Mornington Island facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Mornington

Native name: Kunhanhaa
Mornington Island from space, September 1991
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Geography
Location	Gulf of Carpentaria
Archipelago	Wellesley Islands
Total islands	22
Area	1,002 km2 (387 sq mi)
Highest elevation	150 m (490 ft)
Highest point	unnamed
Administration
Australia
State	Queensland
Local Government Area	Shire of Mornington
Largest settlement	Gununa
Demographics
Population	1007 (2001)
Pop. density	1 /km2 (3 /sq mi)
Ethnic groups	Aboriginal Australians

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 largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The largest town, Gununa, 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, the Mornington Island Dancers.

Geography

Mornington Island within the Wellesley Islands

Location of Wellesley Islands in Australia

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 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)).

History

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

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 as The Earl of Mornington.

Gununa Post Office opened by 1892.

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

In 1978, the Queensland government decided to take over control of both the Aurukun and Mornington Island Aboriginal reserves.

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.

Demographics

In the 2016 census, the population was 1,143 people. The majority of 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.

Facilities

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 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 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.

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 centres in Australia.

People of the islands started making artefacts and bark paintings using natural ochres in 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 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 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^[update] 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 as of 2022^[update] 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, 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 (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 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.

In literature

Mornington Island was the site of research over several decades by British anthropologist David McKnight, 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). McKnight lamented the increasing levels of violence since the 1970s.

Indigenous art of Mornington Island is described in The Heart of Everything: The art and artists of Mornington & Bentinck Islands, ed. N. Evans, L. Martin-Chew and P. Memmott (2008).

A tribe of indigenous people on the island have been communicating with wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for millennium. 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’ fortunes and happiness are maintained."

Alcohol ban

..... 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 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^[update], 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 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.

Climate

Notable people

• Sally Gabori, artist
• Dick Roughsey, artist
• Charlie Cameron, Australian rules footballer with the Brisbane Lions
• Jarrod Cameron, former Australian rules footballer with the West Coast Eagles

See also

In Spanish: Isla Mornington (Australia) para niños