Mornington Island

Mornington Island within the Wellesley Islands

Location of Wellesley Islands in Australia

The general topography of the island 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.[5]

The town of Gununa is located on the south-western end of the island overlooking the Appel Channel (16.682°S 139.192°E / -16.682; 139.192 (Appel Channel)) which separates it from Denham Island (16.7144°S 139.1597°E / -16.7144; 139.1597 (Denham Island)).[6][7][8]

The population was estimated to be 1,143 in 2016[9]and the majority of the citizens live in the township of Gununa. Mornington Island is included in the Shire of Mornington local government area. The majority of the islanders are Aboriginal.

Lardil, who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa),[1] 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 by the government after it was badly damaged by a cyclone. More people, of other nations, arrived from Doomadgee Mission in 1958.[10]

Lardil (also known as Gununa, Ladil) is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Mornington Island and the Northern Wellesley Islands, within the local government boundaries of the Mornington Shire.[11] 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.[12]

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 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.[13]

On 22 April 1905 all of the Wellesley islands apart from Sweers Island were proclaimed as an Aboriginal reserve, under 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).[14]

Gununa Post Office opened by 1982.[15]

The Mornington Island Airport was a temporary airfield used by the RAAF and allied air forces during World War II.

Penile subincision is still traditionally performed on the island for those wanting to learn a complex ceremonial language called Damin.

The Mornington Island State School opened on 28 January 1975.[16]

In 1978, 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 the island in February, 2005.

A vignette for affixing to mail for the 1943 Christmas parachute drop to Mornington Island Mission

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.[17][18]

Rev. Wilson took over, serving as superintendent until about 1941; mission staff were evacuated during the Second World War. Rev. James McCarthy[19] was Superintendent from 1944 to 1948, and he imposed a strict regime of adhering to Christian customs and eroded the authority of the elders. Belcher arrived when Taylor was superintendent, taking over as superintendent around 1952. Belcher ran a more humane administration than his predecessors, and respected the Lardil culture.[14]

Mission conditions were not as severe and restrictive as they were at 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.[20]

In 1978 the Queensland Government took over the administration of both Aurukun and Mornington Island mission stations.[17]

Mornington Island State School is a government primary and secondary (Early Childhood-10) school for boys and girls at Lardil Street (16.6663°S 139.1825°E / -16.6663; 139.1825 (Mornington Island State School)).[21][22] In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 263 students with 25 teachers and 14 non-teaching staff (11 full-time equivalent).[23] It includes a special education program.[21]

There are no schools offering education to Year 12 on the island; nor are there any nearby.[24] Distance education or boarding school would be the only options.

Writer Ernestine Hill travelled to Mornington Island and took at least one photographs of it in 1933, which is held by the University of Queensland's in their Ernestine Hill collection.[25]

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 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).[26]

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).[27]

According to the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals (2008), 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".[28][29]

• Dick Roughsey, artist[30]

In November 2003 the Government of Queensland implemented an Alcohol Management Plan to 19 Indigenous communities in Queensland where alcohol abuse was rampant, aimed at alleviating high levels of domestic violence, child abuse and child neglect.[31] The plan restricted tavern opening hours, limits sales to only light and mid-strength beers, bans takeaway alcohol sales and home brewing.[32] In December 2003 police reinforcements had to be sent to Mornington Island after riots broke out when tough new alcohol laws were introduced.[31]

On Christmas Day 2007 a number of men were involved in a break-in at the Lelka Murrin Hotel and a brawl with police ensued, causing 16 people to be charged. The hotel's licence was suspended indefinitely a month later as a consequence.[33]

Alcohol continues to be a major social and health problem.[34] After the tavern was shut down, locals took to home brewing, providing almost unlimited quantities of very cheap alcohol. In 2017 Mornington Shire Council called for the ban to be lifted so that alcohol could be better regulated from a single legal outlet.[35]

As of 2020 a total ban on alcohol is in place across all foreshores and the 23 islands in the Wellesley, South Wellesley Islands, Forsythe and Bountiful Islands groups and Sweers Island, apart from the Sweers Resort.[36]

• List of islands of Australia
• Sydney Island

• "Mornington Island". Queensland Government.