The Home Island Cemetery is a heritage-listed

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

Home Island Home Island, also known locally as Pulu Selma, is one of only two permanently inhabited islands of the 26 islands of the Southern Atoll of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian external territory in the central-eastern Indian Ocean. Des ...

Cocos (Keeling) Islands ) , anthem = "''Advance Australia Fair''" , song_type = , song = , image_map = Australia on the globe (Cocos (Keeling) Islands special) (Southeast Asia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands , map_caption = ...

, Australia. It was added to the

Australian Commonwealth Heritage List The Commonwealth Heritage List is a heritage register established in 2003, which lists places under the control of the Australian government, on land or in waters directly owned by the Crown (in Australia, the Crown in right of the Commonwealth ...

on 22 June 2004.

History

By the end of 1827 there were two groups of European settlers on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and there was antagonism between the two settlement leaders, John Clunies Ross and Alexander Hare. Clunies Ross and his party first visited the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 1825 but did not settle there until the end of 1827. A former business partner of Clunies Ross, Alexander Hare, and his party settled on the Islands early in 1827, months before Ross' return, with a party of 40, including many women reputedly taken to the Islands against their wishes. John Clunies Ross was desirous of establishing a supply depot on the Islands for spices and coffee for shipment to Europe. He imposed an imperialist social and political regime on the Islands and managed them as a

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

plantation using non-European labour which gave the Clunies Ross family great power. He established a contractual arrangement between his family and the

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

and later Bantamese people, who would provide labour for the plantations and for

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...

production. The Clunies Ross family provided a house and land for each family. There was a written agreement in force from 22 December 1837 that bound the families and community heads to obey rules and lawful commands or quit the Islands and move elsewhere. The original labourers who worked the plantations were brought primarily from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and the

Malay Archipelago The Malay Archipelago (Indonesian/Malay: , tgl, Kapuluang Malay) is the archipelago between mainland Indochina and Australia. It has also been called the " Malay world," "Nusantara", "East Indies", Indo-Australian Archipelago, Spices Archipe ...

but also included Chinese, Indians, Africans and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

ns. There was intermarriage between

Cocos Malay Cocos Malay is a post-creolized variety of Malay, spoken by the Cocos Malays of Home Island, Christmas Island, and those originally from the Cocos Islands currently living in Sabah. Cocos Malay derives from the Malay trade languages of the 19 ...

women and Clunies Ross men as well a number of illegitimate children born in the settlement. Sometimes the children were sent to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

to live but more usually they were reared in the mother's house and took the name of her Malay husband. Home Island was the location for the Clunies Ross family and a settlement for the Cocos Malay work force. It was the site of industry where coconuts were processed into copra and oil. The Island contained workshops for the production of material for use on the islands and the storage of imported food stuffs. Wharves, store houses, workshops and factories were part of the economy and the system of social control on the islands. The Home Island Cemetery was originally located near the Clunies Ross area (of which some graves survive), however it was located on the far northern end of Home Island 1900, after a visiting doctor expressed concern about the quality of the water supply. Originally located on a separate island known as Pulu Gangsa, the island was joined onto the Northern end of Home Island in the late 1940s as part of land reclamation. The cemetery is still used by the Malay population and is an important place culturally.

Description

Home Island Cemetery is at located at Pulu Gangsa, at the northern tip of Home Island (formerly a separate island, now a peninsula of Home Island). Established , it is an informally planned cemetery with three to four Clunies-Ross graves on the east side of a central track. On the western side is the cemetery of the Cocos Malay people, locally called Pulu Gangsa, and consists of Muslim graves. The graves show a definite contrast in style between the two cultures represented. One of the Clunies-Ross graves has white glazed bricks and gravestones whilst the Muslim graves have wooden slats surrounding the graves instead of gravestones. In 1996 the cemetery was found to be in generally good condition. In 2000 the cemetery was found to be in poor condition and the significant headstones required urgent conservation. The exposed location has caused many of the graves to be damaged by wave action.

Heritage listing

The Home Island Cemetery, established , is significant as evidence of the Clunies Ross occupation of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. It also provides evidence of the contract labour of the Cocos Malay people who developed the Islands as a coconut plantation and copra processing works from the early nineteenth century until the late 1970s. The Home Island Cemetery is significant as a cemetery for European settlers and Cocos Malay people. It contrasts the style of graves for the two cultures represented. The Home Island Cemetery contains graves of Clunies Ross family members and is significant for its association with the Clunies Ross family settlement on the Cocos Keeling Islands.

References

Bibliography

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Attribution

{{AHD-CC, name=Home Island Cemetery, fileNo=9/04/001/0003, id=105355, year=2019, accessdate=15 May 2019 Commonwealth Heritage List places in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Home Island Cemeteries in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Articles incorporating text from the Australian Heritage Database 1900s establishments in Australia Cemeteries established in the 1900s