Misplaced Pages

#182817

49-719: Download coordinates as: Gununa , sometimes spelt Gunana , is a rural town on Mornington Island within the locality of Wellesley Islands in the Shire of Mornington , Queensland , Australia. In the 2021 census , the town of Gununa had a population of 1,022 people. Gununa is located on the southwestern end of Mornington Island, on the Gulf of Carpentaria . The town faces the Appel Channel, ( 16°40′55″S 139°11′31″E  /  16.682°S 139.192°E  / -16.682; 139.192  ( Appel Channel ) ) on

98-619: A Protector of Aborigines appointed by the Queensland Government, Protector Howard. Bleakley was the next Protector, from 1913, but did not visit the island until 1916, by which time the first missionary (Hall) had arrived (see below for mission history). Gununa Post Office opened by 1982. The Mornington Island Airport was a temporary airfield used by the RAAF and allied air forces during World War II . The Mornington Island State School opened on 28 January 1975. In 1978,

147-417: A labiovelar lingual egressive (p'), unique among the world's languages. The secret language reinscribed in what looks like an indigenous form of semantic analysis the entire Lardil vocabulary into 200 words and has been described by Hale as a 'monument to the human intellect'. Since Damin was a language involving rituals disapproved of by the missionaries, it disappeared with the outlawing and suppression of

196-409: A special education program. The school works with the art centre and Kaiadilt elders to help revive their language and culture. There are no schools offering education to Year 12 on the island; nor are there any nearby. Distance education or boarding school would be the only options. Writer Ernestine Hill travelled to Mornington Island and a 1933 photograph she took of the island is held by

245-536: A tropical savanna climate ( Köppen: Aw), with a sweltering wet season from December to April, and a long dry season from May to November with cooler nights and lower humidity. Average daily maxima remain warm to hot year-round: from 25.8 °C (78.4 °F) in June and July to 33.3 °C (91.9 °F) in November. Average annual rainfall is 1,198.7 mm (47.19 in), and the highest daily rainfall recorded

294-509: A few young white women have formed relationships with island youths and moved to the island, to find that their boyfriend's behaviour changed and their anticipated idyll close to nature did not materialize. "They usually departed after their first "proper good hiding" and invariably by the second". Mornington Island, with its schools, churches, libraries and hospitals, is often presented as a model community to outsiders. However, by 2003 its society and its people had been devastated by alcohol. In

343-619: A group of Indigenous Mornington Island people has been communicating with wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for millennia. It is said that they have "a medicine man who calls the dolphins and 'speaks' to them telepathically . By these communications he assures that the tribes' [ sic ] fortunes and happiness are maintained". In November 2003 the Government of Queensland implemented an Alcohol Management Plan to 19 Indigenous communities in Queensland where alcohol abuse

392-485: A study of Lardil. A special second language, Damin thought of as a tongue created by the Yellow Trevally fish ancestor Kaltharr, and devised in part to mimic 'fish talk' was taught during the second degree of initiation ( warama ). This initiation register of specialized Lardil has fascinated linguists: it contained in its phonemic repertoire two types of airstream initiation, a pulmonic ingressive (l*) and

441-471: Is a new accommodation complex which includes another 34 rooms, and another 10 cabins added to the existing motel. The expansion will provide accommodation for tourists and enable medical staff and tradespeople to stay for longer periods of time on the island, with the added benefit of bringing in more revenue to the council. More social housing is also being built, along with a youth centre, an administration centre, and an Indigenous Knowledge Centre and library in

490-920: Is also a significant history of performance on the island, and the Mornington Island Dancers was one of the earliest established Aboriginal performing arts groups in Australia. They performed publicly in Cairns in August 1964, and again in 1973 at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Opera House . Since 2009 and as of 2022 the dancers operate as a business unit of MGAC called MIDance. The dancers celebrate Lardil culture through traditional dance and song. They have toured overseas many times, including in Italy, France, Germany, Luxembourg ,

539-757: Is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Mornington Island and the Northern Wellesley Islands , within the local government boundaries of the Mornington Shire . Kuku-Thaypan (also known as Gugu Dhayban, Kuku Taipan, Thaypan) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in Hann River, Laura and Musgrave River and on Mornington Island, within the local government boundaries of the Cook Shire . Lardil , who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa),

SECTION 10

#1732765929183

588-602: Is in the south-western part of the island. The Lardil people are the traditional owners of the island, but there are also Kaiadilt people, who were relocated from nearby Bentinck Island , as well as people of other nations on the island. The Mornington Island Mission operated from 1914 until 1978, when it was taken over by the Queensland Government , which had proclaimed the islands an Aboriginal reserve in 1905. The Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation owns and manages an art centre, MIArt, and dance troupe,

637-455: Is located at Lardil Street ( 16°39′59″S 139°10′57″E  /  16.6663°S 139.1825°E  / -16.6663; 139.1825  ( Mornington Island State School ) ). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 263 students, with 25 teachers and 14 part-time and full-time non-teaching staff (the equivalently of 11 full-time employees). It includes a special education program. There are no schools offering education to Year 12 on

686-612: Is part of the Calvary Presbytery of the Uniting Church in Australia . Mornington Island Mornington Island , also known as Kunhanhaa , is an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Shire of Mornington , Queensland , Australia . It is the northernmost and, at 1,018 km (393 sq mi), the largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The largest town, Gununa ,

735-489: Is the predominant nation on Mornington Island and they are the traditional owners of the land and surrounding seas. Kaiadilt people arrived more recently (1947–8) after being relocated from nearby Bentinck Island , and more people of other nations arrived from Doomadgee Mission in 1958. Macassan trepangers once travelled thousands of kilometres from Sulawesi to Mornington Island and other Australian mainland destinations in search of sea cucumbers . The eastern cape of

784-473: The Doomadgee Mission , and by the late 1950s the practice of separating children from parents in dormitories had been abandoned, so many residents of Doomadgee moved to Mornington Island at this time. In 1978 the Queensland Government took over the administration of both Aurukun and Mornington Island mission stations . In the 2016 census , the population was 1,143 people. The majority of

833-606: The Queensland government decided to take over control of both the Aurukun and Mornington Island missions. Cyclones routinely hit the island. In 2000 Cyclone Steve passed directly over the island. Tropical Cyclone May passed in February 1988 and Tropical Cyclone Bernie passed to the west in early 2002. Tropical Cyclone Fritz passed directly over the island on 12 February 2003. Severe Tropical Cyclone Harvey caused damage on

882-644: The University of Queensland 's library in their Ernestine Hill collection. Mornington Island was the site of research over several decades by British anthropologist David McKnight and described in a series of books, People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of classification among the Lardil of Mornington Island (1999), From Hunting to Drinking: The devastating effects of alcohol on an Australian Aboriginal community (2002), Going

931-473: The 1950s, later using acrylic paint on bark, and started selling their work in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s Mornington Island Art and Craft(s) (MIAAC) was established by Brett Evans, with a new building and a dedicated coordinator. Some of the women from the Kaiadilt "old ladies' camp" established on Bentinck Island in the 1980s and 1990s, after moving to Mornington Island again in the 21st century, formed

980-504: The 1960s onwards had no grasp of either the old or new work technologies and ethics. With the exception of Sweers Island , all the Wellesley Islands were set aside as an Aboriginal reserve . Generally, once Aboriginal resistance to the take-over of their lands was broken, they were concentrated in reserves and missions. Presbyterian missionaries were granted permission to establish a mission on Mornington Island , and one

1029-653: The Kaiadilt art movement, led by Sally Gabori ( c. 1924–2015). Evans established MIAAC to produce and market traditional crafts, including Gabori's fine weaving. The Kaiadilt community had no two-dimensional art traditions before 2005. In 2002, Mornington Island Art and Craft became part of Woomera Aboriginal Corporation. The art centre incorporates the MIArt studio and a gallery. The artists, both men and women, work in many different mediums and represent their Lardil and Kaiadilt cultures in their artwork, and exhibitions by

SECTION 20

#1732765929183

1078-425: The Lardil girls brought up in the dormitory married according to the traditional kinship rules, given that the mission head played an influential role as intermediary. The dormitory system was discontinued in 1954. The population of the island is no longer exclusively Lardil, after several tribal groups, among them the Kaiadilt , were relocated by missionaries from Bentinck Island . The Mornington Island Mission

1127-476: The Lardil people. Hall was speared and killed in 1917 by a Lardil man, "Burketown Peter/Bad Peter" a respected drover based in Burketown , who ran into trouble, often standing up for his rights, and wanted to kill a cattle station owner with whom he fell out, but was dissuaded from doing so and told by Ganggalida people to return to his home country after refusing to obey local demands that he move back to

1176-435: The Lardil ritual cycles. Rockwall fish traps ( derndernim ) were constructed off the coast to catch varieties of fish as the tides receded. The Lardil had a meticulous ethnobotanical knowledge and David McKnight has argued that "their botanical taxonomy is of the same intellectual order as our botanical scientific taxonomy". People raised within the mission , once detached from the hunter and gatherer lifestyle of

1225-459: The Mornington Island Dancers. The general topography of the island, which lies on the eastern (Queensland) side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is flat with the maximum elevation of 150 metres (490 ft). The island is fringed by mangrove forests and contains 10 estuaries , all in near pristine condition. The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area lies about 40 kilometres (25 mi) to

1274-552: The Sweers Island Resort. After the tavern was shut down, locals took to home brewing, and in 2017 Mornington Shire Council called for the ban to be lifted so that alcohol could be better regulated from a single legal outlet. Alcohol continued to be a major social and health problem as of 2019 , and in 2021 the tavern was reopened, which had started to improve the community's relationship with alcohol. On 16 April 2022, after much consultation with community elders ,

1323-551: The United States, United Kingdom, India and Sweden. Mornington Island State School is a government primary and secondary (Early Childhood-10) school for boys and girls at Lardil Street ( 16°39′59″S 139°10′57″E  /  16.6663°S 139.1825°E  / -16.6663; 139.1825  ( Mornington Island State School ) ). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 263 students with 25 teachers and 14 non-teaching staff (11 full-time equivalent). It includes

1372-623: The Whiteman’s Way: Kinship and marriage among Australian Aborigines (2004) and Of Marriage, Violence and Sorcery: The quest for power in northern Queensland (2005). Indigenous art of Mornington Island is described in The Heart of Everything: The art and artists of Mornington & Bentinck Islands , ed. Nicholas Evans , Louise Martin-Chew and Paul Memmott (2008). According to the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals (2008),

1421-490: The artists have been mounted in Brisbane and Darwin . Two of the most well-known artists to have worked in the art centre are Sally Gabori and Dick Roughsey , and members of their families continue to work at the centre. The manager of the art centre as of 2022 is John Armstrong, while the gallery manager is Bereline Loogatha. The art centre works with Kaiadilt elders to help revive their language and culture. There

1470-539: The early 2000s the community was declared "dry" and importation of alcohol was forbidden. By 2021 dangerous amounts of strong home-brewed alcoholic drink and of " sly grog " (smuggled alcoholic drink) were being consumed, and petrol sniffing was common. Diets were poor, consisting mainly of imported heavily-processed foods; Save the Children were trying to combat malnutrition among children, and among adults diabetes and renal failure were common. Average life expectancy

1519-593: The island in February, 2005. The Mornington Island Mission was established in 1914 by Robert Hall, the Presbyterian assistant superintendent from Weipa Mission, who ran it until his murder in October 1917. There were also Moravian missionaries there. Rev. Wilson took over, serving as superintendent until about 1941; mission staff were evacuated during the Second World War . James (Bert) McCarthy

Gununa, Queensland - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-441: The island introduced limited, regulated access to liquor. Residents and visitors are now permitted to have up to 4.5 L (0.99 imp gal; 1.2 US gal), or 12 cans, of low or mid-strength beer or pre-mixed spirits for consumption in the home. The strategy has been adopted in order to address the problem of harms from people creating potent strength homebrews, as well as sly grogging . Mornington Island experiences

1617-586: The island was named Cape Van Diemen after Anthony van Diemen . Commander Matthew Flinders named the island after Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley who was known when younger as the Earl of Mornington . Wellesley had tried to have Flinders released from detention in Mauritius. On 22 April 1905 all of the Wellesley islands apart from Sweers Island were proclaimed as an Aboriginal reserve , under

1666-614: The island; nor are there any nearby. Distance education or boarding school are the only options for education past Year 10. Gununa Post Office is in Mukukiya Street ( 16°39′49″S 139°10′38″E  /  16.6635°S 139.1771°E  / -16.6635; 139.1771  ( Gununa Post Office ) ). Mornington Island Uniting Church is at 21 Dajibuka Street ( 16°39′49″S 139°10′36″E  /  16.6635°S 139.1766°E  / -16.6635; 139.1766  ( Mornington Island Uniting Church ) ). It

1715-433: The islanders are Aboriginal . The majority of the people live in the township of Gununa . In the 2021 census , the population was 1,025 people, the majority of whom (at least 80.2%) are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. There has been a lack of infrastructure on the island. Before December 2023 there were around 30 rooms for visitors to the island. With a scheduled completion date of Christmas 2023, there

1764-566: The mainland. Hall was succeeded by the Rev. Wilson, who imposed a dormitory system, segregating children from their elders and thus breaking the chain of tradition through which tribal lore and law was transmitted. The older generations were normally left to their own devices as missionaries concentrated on separating them from their children, and concentrating their efforts on the youngest: aside from religious indoctrination , sexual and marriage customs were challenged, and subject to control. Few of

1813-457: The mission. It was ten years after the relocation, completed in 1948, before one of the removed Kaiadilt woman gave birth to a child who survived. The final relocation of the people was spurred by the pollution of the islanders' water supply by seawater after it was badly damaged by a cyclone , with the relocation assisted by the Queensland Government . It was reported that some of the people had to be "induced" to move. One of those relocated by

1862-557: The missionaries was artist Sally Gabori ( c. 1924–2015), who later mapped her traditional lands in her artwork at the Mornington Island Art Centre. Douglas Belcher arrived when Taylor was superintendent, taking over as superintendent in May 1953. Belcher ran a more humane administration than his predecessors, and respected the Lardil culture. Mission conditions were not as severe and restrictive as they were at

1911-498: The northwest of Mornington. The town of Gununa is located on the south-western end of the island overlooking the Appel Channel ( 16°40′55″S 139°11′31″E  /  16.682°S 139.192°E  / -16.682; 139.192  ( Appel Channel ) ) which separates it from Denham Island ( 16°42′52″S 139°09′35″E  /  16.7144°S 139.1597°E  / -16.7144; 139.1597  ( Denham Island ) ). Lardil (also known as Gununa, Ladil)

1960-518: The other side of which is Denham Island ( 16°42′52″S 139°09′35″E  /  16.7144°S 139.1597°E  / -16.7144; 139.1597  ( Denham Island ) ). The town was founded in 1914 as Mornington Island Community, and renamed by the Queensland Place Names Board on 16 January 1982. Gunana or Gununa is a Lardil word. Mornington Island State School opened on 28 January 1975. Gununa Post Office

2009-554: The same time establishing three discrete business units : MIDance, MIArt and MI Festival. The buildings were upgraded in 2010–11, including the addition of a dedicated studio for the artists. Mornington Island Art (MIArt), owned and run by the Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, is one of the oldest Indigenous Australian art centres in Australia. People of the islands started making artefacts and bark paintings using natural ochres in

Gununa, Queensland - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-516: The town of Gununa. The council is funding most of the new construction, with some funding from the federal government's Growing Regions program and the state housing department, specifically for the visitor accommodation centre and duplexes. The Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation (MGAC) was founded as the Woomera Aboriginal Corporation in 1973, which was incorporated in 1983. It adopted its present name in 2009, at

2107-432: The traditional community, were considered good workers to recruit for the pastoral stations, where they were employed as drovers and ringers . Once the mission was closed, the elderly once more regained some control. However the Lardil people who had spent their mature years on the mainland as farm workers had no traditional background for raising children to draw on. The result was that the generation of children raised from

2156-523: Was 477.2 millimetres (18.79 in) on 1 March 2011. The island averages 110.6 clear days and 77.0 cloudy days annually. Extreme temperatures have ranged from 5.1 °C (41.2 °F) on 9 July 1974 to 39.8 °C (103.6 °F) on 6 December 2012. Lardil people Lardil , now moribund , belongs to the Tangkic language family . The feature of kinship-sensitive pronominal prefixes had been ignored until they were discovered by Kenneth L. Hale in

2205-549: Was Superintendent from 1944 to 1948, and he imposed a strict regime of adhering to Christian customs and eroded the authority of the elders . It was during this time that all of the Kaiadilt people living on nearby Bentinck Island were moved by the missionaries onto the Mornington Island Mission. The missionaries separated the children from their parents and placed them into separate dormitories for boys and girls, while their parents built humpies around

2254-407: Was duly built in 1914. A mission was established on Mornington Island by the Rev. Robert Hall, his wife and two assistants, Mr and Mrs Owen, and Hall strove to institute economic self-sufficiency for the islanders' economy, having an all-native crew manning the ketch , while organising the harvesting and curing of trepang . Their initial presence, according to one account, was received positively by

2303-470: Was open by 1982. In the 2016 census , the town of Gununa had a population of 1,136 people, which is almost all of the 1,143 people who live within the shire as a whole. In the 2021 census , the town of Gununa had a population of 1,022 people, which is almost all of the 1,025 people who live within the shire as a whole. Mornington Island State School is a government-run primary and secondary school for boys and girls from early childhood through Year 10. It

2352-505: Was rampant, including Mornington Island. The plan restricted tavern opening hours, limits sales to only light and mid-strength beers, bans takeaway alcohol sales and home brewing . Riots broke out when the tough new alcohol laws were introduced. A total ban on alcohol was in place across all foreshores and the 23 islands in the Wellesley , South Wellesley Islands , Forsyth and Bountiful Islands groups and Sweers Island , apart from

2401-487: Was substituted by a community administration in 1978. The Shire council in the 1970s introduced a beer canteen, government developmental funds were seen as allowing one to dispense with the necessity to work, and, as alcoholism spread, the Mornington Island peoples began to rank among the communities with the highest rate of suicide in Australia. Interpersonal violence was common, including domestic violence;

#182817