Palm Island Dancers, 1930

Palm Island Dancers, 1930. Collection of John Oxley Library. The photographer has positioned visiting white tourists at centre stage. 

Collection of John Oxley Library

Carpet snake painting

Palm Island’s origins are in Gubbal or Carpet Snake Dreaming. The painting by James McAvoy, with assistance from other Palm Islanders, Joanne Bulmer, Vina Palmer and HJ Wilson, is one of many tributes to Palm’s history that are displayed on the island yet often overlooked by visiting journalists. Private Collection.

Location

Palm Island, QLD
Australia
See map: Google Maps

Plan of Palm Island Compound, 1931

Plan of Palm Island Compound, Justices Department, 7 January 1931. Collection of Queensland State Archives. Palm Island compound (1930) built on the principle of segregation akin to apartheid.  Palm Islanders were banned from entering tree lined Mango Avenue where white staff members were housed.

Collection of Queensland State Archives

Map of Palm and Surrounding Islands, 1941

Palm Island, QLD
Australia
See map: Google Maps
1 January 1941
1 September 2010
1 September 2010

Location

Palm Island, QLD
Australia
See map: Google Maps
1 September 2010
Lands Office

Collection of Queensland State Archives

Palm Island

Map of Palm and Surrounding Islands, 1941. Lands Office, Palm Island Bundle. Collection of Queensland State Archives. Palm and surrounding islands.  Fantome’s lock hospital for treatment of venereal disease was positioned opposite Palm’s Coolgaree Bay. The lazarette for leprosy sufferers were positioned at the opposite end.

Palm Island

Palm Island is situated in north Queensland, 65 kilometres northwest of Townsville, in Halifax Bay. It is the largest Indigenous community of Queensland.

Read more

Map of Queensland indicating Aboriginal ration depots, compounds, missions and government settlements, 1890s-1940s, 2003

QLD
Australia
See map: Google Maps
1 January 2003
27 August 2010
27 August 2010

Location

QLD
Australia
See map: Google Maps
27 August 2010
Canberra
Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS

Copyright © Gordon Briscoe, AO

Indigenous health
Separating land, separating culture

Map of Queensland indicating the Aboriginal ration depts, compounds, missions and government settlements, 1890s-1940s, from Gordon Briscoe, Counting, health and identity: a history of Aboriginal health and demography in Western Australia and Queensland, 1900-1940, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, 2003.

Gordon Briscoe, Counting, health and identity: a history of Aboriginal health and demography in Western Australia and Queensland, 1900-1940, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS, 2003

Aboriginal dreaming paths and trading ways

An important aspect of a distinct Aboriginal culture derives from the tradition of travel, and the tangible and intangible goods that were traded along communication routes that criss-crossed Austr

Read more

Aboriginal heroes: episodes in the colonial landscape

Five narratives retell episodes of Queensland history to reinstate knowledges that have been buried in police and government files, as well as documents put together by explorers, stockme

Read more

Walkabout cover, July 1969

Our cover shows masked dancers of the sivirri cult on Cape York, cover image Walkabout, July 1969. "Hero cults, cults of masked dancers of Papuan affinity, infiltrated Cape York Peninsula and established a foothold on both eastern and western seaboards. The cover photograph shows masked dancers in colour associated with the culture hero, Sivirri, in the Tjundjundji Tribe of the Lower Batavia River, western Cape York. In the foreground is the Trenna, the scared initiation ground, and in the background the Mbaga, the enclosure for the initiates." Copyright Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland
Syndicate content