Mabuiag, also known as "Mabuyag" and natively "Mabuyaagi", formerly "Jervis Island") is one of the

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...

in Queensland, Australia. Mabuiag is also a town and

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

in the

Torres Strait Island Region The Torres Strait Island Region is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering part of the Torres Strait Islands. It was created in March 2008 out of 15 autonomous Island Councils during a period of statewide local gove ...

local government area. In the , Mabuiag Island had a population of 210 people.

Geography

The island is in the Bellevue Islands group, north of

Thursday Island Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately north of Cape ...

in the

Napoleon Passage Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

and Arnolds Passage of the

Torres Strait The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mai ...

. It has other traditional names as well, such as Gœmu (strictly speaking the name of the South-East part of Mabuiag). This island is one of the

, originally named by Captain

William Bligh Vice-Admiral William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. The mutiny on the HMS ''Bounty'' occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command; after being set adrift i ...

, "Jervis Island", and so labelled on early English language maps.

History

Archaeological excavations have shown that people arrived on Mabuiag at least 7300 years ago. During this period, Islanders were able to survive by fishing and hunting dugong. The island continued to be occupied by small communities for the subsequent 5000 years, with pottery (usually associated with Melanesian peoples) found at two sites, Mui (East coast of Mabuiag) and Mask Cave (on adjacent islet, Pulu) dating from approximately 2000 years ago. The past 1000 years witnessed expansion in site use, including formation of multiple ethnographically-significant 'villages', including Gœmu, Wagedœgam and Dhabangay. During the past 400–500 years large, highly structured mounds of dugong bone, as well as shell and stone arrangements provide evidence for emerging totemic divisions The "Footprints before me – Torres Strait Island Missions and Communities" webpage tells the following history of Mabuiag Island and the people living there

Kala Lagaw Ya ''Kalau Lagau Ya'', ''Kalaw Lagaw Ya'', ''Kala Lagaw Ya'' (), or the ''Western Torres Strait language'' (also several other names, see below), is the language indigenous to the central and western Torres Strait Islands, Queensland, Australia. O ...

(more correctly Kalaw Lagaw Ya (KLY) and Gœmulgaw Ya) is one of the languages of the

. Kalaw Lagaw Ya is the traditional language of the Western and Central islands of the Torres Strait. The Kalaw Lagaw Ya language region includes the torritory within the local government boundaries of the

Torres Shire Council The Shire of Torres is a local government area located in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering large sections of the Torres Strait Islands and the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula north of 11°S latitude. It holds two distinctions—it ...

. Kalaw Lagaw Ya, alt. Gœmulgaw Ya, is specifically the dialect of Mabuyaagi (Mabuiag) and Badhu (Badu), there not being a traditional name for the language as a whole. Kalaw Lagaw Ya is used in academic literature as a cover term for the whole language, and is one of the two indigenous languages of Torres Strait; in earlier works it was also called Mabuiag. The Gœmulgaw Ya region includes the island territory of Mabuiag within the local government boundaries of the

and Mabuiag Island Council and by extension Badhu. In 1606,

Luís Vaz de Torres Luís Vaz de Torres ( Galician and Portuguese), or Luis Váez de Torres in the Spanish spelling (born c. 1565; fl. 1607), was a 16th- and 17th-century maritime explorer of a Spanish expedition noted for the first recorded European navigation of ...

sailed through, and navigated,

islands, along New Guinea's southern coast.

''"The Mabuiag people had a reputation for hostility to outsiders until their acceptance of Christianity in the early 1870s. In 1877 the mission moved to Bau where the water supply was better. Later, the missionaries persuaded the people to join them at Bau, which became the main settlement. By 1898, Mabuiag people were labouring on pearling luggers for wages, while many followed work to Thursday Island and further to the mainland. An official presence on Mabuiag began during the mid-1920s when
Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended fr ...
posted teachers there. An Island Industries Board store opened in 1946".''

Mabuiag Island State School opened on 29 January 1985. On 1 January 2007 the school became the Maubuiag Island campus of Tagai State College, an amalgamation of 17 Torres Strait Island schools.

Transportation

The island is one of the only ones in the Strait to have an airport, though its runway is the smallest in Australia to have commercial service. The runway as Mabuiag Island Airport is only 390 metres long.

Amenities

The Torres Strait Islands Regional Council operates an

Indigenous Knowledge Centre There are two library services operating in Australia that have adopted the appellation "Knowledge Centre" in relation to the delivery of library services for Indigenous clients. The Northern Territory Library first developed the Indigenous Knowle ...

with public library facilities on Main Street, known as Ngalpun Ngulaygaw Lag Resource Centre 'Our Place of Learning'.

Education

Tagai State College has 17 campuses throughout the Torres Strait. Its Mabuiag Island campus (''Mabuygiw Ngurpay Lag'') provides primary (Early Childhood-6) education at School Street (). There is no secondary school on the island. The nearest secondary school is on

Security Issues

On 5 February 2008, after working on the island for a couple of months, a 27-year-old nurse from

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

was attacked and raped in her sleeping quarters by a resident of the island; previously, she had frequently emailed her superiors on

about the lack of adequate security on the island. The incident prompted a review of security on the island and an inquiry into the sexual attack was launched by the

Government of Queensland The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary system, parliamentary constitutional monarchy was form ...

. In February 2009, more than a year after it had begun, the inquiry's findings had still not been released, while the alleged rapist, Dennis Kris, 23, was on bail before being due to be sentenced later that year. On Monday, 16 August 2010, Dennis William Kris pleaded guilty in the

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

District Court to rape, unlawfully entering a dwelling to commit an indictable offence and unlawfully entering a dwelling at night with intent. Judge William Everson sentenced Kris to six years' jail on the first count, three years on the second, one year on the third, to be served concurrently. Everson ordered, however, that as Kris had spent 785 days in pre-sentence custody, he could apply for immediate parole. Kris's mother worked at the medical centre on Mabuiag. Kris stole keys to the centre and sleeping quarters from his mother's briefcase. He let himself into the facility late at night where he attacked the sleeping woman. He and several friends then stayed outside the facility until daylight, calling out to and mocking the victim. Kris had disabled the nurse's telephone while he was in the building so she could not call for assistance. When the nurse called her

Queensland Health Queensland Health is the name of the overall public health service in the state of Queensland, Australia. Like all other states and territories in Australia, the Queensland Government provides low- or no-cost primary, secondary, and tertiary ...

superiors on

the morning after the rape, she was told to "put it behind you and get back to work". The nurse left the island that day to seek medical help;

immediately stopped her pay – it was only reinstated when the details were published in

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

. In April 2010, a

Magistrates' Court A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings. Courts * Magistrates' court (England and Wales) * Magistrate's Cou ...

was opened on the island for the first time. The court is part of the Torres Strait Court Circuit which is conducted on various islands in the Torres Strait on a rotational basis.

References

External links

Mabuiag Island Profile from Torres Strait Regional Authority website
Accessed 7 May 2008

accessed 7 May 2008

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070320182319/http://www.atns.net.au/biogs/A000179b.htm Mabuiag People v State of Queensland (2000(( FCA 1065 (6 July 2000)
Mabuiag Island – Nurse rape from The Australian reporter Tony Koch's website
accessed 29 Dec 11 {{authority control Torres Strait Islands Torres Strait Island Region Islands of Far North Queensland Localities in Queensland