cape York.  A warring people, inter-island conflict and raids were an ongoing occurrence, with ritual cannibalism of enemies practiced.  Religion and sorcery were all pervasive and powerful, providing the framework for the conduct and regulation of society. Hunters and fishermen, they lived on a diet of dugong, turtle and fish as well as fruit and vegetables from their gardens.

In 1871 the London Missionary Society established a mission on Darnley Island.

This seminal event, known as the Coming of the Light, is celebrated and commemorated annually on July 1.  While Islanders embraced Christianity, they have retained their traditional stories and beliefs.  Unlike Australian Aborigines, they were not displaced or removed from their homelands, and have maintained close and enduring ties with the sea, continuing to utilize and exploit its marine resources.

The introduction and assimilation of Pacific Islanders and other non-Europeans into Torres Strait society has resulted in a vibrant and unique culture. Known as Ailen Kustom, it is a source of pride, unity and strength, bonding Torres Strait Islanders throughout the region and  the mainland. Communal feastings, where turtle and dugong are eaten, are a regular occurrence, followed by traditional singing and  dancing. Torres Strait Islander art and sculpture is also very distinctive, with many  artists combining traditional motifs and forms with contemporary styles.

Further Reading

Beckett, Jeremy,  Torres Strait Islanders:  Custom and Colonialism,  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Ganter, Regina, The Pearl-Shellers of Torres Strait:  Resource Use, Development and Decline, 1860s-1960s, Melbourne:  Melbourne University Press, 1994

Haddon, Alfred Cort., editor, Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits, 6 vols., New York: Johnson Reprint, 1971

Mullins, Steve,  Torres Strait:  A History of Colonial Occupation and Culture Contact, 1864-1897, Rockhampton, Qld: Central Queensland University Press, 1994

Sharp, Noni, Stars of Tagai:  The Torres Strait Islanders, Canberra:  Aboriginal Studies Press, 1993

Singe, John, The Torres Strait:  People and History, Brisbane:  University of Queensland Press, 1989

Wilson, Lindsay, Kerkar Lu:  Contemporary Artefacts of the Torres Strait Islanders, Brisbane:  Dept. of Education, 1993

Wilson, Lindsay, Thathilgaw Emeret Lu:  A Handbook of Traditional Torres Strait Islands Material Culture, Brisbane:  Dept. of Education, 1988

I wrote this article for an encyclopedia around 2001/02

Eddie Mabo

Mabo, Eddie Koiki (1936-1992)

The word Mabo will forever be linked to native title and land rights in Australia, as it was Eddie Mabo, a Torres Strait Islander, who successfully challenged the Queensland government and established beyond doubt, that, he did in fact own his traditional family land on Murray (Mer) Island, in the Torres Strait.  This victory overturned two centuries of accepted legal tradition that Australia had been terra nullis (empty land) when the British arrived in 1788.  It is now recognised that indigenous land ownership existed in Australia before European settlement and that, in some cases, was not subsequently extinguished.

An activist, visionary and  patriot, Mabo was a tireless and tenacious campaigner for upholding the rights of Torres Strait Islanders. A leader in the large and diverse Townsville Torres Strait Islander community, he was one of the first to call for self-rule for Torres Strait  communities.  Mabo was a man of enormous energy and vision, coupled with passionate and unwavering opinions, that, while putting many offside, enabled him to single mindedly challenge the existing status quo and relentlessly pursue his ten year struggle for justice against the Queensland government. 

Born Koiki Sambo on 29 June 1936, at Murray Island, to Robert Zezou Sambo and Annie Mabo, his mother died shortly afterwards, and he was then adopted, in accordance with Torres Strait Islander custom, by his uncle, Benny Mabo.  His formal education was limited to primary school, where he was strongly influenced by his white school teacher, Robert Miles, whom he lived with for two years and through whom he gained proficiency in English, his third language. From 1953-7 he worked in the fishing industry on various trochus luggers operating out of Murray Island.  In 1957 he moved to mainland Queensland,  working in a variety of labouring jobs, including as a railway fettler, deck hand and cane cutter.

Mabo married Bonita Nehow in 1959, whom he had met in Innisfail while cutting sugar cane, and they settled in Townsville and raised a family.  It was here that he immersed himself in black community politics.  As president of the Council for the Rights of Indigenous People, he was instrumental in establishing Australia’s first Indigenous community school, the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service and a legal aid service.  He  became involved in the trade union movement, as a representative and spokesman for Torres Strait Islanders on the Townsville-Mount Isa rail reconstruction project in 1960, and in 1967, initiated, with trade union support, a seminar in Townsville, We are Australians – What is to Follow the Referendum? which involved over 300 people.

In 1973 he was refused permission by the Murray Island Council to return to home to see his dying father.  This incident galvanised Mabo into what would become a lifetime of activism on behalf of his land, his people, and his right to return to his beloved homeland.  In the mid 1970s Mabo was further shocked to discover that his family holdings on Murray Island were, along with all the outer Torres Strait Islands, actually owned by the Queensland government.  He resolved to win his land back, determined that no one could take it away from him.

In 1982 Mabo, along with four other Murray Islanders, commenced court action to gain legal title to their family land, Mabo and others v. the State of Queensland.  In 1985, the Queensland government retaliated through the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, intending to defeat  Mabo’s claim by extinguishing retrospectively any native title that may have existed on his land, through passing responsibility for all coastal islands to their nearest authority. However in 1988 this Act was invalidated by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it was contrary to the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act, 1975.

In 1991 the High Court of Australia heard the case, ruling on 3 June 1992, in favour of Mabo, (Mabo v State of Queensland (No 2) (1992)) overturning the principle of terra nullis and for the first time recognising that a form of native title still existed in Australia. Tragically Mabo did not live to celebrate the victory, dying of cancer five months earlier. On 4 June 1995, the day after his tombstone in Townsville was unveiled in a traditional ceremony, his grave was desecrated  by vandals in a racist attack.  Subsequently his remains were relocated to Murray Island, where he was laid to rest in a traditional ceremony on 18 September 1995.

Capsule Biography

Eddie Mabo. Born on 29 June 1936 on Murray (Mer) Island, Torres Strait.

Education.  Primary School, Murray Island.  Diploma of Teaching, James Cook University, 1981-4 (Not completed). Employment. Fisherman, Murray Island, 1953-7.  Labourer, Townsville Harbour Board, 1962-7. Secretary, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement league, Townsville, 1962-9. Gardener, James Cook University, Townsville, 1967-75. President of the Council for the Rights of Indigenous People, Townsville, 1970   Director and Principal, Black Community School, Townsville, 1973-85. Member, Aboriginal Arts Council, 1974-8.  Member, National Aboriginal Education Committee, 1975-8. President, Yumba Meta Housing Association, Townsville, 1975-80.  Member, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Education Advisory Committee, 1978-9.  Assistant Vocational Officer, Aboriginal Employment and Training Branch, Commonwealth Employment Service, Townsville, 1978-81. Field Officer, Aboriginal Legal Service, Townsville, 1985-6.  Director, ABIS Community Cooperative Society Ltd, Townsville, 1986-7.  Assistant Director, Aboriginal Arts, Moonba Festival, Melbourne, 1987.  Community Liaison Officer, 5^th Festival of Pacific Arts, Townsville, 1987-8.  Vice-Chairman, Magani Malu Kes, Townsville, 1987-8. Awards: Member, Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council.  Member, National Education Committee, mid 1980s.  Chairman, Torres Strait Border Action Committee.  Posthumously awarded the Human Rights Medal, Australian Human Rights Commission, 1992.  Named Australian of the Year by the Australian Newspaper, 1993. Died in Brisbane, 21 January 1992. Funeral held on 1 February 1992, Belgian Gardens Cemetery, Townsville. Reburied on 18 September 1995, Murray Island, Torres Strait, Australia

Selected Works [E. Mabo]

“Perspectives From Torres Strait,” The Torres Strait Border Issue:  Consolidation, Conflict or Compromise, edited by James Griffin, Townsville, Townsville College of Advanced Education, 1979

“Land Rights in Torres Strait,” in Black Australians:  Prospects for Change, edited by Erik Olbrei, Townsville, James Cook University, 1982

“Music of the Torres Strait,” Black Voices, 1, no. 1, (1984)

“Murray Island,” in  Workshop on Traditional Knowledge of the Marine Environment in Northern Australia, edited by F. Gray and L. Zann, Townsville, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 1985

Edward Koiki Mabo:  His Life and Struggle for Land Rights, with Noel Loos, 1996

Further Reading

Atwood, Bain, and Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Land Rights:  A Documentary History, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999

Bartlett, Richard. The Mabo Decision, and the Full Text of the Decision in Mabo and Others v State of Queensland,  Sydney:  Butterworths, 1993.

Cunningham, Adrian.  Guide to the Papers of Edward Koiki Mabo in the National Library of Australia, Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1995

Sanders, William G., editor, Mabo and Native Title:  origins and Institutional Implications, Canberra: Australian National University, 1994

Sharp, Nonie.  No ordinary Judgement:  Mabo, the Murray Islanders’ Land Case, Canberra:  Aboriginal Studies Press, 1996

Stephenson, M and Suri Ratnapala. Mabo, a Judicial Revolution:  The Aboriginal Land Rights Decision and Its Impact on Australian Law,  Brisbane:  University of Queensland Press, 1993

I worte this for an encyclopedia in 2001/02

Neville Bonner

Bonner, Neville Thomas (1922-1999)

Neville Thomas Bonner was the first Australian Aborigine to sit in the Australian Federal Parliament, as a Liberal Party Senator for the State of Queensland, 1971 to 1983.  His humble beginnings, along with a first hand experience of poverty, unemployment and discrimination, hardened his resolve to work within the political system in order to bring change and improved conditions for indigenous Australians.   Having a passionate and articulate Aboriginal voice in Federal Parliament helped raise awareness of Indigenous people and the issues and challenges confronting them.

He was born in 1922 under a tree on Ukerebaagh Island, at the mouth of the Tweed River in northern New South Wales, as his mother, being Aboriginal, had to be out of town before sunset and could not return until sunrise the next day.  He never knew his father, an Englishman, who, although married to his mother, returned to England before he was born.  His maternal grandfather, Jung Jung (Roger Bell), was the last initiated member of the Jagera Tribe.  Orphaned at age nine, he was raised by his grandparents in what he termed  “a blacks’ camp under the lantana bushes.”  Life was hard, and by age seven Bonner was  helping the family earn money by clearing the bush; “my job was to crawl underneath the lantana bushes and with a little tomahawk, cut the lantana off at the root.”

Bonner was unable to attend school, for the education system was segregated and there was no mission school nearby.  However at age 13, his grandmother, who insisted he learn how to read and write, arranged with the head teacher  for him to go to the local school, which he did for one year.  At age 14, following the death of his grandmother he left school to seek employment, working in a variety of rural jobs on banana plantations, at ring-barking, scrub felling and timber cutting, as a dairy hand, cutting cane, and then as stockman  in north-west Queensland he met his wife, Mona Banfield. 

Married in 1943, they moved to her birth place, the Aboriginal settlement of Palm Island, where they and their five sons remained until 1960.  Here Bonner became actively involved in community affairs, rising to the highest position open to an Aborigine on the island, that  of Assistant Settlement Overseer responsible for the administration of works, with responsibility for 250 workers. The family then moved to Ipswich, where he established a boomerang supply business and became involved with the Coloured Welfare Council, which later became the One People of Australia League (OPAL).  Mona died in 1969, and he subsequently married Heather Ryan, a director of OPAL, on 29 July 1972.

Bonner joined the Liberal Party in 1967, being elected chairman of the Oxley Area Committeein 1969.  He was endorsed as a Liberal Party candidate for Queensland in the 1970 half-senate election but failed to win a seat.  But after much public debate he was selected by the Liberal Party to fill a casual Senate vacancy in August 1971.  In 1974 he was instrumental in ending 77 years of legislative paternalism towards indigenous peoples in Queensland, when he successfully pushed for the Commonwealth Government to introduce overriding legislation to end the abuses of human rights on Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Reserves.  Bonner also chaired the Senate Select Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, whose 1976 report, The Environmental Conditions of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, saw 82 of its 86 recommendations accepted. He was the first Aborigine to introduce legislation into the Australian Parliament and was also the first back-bencher to introduce a Government Bill – the Aboriginal Development Commission Bill, and carry it through all stages.

Elected to the Senate on three occasions, his increasing advocacy for indigenous rights, land rights, his insistence on raising environmental issues such as mining on the Great Barrier Reef, and his outspoken criticism of the Queensland National-Liberal Party government, especially its leader, Premier John Bjelke-Petersen, ensured that he was relegated to an unwinnable position on the 1983 Queensland Liberal Senate ticket.  Left with no choice but to resign from the Liberal Party, he stood unsuccessfully  for a Senate seat as an independent.  Rejoining the Liberal Party in 1996, his reconciliation  was completed when Prime Minister John Howard bestowed on him life membership of its Queensland Branch.

It was on Palm Island Aboriginal Reserve, remembered by Bonner as “experiencing my private hells,” that he forged his political convictions, based on an ideal of inter-racial co-operation and togetherness. Attacked by some in the Black Power movement for being a moderate,  for working within the system and for belonging to a party on the right of the political spectrum, he always sought reconciliation and non violent solutions.  Known for his keen sense of humour, dignity, oratory and self-effacement, he was an inspiration to the many Australians who took heart from the fact that one from such a deprived background could in fact rise to greatness.

Following his parliamentary career he continued to speak out on issues which divide Black and White Australians.  Elected a Queensland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, as a member of the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy campaigning against an Australian Republic, Bonner argued passionately for the retention of the monarchy.  On 29 July 1998, in an historic first, he was invited, as a Jagera elder, the traditional landowners of the Brisbane River district, to open the 49^th Queensland Parliament.

He died  in 1999, aged 76,  after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  Accorded a  state funeral, the mourners included his wife Heather, some 60 members of his extended family, the Prime Minister, the Premier and Governor of Queensland, as well as several hundred guests, friends and members of the public. In 2000, the Commonwealth Government established the Neville Bonner Memorial Fund, contributing $AUS 400 000 towards  an annual scholarship for an indigenous person studying an honours degree in political science.

Capsule Biography

Thomas Neville Bonner.  Born 28 March 1922 on Ukerebaagh Island, New South Wales, Australia.  Education. Beaudesert State School, 4^th grade.  Employment. Head Stockman, 1941-5. Assistant Settlement Overseer, Palm Island. Dairy farm manager, Ipswich, 1960-2.  Established Bonnerangs boomerang manufacturing business, Ipswich, 1966-7.  Bridge carpenter, Moreton Shire Council, 1968-71.  Board of directors of OPAL, 1965.  Queensland President, OPAL, 1967-73.  Senator, Australian Senate, 15 August 1971-83.  Senate Deputy Chairman of Committees, 1974.  Chairman, Joint Committee on Aboriginal Land Rights in the Northern Territory, 1977. Board member, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1983-91.  Senior official visitor to Queensland state prisons, 1990-7.  Member, Griffith University Council, 1992-6. Member, Queensland Land Tribunal, 1992-9.  Chairman, Queensland Indigenous Advisory Council, 1997-8.  Appointed patron, OPAL, 1980.  Patron, World Vision Australia, 1976-90, Ipswich Women’s Shelter, Coloured Youth Soul Center.  Awards: Canberra Australia Day Council Australian of the Year, 1979.  Life membership, Young Liberal Movement, Queensland, 1978.  Life membership, OPAL, 1979. Order of Australia, 1984.  Honorary Doctorate, Griffith University, 1993.  Delegate, Australian Constitutional Convention, Canberra, 1998.  Life membership, Queensland division of the Liberal Party, 1998.  Ipswich Citizen of the Year, 1999.  Died in Ipswich, Queensland, 5 February 1999.  Buried at Warrill Park Lawn Cemetery, Ipswich.

Selected Works [N.T. Bonner]

Equal World, Equal Share, 1977

For the Love of the Children, 1982

Further Reading

Burger, Angela, Neville Bonner:  A Biography, Melbourne:  MacMillan, 1979  

Turner, Ann, editor, Black Power in Australia: Bobbi Sykes Versus Senator Neville T. Bonner, Melbourne:  Heinemann, 1975

I wrote this for an encyclopedia article crica 2001/2