Mornington Island, also known as Kunhanhaa, is an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Shire of Mornington,

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, Australia. It is the northernmost and largest of 22 islands that form the

Wellesley Islands The Wellesley Islands, also known as the North Wellesley Islands, is a group of islands off the coast of Far North Queensland, Australia, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is a locality within the Shire of Mornington local government area. The t ...

group. The largest town, Gununa, is in the south-western part of the island. The

Lardil people The Lardil people, who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa, the traditional name for Mornington Island), are an Aboriginal Australian people and the traditional custodians of Mornington Island in the Wellesley Isla ...

are the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

of the island, but there are also Kaiadilt people, who were relocated from nearby

Bentinck Island Bentinck Island is a small island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca just off the southern tip of Vancouver Island in Metchosin, British Columbia, Canada near Race Rocks. It served as a leper colony beginning in 1924, when the federal government shut ...

, 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 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 f ...

, which had proclaimed the islands an

Aboriginal reserve An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th c ...

in 1905. The Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation owns and manages an art centre, MIArt, and dance troupe, the Mornington Island Dancers.

Geography

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 . The island is fringed by

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

forests and contains 10

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environmen ...

, all in near pristine condition. The

Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area The Manowar and Rocky Islands Important Bird Area comprise two small islands in the Wellesley Islands group. It lies in the southeastern region of the Gulf of Carpentaria and is part of the state of Queensland, Australia. The two islands are i ...

lies about to the northwest of Mornington. The town of Gununa is located on the south-western end of the island overlooking the Appel Channel () which separates it from Denham Island ()..

History

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. 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 The Shire of Cook (The Shire) is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Shire covers most of the eastern and central parts of Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly section of the Australian mainland. It covers an area ...

. Lardil, who prefer to be known as Kunhanaamendaa (meaning people of Kunhanhaa), is the predominant nation on Mornington Island and they are the

of the land and surrounding seas. Kaiadilt people arrived more recently (1947–8) after being relocated from nearby

, and more people of other nations arrived from

Doomadgee Mission Doomadgee is a town and a locality in the Aboriginal Shire of Doomadgee, Queensland, Australia. It is a mostly Indigenous community, situated about from the Northern Territory border, and west of Burketown. The settlement began with the e ...

in 1958.

Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. 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 Anthony van Diemen (also ''Antonie'', ''Antonio'', ''Anton'', ''Antonius'') (1593 – 19 April 1645) was a Dutch colonial governor. Early life He was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands, the son of Meeus Anthonisz van Diemen and Christina Hoe ...

. Commander Matthew Flinders named the island after Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley who was known when younger as the

Earl of Mornington Earl of Mornington is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1760 for the Anglo-Irish politician and composer Garret Wellesley, 2nd Baron Mornington. On the death of the fifth earl in 1863, it passed to the Duke of Wellington; si ...

. Wesllesley 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

, under a

Protector of Aborigines The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836. The role became established in other parts of Australia pursuant to a recommendation contained in the ''Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Abori ...

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 Mornington Island Airport is an airport on Mornington Island, Queensland, Australia. It is to the immediate north-west of the town of Gununa. In 2006 the airport received $200,853 in funds to improve security. Airlines and destinations S ...

was a temporary airfield used by the

RAAF "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

and allied air forces during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The Mornington Island State School opened on 28 January 1975. In 1978, the

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 f ...

decided to take over control of both the

Aurukun Aurukun is a town and coastal locality in the Shire of Aurukun and the Shire of Cook in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is an Indigenous community. In the , the locality of Aurukun had a population of 1,269 people. Geography Aurukun is ...

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. In the , the population was 1,143 people.The majority of the islanders are Aboriginal, The majority of the people live in the township of Gununa.

Mornington Island Mission

The Mornington Island Mission was established in 1914 by Robert Hall, the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. James McCarthy 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

were moved by the missionaries onto the Mornington Island Mission. The missionaries separated the children from their parents and placed them into separate

dormitories A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

for boys and girls, while their parents built humpies around 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

. It was reported that some of the people had to be "induced" to move. One of those relocated by the missionaries was artist Sally Gabori (1924–2015), who later mapped her traditional lands in her artwork at the Mornging Island Art Centre. 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. Mission conditions were not as severe and restrictive as they were at the

, and by the late 1950s the practice of separating children from parents in

had been abandoned, so many residents of Doomadgee moved to Mornington Island at this time. In 1978 the

took over the administration of both

and Mornington Island

mission station A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as ...

Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation

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 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.

Art centre

Mornington Island Art (MIArt), owned and run by the Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, is one of the oldest

Indigenous Australian art Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving ...

centres in Australia. People of the islands started making artefacts and bark paintings using natural ochres in the 1950s, later using

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. De ...

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 the Kaiadilt art movement, led by Sally Gabori (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 the artists have been mounted in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

and Darwin. Two of the most well-known artists to have worked in the art centre are Sally Gabori and

Dick Roughsey Dick Roughsey (ca. 1920 – 1985) was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Lardil language group on Mornington Island in the south-eastern Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland. His tribal name was Goobalathaldin, meaning “the ocean, dancing” ...

, and members of their families continue to work at the centre. The manager of the art centre is John Armstrong, while the gallery manager is Bereline Loogatha. The art centre works with Kaiadilt elders to help revive their language and culture.

Mornington Island Dancers

There 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 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 Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

, the United States, United Kingdom, India and Sweden.

Education

Mornington Island State School is a government primary and secondary (Early Childhood-10) school for boys and girls at Lardil Street (). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 263 students with 25 teachers and 14 non-teaching staff (11 full-time equivalent). It includes a

special education Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...

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; non are there any nearby.

Distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

or boarding school would be the only options.

In literature

Writer Ernestine Hill travelled to Mornington Island and a 1933 photograph she took of the island is held by the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

's library in their Ernestine Hill collection. Mornington Island was the site of research over several decades by British anthropologist

David McKnight David McKnight (4 March 1935 – 14 May 2006) was a Canadian-British anthropologist and ethnographer who specialized in the anthropology of Australian Aboriginal people, with particular regard to the tribes of the Cape York Peninsula. He conduc ...

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). Indigenous art of Mornington Island is described in ''The Heart of Everything: The art and artists of Mornington & Bentinck Islands'', ed.

Nicholas Evans Nicholas Benbow Evans (26 July 1950 – 9 August 2022) was a British journalist, screenwriter, television and film producer and novelist. Biography Nicholas Benbow Evans was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, son of Anthony Evans, director of ...

, Louise Martin-Chew and Paul Memmott (2008). 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 A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and cerem ...

who calls the dolphins and 'speaks' to them

telepathic Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

ally. By these communications he assures that the tribes' fortunes and happiness are maintained".

Alcohol ban

In November 2003 the

Government of Queensland 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 ...

implemented an Alcohol Management Plan to 19 Indigenous communities in Queensland where alcohol abuse 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 Homebrewing is the brewing of beer or other alcoholic beverages on a small scale for personal, non-commercial purposes. Supplies, such as kits and fermentation tanks, can be purchased locally at specialty stores or online. Beer was brewed do ...

. 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 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 , 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, the island introduced limited, regulated access to liquor. Residents and visitors are now permitted to have up to , 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.

Climate

Mornington Island experiences a

tropical savanna climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of p ...

( Köppen: ''Aw'', Trewartha: ''Awhb''), with a very hot and very humid, yet short

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

from mid-November to mid-April; and a long, warm to hot

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

from mid-April to mid-November with muggy conditions due to its coastal location.

Notable people

* Sally Gabori, artist *

, artist * Charlie Cameron, Australian rules footballer with the

Brisbane Lions The Brisbane Lions is a professional Australian rules football club based in Brisbane, Queensland, that plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was formed in late 1996 via a merger of the Melbourne-based 1883 foundation VFL c ...

* Jarrod Cameron, former Australian rules footballer with the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football L ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Islands of Queensland Aboriginal communities in Queensland Gulf of Carpentaria Shire of Mornington (Queensland) Queensland in World War II Australian Aboriginal missions