KOWANYAMA PROJECT NEWS ISSUE 2 - July 2019

KOWANYAMA Issue 2: July 2019

A COMMUNITY MAGAZINE PRODUCED FOR THE KOWANYAMA COMMUNITY AND FRIENDS

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Cover: Stephen Patterson cutting wood for traditional shields at Worrtha in preparation for The Ochred Shields Exhibition CIAF 2016 Produced: The Kowanyama Culture and Research Centre Chapman Road Kowanyama QLD 4891 Editor: Viv Sinnamon Assisting Curator Kowanyama Collection Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/kowanyamaProject https://www.facebook.com/woventracks https://www.woventracks.com

The editor This magazine is produced as a part of a campaign that began in 2002. In 2009 Kowanyama was supported by the Q150 Program celebrating the 150th year of the creation of the State of Queensland. First stage of interim museum space and staff accommodation was established with a very generous grant.

By 2009 Kowanyama had intensified the campaign called the Kowanyama Project for the development of a proposed state of the art Culture and Research Centre.

We are proud to say that this community initiative spans two decades in its encouragement of younger generations to maintain the cultural legacy of ancestors.

Makah Culture and Research Centre in the State of Washington may not be aware of the inspiration that they have provided this campaign. Kowanyama honours them for this their gift to us. One of Doreen Yam’s beautiful traditional baskets now rests at Neah Bay in their wonderful Cultural Centre collections and a Makah woven cedar hat is in ours.

The Project is developing into something very special. Something that enriches Kowanyama lives. The dream is for the future centre to become an icon of Cape York as a region, and that it will promote and share the rich diversity of its culture and that of all First Nations with all Australians. Enjoy our stories

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Kowanyama Collection

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MARA Cairns Art Gallery

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A Collection of National Significance

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Battle of the Mitchell River

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Collection Acquisitions

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A Campaign for support

Over 140 Kowanyama Cultural Objects

The Jardine 1864 Expedition QLD Calisher Terry carbine

Charles Scrutton

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Kowanyama Baskets

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ALGNGGA Olkola Project

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ALGNGGA Olkola Project

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The Cannon from Nar

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Bosworth Station

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R H Matthews Collection

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A snap shot of our photo archive

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Cultural Heritage Workshop

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Transmission of traditional knowledge and practices

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A dream realised

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Awin Udnum

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The Native Mounted Police

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Another legacy Warr’mel pan & Koch yawrnh

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An enduring legacy

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The Scrutton River

A significant fibre collection Kowanyama Installation

Cairns UMI Art Gallery Installation A shared cultural heritage

QLD Museum 1905-1919

Developing field monitoring skills

Professor Lauriston Sharp

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Kowanyama Project

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2nd Edition July 2019

The Late Daniel Maddelena with Tom Hearn of Bush TV, Glenette Greenwool and Fitzroy Lawrence about Kowanyama Project: Viv Sinnamon photo

Kowanyama Project

began soon after it

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became clear that the very generous support by the program established to fund potentially iconic projects for Queensland’s 150th celebration would not be near enough to build the cultural facility that had been envisioned for Kowanyama.

In 2009 it would be Queensland’s birthday when it was declared a state in 1859.

Kowanyama Aboriginal Council’s Land and Natural Resources Management Office collaborated with Bush TV from Yeppoon to develop a Kowanyama Project web site, Facebook page, two magazines and a video promoting a campaign to raise the necessary funds to develop a future state of the art Culture and Research Centre. A number of Native American tribally operated centres were the subject of case studies.

Makah Culture & Research Centre at Neah Bay in the State of Washington USA was the inspiration for the future centre at Kowanyama.

It was successful, totally tribally owned and had many lessons to be learnt from the history of its development.

Other Australian centres were also a great help in the development of case studies. Aboriginal operated centres like Brambuk at Halls Gap at the entrance to Gariwerd National Park in the Grampians of Victoria was one.

Viv Sinnamon photo

There are a number of significant Native American objects that include a Lummi cedar raven’s mask from Washington State wood carver, Dale James and a prayer pipe bundle blessed by the late Frank Fools Crow and a sun dance breast pendant he gifted.

The Kowanyama Collection is not purely an ethnographic collection. It covers all of the eras of historic contact for our people including early exploration, pastoral, mining, Mission and Government time and the protectionist era.

The collection has achieved a Statement of National Significance (National Heritage Grant) and will soon undergo a Museum Needs Analysis for the conservation and management of the collection through Arts Queensland. A recent upgrade of museum temperature and humidity controls funded by Arts Queensland has been completed with some additional work required to fine tune the system.

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People who worked at Kowanyama in the past have donated back their traditional objects. The cultural collection includes archaeological wooden, shell, bone and stone objects donated by mostly Kowanyama people and objects found during wetland and mapping survey works. Some material remains in place at the request of the traditional owners. Other acquired cultural material is either contemporary or historical.

The old man was a prominent spiritual Leader of the Lakota People. Gifted objects were the result of more than two decades of Kowanyama world indigenous networking that began in 1986.

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The Kowanyama Collection is a collection of more than 12000 objects consisting of the Sinnamon Collection 1972 to present, and a series of acquired collections which include the Palmer Collection of Cape York Wommeras, The Atherton Family Collection of Mitchell River Wommeras and two repatriated collections from the QLD Museum and Yalga Binbi Townsville.

MARA Collaboration with Cairns Art Gallery

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In June 2018 twenty four Kowanyama traditional crafts people past and present were represented at a Cairns exhibition called Mara, Indigenous design, politics and culture. Mara was curated by indigenous curators, Bernie Singleton Jr and Teho Ropeyarn.

Mara helped get Kowanyama on show.

The exhibition was a success with standing room only for the opening. Over 140 cultural objects from Kowanyama Collection were a significant part of the exhibition. Viv Sinnamon, Teho Ropeyarn and fellow artist Justin Majic travelled to Kowanyama to select agreed objects for the exhibition. The task was to get 20 or more three metre spears into protective cylinders for the long rough ride back to Cairns. Teho and Justin tagged, catalogued and packed. Viv helped with removal of objects from the museum and organised for the loan agreement to be signed.

The collection was returned to Kowanyama safely.

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Mara Exhibition Cairns Art Gallery KOWANYAMA CULTURAL COLLECTIONS A Statement of Significance

A comprehensive significance assessment was done by Arthur Palmer of Toowong in Brisbane. Further comment was provided in a summary of the original 2009 findings in 2017. Palmer notes, “The significance

Arthur Beau Palmer AD Fine Art (QCA) 2009

of this collection is that a vast majority of material has complete and unimpeachable provenance. Ethnographic provenance includes; name,

KOWANYAMA COLLECTION

language group and clan of maker/owner; language name for item, use, maintenance, gathering and preparation of raw material, manufacture technical data and documentation of raw materials used and associated linguistic information. All categories contain multiple

more rare complete provenance. The collection in total is unique for any Aboriginal community, either in situ or in a museum context in Australia (R H Matthews Qld Museum, W H Roth Australian Museum Sydney & Donald Thomson Vic Museum)”.

This seminal cultural resource collection is not and very possibly, cannot be replicated in any other location”.

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In 2009 a National Heritage Grant supported the assessment of the Kowanyama Collection and as a result it received a Statement of National Significance.

examples of extremely rare outstanding examples of type with even

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A collection of national significance

On the 18th December when the group were near the Mitchell at Camp LXIV about 50 kilometres from present day Kowanyama the drovers had a deadly confrontation with the local clans.

BATTLE OF

THE MITCHELL

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50 rounds were fired by the droving party and thirty men lay dead. They believed that others may have drowned and others died later of their wounds.

The Jardine brothers Alex and Frank left Rockhampton in 1864 to drove 250 head of cattle to Carpentaria Downs the further most part of the advancing frontier of European settlement into the north.

Queensland was a newly formed state just eight years before they set off.

They were droving the mob of cattle to their father, John Jardine at Somerset on Cape York Peninsula and continued their journey from Carpentaria Downs.

The party included four Aboriginal men, Barney, Eulo, Sambo and Peter from the Wide Bay District Native Mounted Police force. They were armed with double barrelled police carbines. Charlie Scrutton accompanied the party with Roy Binney, Alfred Cowderoy and Surveyor Archibald Richardson sent by the state to map their route. The men carried Calisher Terry carbines and Tranter percussion revolvers.

They travelled through the country with

supplies but often hunted for game and spent time raiding native bees nests.

Leaving the rocky country of areas of the Einsleigh River they missed the Lynd River described by Ludwig Leichardt during his 1844 trip between the Darling Downs and present day Darwin. Leichardt had lost a scientist called Gilbert in a spear fight on Rutland Plains near the Nassau River.

Jardine’s party missed the Lynd River and did not find the Mitchell River. They were too far west. The party reached very dry Staaten River coastal country at the wrong time of year. They eventually found their way. On December the 18th they were attacked by a group close to the Alice and Mitchell River Junction. More than 30 men died. Earlier 3 others had been killed while the expedition was following Eula Creek what is now called the Magnificent Creek.

The Jardine’s droving party arrived at Somerset with their cattle March 14th 1865.

Viv Sinnamon photos

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30 Bore QLD issue Calisher Terry carbine Sourced in QLD. Terry patent bullet mould & Kynoch percussion cap tin Sourced in the UK Projectiles from mould Moulded in Australia

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KOWANYAMA COLLECTION ACQUISITIONS

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Mark Weaver and Viv Sinnamon at the Kowanyama Cultural Centre Their long-time friend and mentor, the Late Jerry Mission looks on

VISITING THE PAST

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David McGahan photo

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Charles Scrutton in the Northern Territory in 1929 at the age of 91 years

Charlie Scrutton was a reknowned northern bushman amongst settlers in the early days.

In 1864 he had helped drive cattle from Rockhampton to Somerset on Cape York Peninsula with the Jardine Brothers. They were responsible for the killing of more than 30 Aboriginal men during a fight near the Alice and Mitchell Rivers Junction.

Charlie was known for having kept his eye in by putting a bullet through an auger hole on a station fence post every day before his evening supper. He went on to establish stations at Millungera and Iffley among others. In his later years he lived near Borroloola with his Aboriginal wife where he died in McArthur River country.

The Scrutton River that Kowanyama people will know, was named after him

Humpy in the rain March 2019: Viv Sinnamon photo

DEDICATION OF THE ALGNGGA PROJECT

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To two old brothers Lofty & Paddy Yam no longer with us who passed on enough of the traditional knowledge of Algngga while at Oriners in forest country for the knowledge and skills to continue and not be lost Lofty & Paddy Yam at Ogngol ampungk near Oriners 1980’s

ALGNGGA

Palmer and Mitchell Rivers junction 1899

The Messmate Bark Shelter Project 1 at Kowanyama Photo by Inspector Garraway: In W Roth

The Algngga Project was a great example of young and old Olkola families working together making a humpy that had not been made for many years.

It brought elder women and men together with young men to keep a tradition alive.

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The project was in two parts. A full sized shelter was built in the Kowanyama Culture and Research Centre grounds and another in Cairns. The shelter at Kowanyama was built in the shade of the old prisoner tree, an old mango tree where prisoners in the old days were chained. Craig Goggleye, Simpson Yam, and Stafford Yam who were key Olkola members involved in the building of the messmate humpy attended the opening night of Algngga in April. Harvey Flower also joined his relatives from Cairns.

Viv Sinnamon photos

Tom Hearn from Bush TV helped in the video documentation of Olkola words, stories and song about the trees used in making the wet season benched humpy.

Tom also filmed the cutting of bark and building of the shelter. Algngga was a shelter that kept everyone dry in the soggy forest country of ancestors where the ground was too wet to camp on.

Palmer and Mitchell Rivers junction 1899

ALGNGGA The Messmate Bark Shelter Project 2 at UMI Arts in Cairns The second part to the Algngga Project was the installation of a smaller model messmate shelter with soundscape in UMI Arts new gallery in Cairns.

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Stafford Yam, Craig Goggleye, Harvey Flower, Simpson Yam: Bush TV

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Viv Sinnamon photos

Tom Hearn of Bush TV and his lighting colleagues from tlu Creative Studios, Adam Stock and Rebecca Cawthorne did their magic weaving the story around the wet season humpy. Viv Sinnamon with the help of gallery curatorial staff Theo Tremblay and Michelle Torrens installed a collection of cultural objects associated with Olkola people’s trade with the coastal tribes of the Mitchell River delta region.

Three Olkola Elder women visited the Kowanyama shelter to proof Olkola words for the project.

Highlight of the video presentation of the Cairns exhibition was a traditional sugarbag song by Hazel Barr.

One of the Olkola clans has totemic association with the native bee. Hazel and her sisters, Kassie Victor and Doreen Yam are Egng ojow Yam Clan.

Doreen who is a master weaver contributed a beautiful exhibition of her traditional weaving from the Kowanyama Collection to the Algngga Installation.

In early times a British ship lost a small iron cannon or signal gun as they were called back in the 1700’s and early 1800’s. It is not a very old iron cannon and there are stories of a well on Topsy Creek lined with a slate like rock similar to the ballast used in sailing ships. The late Peter Michael remembers seeing the well on the Kokoberra coast at Kunkvlara back from the mouth of Topsy Creek and said that a skull had been found there.

Kunkvlara is known for a number of exposed burials since the 1980’s.

All were identified as traditional burials where natural erosion of the river bank had exposed the grave sites.

The late Arthur Major brought in a similar piece of the rock to that described at the well site with a damaged ground edge. Its edge had crumbled and been thrown away on Magnificent Creek where he found it. It is now in the Kowanyama Collection.

Lauriston Sharp mentioned a cannon in his field notes in 1934 when he did his early studies for his Doctorate with Harvard at Puyul just north of the Coleman River in Yir Yoront country.

The Late Jerry Mission confirmed that the cannon had been taken from Nhar, a Yirrk Thangakl rain clan story place named after the Man o War bird or Frigate bird was called minh nhar in the Yir Yoront language of the region. Jerry was at Puyul when Sharp was there living with Jerry’s family and other clans in the camp in the 1930’s.

In earlier times a young man called Snotty camping with family had speared a sandalwood cutter near Nhar as the man stepped from a dinghy that he had rowed from a sail boat anchored offshore.

David McGahan

THE CANNON FROM NHAR

He was told by some of the men about a cannon taken in 1909 (sic).

Correspondence from Reverend R H Matthews to QLD Museum records the date as 1919.

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This was a challenge for Kowanyama spanning almost three decades and is a lesson for us all in persistence and patience. It began with a visit to the Old Queensland Museum back in the 1970’s and became a good example of an object that had through time acquired shared cultural heritage values. It returns to Kowanyama 100 years after it was removed from Nhar by Thomas Simpson of Lochnagar

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A shared cultural heritage

Brian Coghill welcomes his Kowanyama friends and colleagues to the Queensland Museum

Qld Museum June 2018

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Earlier talks with Elders in the 1980’s about the cannon had centred around what should happen with the cannon if Kowanyama did get the old cannon back.

The Late Jerry Mission explained that even though it was from the story place at Nhar and had been used in the ceremony to make minh nhar the frigate bird “breed up” it did not need to go back to Nhar. “Now we know that a long time before it was once a white man’s big gun, but that Simpson was lucky when he took it and it went down there to the place in Brisbane. If those old people had seen him take that thing they would’a spear’m him”.

He also said that there had been big changes at the mouth of the South Mitchell where large areas had been washed away after the late Patrick Eric was badly mauled as a boy by a crocodile. The Old People believed that the blood from the terrible injuries to his leg had brought about the change.

The place was not the same as the mouth used to be.

Karl Major and John Clark with cannon

The Nar Cannon Handover

So after more than three decades of talking and the finding of the cannon and one hundred years after being taken by Simpson of Lochnagar Station in 1919, a ceremony was held to repatriate the cannon.

The ceremony was held at Queensland Museum for staff, Kowanyama representatives and supporters to celebrate its return to the Gulf coast where more than 200 years ago it had been lost from a passing sailing ship. It was greeted with ironwood smoke and Kowanyama gave thanks to those who helped in the cannon’s return.

Visiting the Mission 1920’s: Reverend Done photograph

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Through the mists of time comes a story

OLD BOSWORTH STATION May now be understood The old people at Kowanyama talked about Banana or Old Bosworth Station. Before the Reserve was established in 1903 there were occupation licenses given by the State to settlers and investors looking for land to graze cattle in the late 1800’s.

Stations such as Highbury and perhaps Drumduff were not established when these maps were drawn during the years before the Mission was established at Trubanamen in 1904.

Roth had investigated the region following reports of mistreatment of the resident tribes. He was escorted by Inspector Garroway of the Cairo Lagoon Native Mounted Police Camp in 1899 just before the camp’s closure.

Roth and Gribble were players in the 1903 gazettal of the northern reserve.

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Walter Roth the Northern Protector of Aborigines and Ernest Gribble from the Anglican Yarrabah Mission were talking about the idea of a Mitchell River Reserve. These maps were used in those talks with the State Government.

Old Bosworth worked by a Mr Underwood was not a full blown station like Dunbar or Rutland. When the reserve was established some occupation licences were closed to make room for the Mitchell River Reserve in 1903. The Mission was opened in 1905 soon after the closure of the Cairo Lagoon Native Mounted Police Camp in 1900.

Settling pastoralists were not happy and serious tensions would continue into the 1920’s.

There is a valuable legacy of documents and maps and stories to learn about that early frontier history. Many books and documents like these old maps and photographs are being collected from different places for Kowanyama.

They are being kept in the Kowanyama Collection Archive for future generations of their people and country, and how things have along with a collection of changed over time. historical and cultural objects.

Kowanyama Project needs your help in making a dream come true.

The dream is one day we will have a centre that tells our own stories of our culture and history. It will be a really special place for us all.

Gribble returns to Yarrabah from his 1904 expedition

THE R. H. MATTHEWS COLLECTION Trubanamen 1905-1919

Museum of Queensland Brisbane

Kowanyama visitors Viv Sinnamon and James Dick recall their first visit to the old Museum of Queensland in the early 1970’s. They were shown steel cabinets full of deteriorating spears and other objects. Some objects were on public display. The collection at that time was clearly a large collection and in those days poorly managed. The old Museum was running out of space.

In 2005 Elders travelled to Brisbane to collect sensitive cultural objects for repatriation to Kowanyama reported to Elders after the 1970’s visit. These included objects collected by Matthews and Gilbert White. The objects are now kept in secure and appropriate storage as significant cultural objects of the Kowanyama Collection.

Brian Coghill, Leonie’s brother visited Kowanyama in the late 1990’s. He and other Quandamooka men were involved in a series of cultural exchanges with the Kowanyama Land Office, Quandamooka Rangers and community. Brian welcomed his Kowanyama visitors at the cannon handover ceremony.

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Many collectors in those days were a product of their time. The collection of Aboriginal curiosities was often made in questionable circumstances. In some cases it is suggested that Matthews collected confiscated weapons and other objects after fights and other transgressions.

In 100 years it has become a significant collection and ironically it is providing a cultural legacy for the Kowanyama People beyond their wildest dreams.

In June 2018 following the repatriation ceremony of the Nhar Cannon at the museum a viewing was organised by Leonie Coghill Manager of the Repatriation and Community Engagement, Cultures and Histories Program. Leonie Coghill is a Quandamooka woman and has worked closely with Kowanyama in the past. Leonie has helped in gaining access to the cannon and Matthews Shield Collection for photographic documentation purposes.

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RH Matthews was the first Anglican Superintendent of the Mitchell River Mission at Trubanamen at the original site chosen by Ernest Gribble and Gilbert White in 1904.

Matthews was a faithful collector of Aboriginal cultural objects shipping numerous items off to the State Museum.

1904 GRIBBLE’S EXPEDITION Trubanamen.

Messrs Field, James Noble, Rev. Ernest Gribble, Millar & Bendigo Photo; Held ABM Sydney

1920’s POLICE TRACKER AND MEETING OF MEN Mitchell River Mission

Reverend Done Collection

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1934 PARRY REPAIRS SPEAR WITH SON WILLIAM LOOKING ON Puyul (Coleman River)

Photo: Lauriston Sharp

1940’s AT THE MISSION ON THE PEDAL RADIO Mitchell River Mission

The Ruth Wall Collection

1950’s MISSION BOAT STEPHEN DAVIS AT THE LANDING Mitchell River Mission Boat Landing Margaret Warman with One Boy Margaret Warman Collection

Mitchell River Mission Father Michael Martin Collection

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PACK HORSES ON THE WAY OUT BUSH

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1960’s

Francine Gilbert and Shalika Gilbert on the GPS near Thakuluw Topsy Creek: Viv Sinnamon photo

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CULTURAL HERITAGE WORKSHOP Developing field monitoring skills July 2018

A Cultural Heritage Monitoring Workshop was organised by Abm elgoring ambung (The PBC) and facilitated by Viv Sinnamon at the Culture and Research Centre for Kokoberra Green Frog Clan members. A large number of young women participated over the 2 days.

Roadworks and the construction of a boat loading facility was planned for the area just downstream from the old yards and well at Thikeyn on Topsy Creek not far from the shed.

The first day was held at the Cultural Centre with power point presentations examining cultural objects catalogued during earlier cultural heritage surveys done in the area.

Items from the Kowanyama Collections used in the workshop included old wooden implements including food pounders, and a flat fighting club, bone and stone tools and other midden material including a bowl of a clay pipe discovered only a hundred metres from the proposed road works.

Reburial of remains from an exposed traditional gravesite had occurred nearby at Kunkvlara not long before. Traditional land owners were anxious about making sure that more grave sites along the river sand ridge margins would not be disturbed.

The area was known to be a traditional wet season refuge area in bush times.

The archaeological evidence found in the recent surveys provided really good teaching material for the young participants.

The next day was spent on the riverside at the proposed site with GPS and field note books to gain basic skills in the documentation of heritage objects. A bus was kindly provided by Kowanyama School for the day. A goanna and a crab were part of lunch.

There are plans for more workshops if there is interest during Ngethn o’ celebrations in July. Many younger members of traditional groups have said they would like training.

Viv Sinnamon photo

In a changing modern world

Robert Mission 1960’s: Douglas Baglin photo

Koch yawrnh, (The late Jerry Mission) remembered being laughed at by the Mission kids when they arrived naked from the bush in the 1940’s. Robert Mission passed away in 1972 leaving behind a small band of Elders both men and women whose vision was the maintenance of his people’s traditions. The reality is the concerns started early. Matthews amassed a wonderful collection of cultural objects for a museum but at the same time his main aim was to convert the people baptise, marry, settle and to save them from their heathen old ways.

Times have changed since those days at Old Mission but the question now is how much more of the heritage left by ancestors must be lost. When will it be realised that the value and beauty of that cultural heritage enriches the identity of Kowanyama and the Australian nation.

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There was concern about the number of lancewood spears coming into the Mitchell River Mission from the Edward River natives and in the 1920’s. Billy Flower and Goggleye’s Olkola group of renegades refused to leave their life in the bush and to come into the Mission and were hounded by the police. In the 1930’s Chapman stopped young boys from attending ceremony because it took them away from schooling.

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Achieving the vision of the passing on of traditional ways and knowledge in a changing world in a way that honours Elders who worked hard to keep the cultural heritage of country and people alive.

Bernadette Boscacci photo

A DREAM REALISED Uw Oykangand bush medicine book The Late Alma Wason’s dream was to write a book to keep the knowledge alive she had learned as a young girl from her mother, father, aunties and grannies.

She wanted to make sure that in a time of change for her community and family that traditional knowledge would be recorded and learnt and that her people would continue to use traditional medicines provided by a bountiful country.

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The book titled Uw Oykangand Oy berr is testament to Alma’s commitment to her people and culture.

She teaches us all of the urgent need to teach younger generations about their heritage, and the non-aboriginal community that hers is a living culture.

Her family and the people of Kowanyama are proud that she was able to achieve her dream. Alma had the help of a long-time friend Bernadette Boscacci from Townsville and Alma’s daughter Myrtle Luke.

Alma who has since passed leaves a valuable piece of work that records her people’s traditional medicinal knowledge for future generations just as she planned to do. Alma’s book was published in 2011 and launched in Kowanyama in October and a launch at Mary Who Bookshop in Townsville.

Alma Wason 1999: Nick Rollings photo

Gabrielle Lauder phhoto

Following on from the completion and launch of her book senior custodian and Kunjen Elder, Alma Wason (1932-2015) initiated and named the Awin Udnum Project (2011-2014).

She described how she felt community health programs needed to be holistic and focussing on other important social, cultural and environmental elements to engage the community and create inclusive forums and settings in which to pass on important health messages.

Working together to care for country, our health and each other collectively, contributes to improved and sustained emotional, psychological and social health and well being Awin Udnum is a Kunjen term that has a number of interpretations and that can be taken literally or metaphorically i.e. good path, right path, way or road.....it is working together, caring and sharing, keeping culture alive the healthy way.

Alma and the other Elders viewed health broadly and stressed the importance of: 

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encouraging and promoting intergenerational knowledge transmission. participating in traditional activities such as hunting and gathering, creating traditional and contemporary crafts and sharing

The Awin Udnum Project Coordinator Bernadette Boscacci said “the project’s aim was to work collaboratively with community members and groups, local organisations and other service agencies to deliver arts and health focussed activities and information sharing sessions on country during the dry season and in the community during the wet season”.

Kowanyama traditional groups and their leaders worked in partnership with art, health, educational and land management professionals to plan and run a series of holistic workshops hosted on country by clan groups and in town over a three year period.

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Healthy body, mind and soul Healthy people, culture & Country

Community programs often focus on just one element of a community’s development such as health, education, housing or even culture. A more holistic and collaborative approach is proposed in achieving Awin Udum’s ultimate goal of the development of a functional and healthy community putting an end to the silo approach to “dealing with community social issues”

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AWIN UDNUM

Workshops were designed to encourage people to engage in more health and cultural activities, to spend more time on homelands and to learn more about chronic disease and general health and wellbeing.

Local community, local and visiting artists, health education and cultural workers between the ages of 8 months to 82 years came together and shared in culturally appropriate health and cultural promotion activities documented by participants, visiting artists and film makers.

Evaluation and community feedback collected in 2013-2014 demonstrated a strong desire to keep the Awin Udnum vision alive. Community leaders have gone on to do this through women’s and men’s groups, school cultural programs, church family group activities, gallery exhibitions and installations.

Kowanyama Project carries on this vision using the same philosophical approach through a planned program of community based activities. During Ngethn o’ Kowanyama will celebrate the cultural heritage of their ancestors at the same time encouraging the development of a long term Cultural Program that engages youth.

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There were many requests from community members for therapeutic and contemporary art activities to be run including new media workshops.

Francine Gilbert during Awin Udnum: Gabrielle Lauder photo

Awin Udnum adopted a traditional sharing and learning approach to deliver health education that integrated cultural knowledge retention and arts development activities.

Rowena Aidan and Vera Raymond at Vera’s homeland Patha pakalin: Gabrielle Lauder photo

Photos by Bernadette Boscacci & Gabrielle Lauder

THEY JUST HELP YOU FORGET THE QUESTIONS Wall graffiti Seattle 2014

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ARE NOT THE ANSWER

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DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

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All photos by Bernadette Boscacci

AWIN UDNUM

Unknown location on Cape York Peninsula: QLD Police Museum Brisbane

THE NATIVE MOUNTED POLICE Truth telling in museum objects and stories Visits have been made recently to both the Cairns Museum and the Queensland Police Museum in Brisbane where there are Native Police and other cultural objects on display. Curators there have been very helpful.

Only years after that the other camps had been closed and the Queensland Police employed trackers.

Kowanyama Collections have grown with the acquisition of a number of significant items of that era. A good reproduction of an 1860’s

Cairns Museum 2019

dark police tunic, a Queensland Government issue Snider Enfield carbine, Snider lead found on the Palmer River, jail locks and chains, early handcuffs and a set of manacles discovered in Arnhem Land. All are now a part of a rapidly growing Kowanyama Collection.

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It is an era of great impact upon the lives of people living on the lower Mitchell River. Native Police camps on the Palmer River, Laura and Coen had devastating impacts upon the Olkola.

Arrangements are being made with a hatter in New Zealand to have a reproduction made of the red banded cap worn by the Native Police. Negotiations are also underway for the acquisition of a snake buckle worn by the Inspectors in Charge of NMP.

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Cairo Lagoon was home to the largest group of Native Police in Queensland history being active from 1885 to 1900 before Highbury Station was established. It is said that at times there were 23 members in the camp.

Kowanyama Collection 2019

Yir Yoront axe Koch Yawrnh Kowanyama 1980’s

Murrn thupul at Puyul shifting camp

ANOTHER LEGACY One of Sharp’s sources of information about stone axes was Warr’ mel pan, a Yir Yoront grass clan man who was the father of Jerry Mission known then as Koch Yawrnh.

Brothers Norman Junior and Francis George at Puyul

Sharp made the Yir Yoront stone axe well known with many undergraduate anthropology students around the world reading Steel Axes for Stoneage Australians that was published in 1952.

It spoke of the social change brought about by the introduction of the steel axe that Sharp described.

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Jerry’s father taught a number of his sons how to make the stone tomahawk with traded stone heads.

Parry with trade goods at Puyul husband of Murrn tupul

Jerry was the only one that mastered the art of making tomahawks that were functional and cut trees.

THE ENDURING LEGACY OF LAURISTON SHARP Lauriston Sharp with Black Dog at Puyul 1934

Emeritus Professor Lauriston Sharp

Cecil Rutland and Gracie Cecil, Viv Sinnamon and Arthur Major had taken him on a successful day out cooking a small crocodile, spearing black bream, cooking turtle and ending the day cooking a wallaby in a ground oven. The old man was delivered back to the Guest House at 9.30 that night still firing and a very happy old man.

Later Sharp hosted Viv during a visit to Cornell to discuss access to his amazing photographic collection and a collection of cultural objects was presented to Cornell in honour of the Professor.

Sharp’s original 1934 collection disappeared in its journey on a boat back to the United States.

Before presentation of the collection it had been placed on exhibition at the Custer Battlefield Trading Post on Crow Reservation in Montana.

Viv had stayed with friend Putt Thompson owner of the trading post on his way to Cornell.

March 1907 to December 1993 To his friends and colleagues at Cornell University in the US Emeritus Professor Returning from what was the end of a long two Lauriston Sharp was known as Laurie. He was month visit to the United States travelling highly respected by peers and students alike.

On the brief trip he spent the day out near Errk Iygow, Shelfo at a place called Judy and Alma’s place, a waterhole known for its good freshwater turtle fishing near the old Shelfo Station site.

This was an amazing feat of generosity that left a lasting legacy making it possible to connect the photos with living families who had been living in the bush in a traditional way during Sharp’s visit between 1933 to 1934.

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He visited an old friend Lucy Tommy who had been his cook during the previous 1950’s visit and Malachi Parrot who enjoyed time talking with him.

Jerry Mission and Norman Junior were among others who remembered and welcomed him back.

Sharp & Malachi Parrot: Sinnamon photo

He was amazed on his last visit that the culture had not completely disappeared as he had predicted in a well-known paper he had published in the academic press on social change called Steel Axes for Stone Age Australians.

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To those who knew him as a young white fulla living with the Yir Yoront people at Puyul while he was doing his doctoral studies...he was simply known as Mr Sharp. Later he returned to visit people at Kowanyama during the 1950’s and again in the 1970’s.

through the Ozarks and New Mexico back to California Viv was greeted by a package with selected images. It was said later that Sharp’s sight had been failing and that during periods of sight he had handwritten his field notes on the back of all of the photos so he could get them away to Kowanyama.

KOWANYAMA CULTURE AND RESEARCH CENTRE

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