Maritime kastoms

A vivid maritime life of the Torres Strait region

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All images reproduced by permission from University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA)

01 Wood for Torres Strait canoes came from New Guinea’s inland forests. Seen here, canoes designed for the streams of the Fly River. Iasa, Kiwai Island, BNG 1898 MAA N.35122 02 Carved wooden canoe prow ornament with a projecting human face and pearl-shell eyes. Decorated with tufts of cassowary and bird-ofparadise feathers. Collected Saibai, Torres Strait, 1898. MAA Z.9697

A history and culture (kastom) of Australia’s northern Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and their New Guinean neighbours was recorded in the journals and letters of an Englishman, Alfred C Haddon, at the end of the 19th century. In a new book edited by Anita Herle and Jude Philp, Haddon’s writings are brought back to life.

HADDON WAS A MARINE BIOLOGIST and pioneer anthropologist who worked in 1888 and 1898 with Islanders and Aboriginal peoples of the Torres Strait. Far from his family during fieldwork, Haddon wrote a journal which he sent home to Cambridge (UK) as a series of letters to his wife, Fanny. Never previously published, these fragile documents are filled with vivid details of life and watercraft in this busy maritime region at the close of the 19th century. At the time, the strait was inundated with foreigners keen to profit through harvesting natural resources of bêche-de-mer (trepang, sea cucumber) and pearl shell for local and international markets. The verdant reef systems on which these animals thrived had drawn Haddon to the region to conduct marine fieldwork. Through conversations with the local peoples that he worked with on his daily dredging excursions, he became invested in their lives, devoting his spare time to work with Islanders on recording their history. Back in Britain, Haddon determined to raise funds to return with a team of researchers. His 1898 journal encompasses the Cambridge University Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait, accompanied by William Rivers, Charles Seligman, Sidney Ray, Charles Myers, William McDougall and Anthony Wilkin. Haddon’s original field sites were Mer in the eastern island group, British New Guinea, Cape York and Mabuiag in the western island group. His journals are rich with detail on the Islanders’ maritime world, told through the language of his times.

The following excerpts are drawn from our recent publication, Recording Kastom: Alfred Haddon’s Journal from the Torres Strait and New Guinea 1888 and 1898. Each entry in Haddon’s journal provides a sense of the variety and detail of his observations. In the book, Haddon’s words are accompanied by his photographs and drawings, alongside objects made by Islanders and Papua New Guineans. Please note that terminology used in these excerpts is drawn directly from the original 19th-century source, and includes language considered offensive by some readers and First Nations peoples. This phrasing is included in order to acknowledge its historical context. Passage through the Suez Canal had Haddon arriving at Thursday Island on 8 August 1888: We sighted the advance guard of Australia in the shape of the proud port light ship – as soon as we were near enough she signalled distress and asked us to come up close. We saw her ensign half-mast and so were prepared for the news of a death on board. Four men, the whole crew including the cook, rowed out to tell us that the Captain – Captain [Cairncross] – had died in the night. He had not been very well and sometime before he had ‘had a little to drink’. This Captain was an old and wellknown man. He had made plenty of money in his time and should have been well off and of good repute.

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‘Here we are, scudding along over the dirty green sea which betokens shallow coral waters...’

But the curse of the colony – drink – ruined him. All his off-duty time was spent – so I was told – in one continuous booze. At last he died a drunkard’s death 40 miles from land. Soon we sighted Prince of Wales’ Island and in due course we reached my promised land. The pilot came on board and as it was low water we crawled into the harbour of Thursday Island. The Islands are very prettily grouped and really formed a charming picture. The Thursday Island Doctor [Salter] – a little hunchbacked man boarded us and after he had inspected all hands on board and certified us we were fastened to one of the two hulks ...1

Towards the end of three months’ work at Mabuiag, Haddon was invited to accompany Mabuiag’s Goemulgal leader, Nomoa, on a gaff-rigged Torres Strait Islander lugger to observe their unique method of dugong fishing: One morning in October I accompanied the Mamoose [leader] of Mabuiag on a dugong hunt, the crew of the lugger (all the fishing boats here are ‘luggers’) numbered some dozen men, all natives of the island. On our way out the gear was put in order. This consisted of the wāp or dugong spear and the ām or rope which is attached to it.

01 Nomoa, the Mamoose, holding a wāp (dugong spear) with his dugong catch. In the background is Brown’s former pearling station, where Haddon set up his laboratory. Panay, Mabuiag, Torres Strait, October 1888. MAA N.22793 02 Knife made of pearl shell with incised design showing the method of cutting up a dugong. Collected at Mabuiag, Torres Strait, 1898. MAA Z 9754 03 The London Missionary Society (LMS) was an integral colonial force. In this image of feast preparations the water police can be seen to the right and the letters LMS can just be seen on the flag. Probably Badu, Torres Strait, 1888. MAA N.23288

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01 Cleaning pearl shells on the beach. In the background are luggers and Torres Strait canoes. Mabuiag, Torres Strait, 1898. MAA N.23011

02 Haddon requested this demonstration of pile driving to document the maritime villages of Hula township along the coast from Port Moresby, New Guinea, June, 1898. MAA N.36121

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‘It is a curious experience to be on an apparently slight bamboo platform and to see the water racing away beneath you’

The spear is a handsome weapon averaging fifteen feet in length, ornamented at one end with the sable plumes of the cassowary. The other extremity is swollen and into its end is loosely inserted a dart kwoiori which is lashed on to the rope ... All hands now look out for the dugong and Mamoose takes his place at the further end of the bowsprit. Here we are, scudding along over the dirty green sea which betokens shallow coral waters, the waves created by the ever-blowing southeast trade wind, the lavender coloured sky is studded with clouds which uniformly belie their pluvial appearance. All of a sudden [the] Mamoose springs into the water wāp in hand …2 September 1898: Mabuiag is a centre of the pearl-shelling industry or rather of the kind that is known as swimming diving. The great pearl-shell banks have been worked out by the diving boats and soon after I left in 1889, till within the last year or two, the shelling industry has been very slack and much money has been lost, owing to a decrease in the market value of shell. Now prices are better and the natives either own their own boats or hire themselves out to white men and they swim down in shallow water and collect pearl-shell. A great deal of money has been made by natives in this way.3 30 December 1888:

I finished up the day by returning in a native canoe – the rapid gliding motion of which is very exhilarating. It is a curious experience to be on an apparently slight bamboo platform and to see the water racing away beneath you.4 One final excerpt was written in Kalo, 1898: Had afternoon tea and went to the village. First we saw the operation of canoe building and made photos. The trees for the canoes grow in the Kalo country. The Kalo men cut them down and sell the logs to the Keapara. The latter dig out the canoes by means of stone adzes, the stone of which can be shifted round at any angle by turning the holder on the haft. The canoe builders prefer stone implements to iron ones for hollowing out the canoes…5 Recording Kastom was edited by Anita Herle and Jude Philp following consultation with people in the Torres Strait. The lavishly illustrated book is vibrant with drawings, objects and photographs produced in the Strait, New Guinea and Cape York. It is part of the international decolonisation projects of museums and institutions intent on making archival and collection material openly accessible to those peoples from whom the collections were drawn. Fieldwork and publication was assisted by Monash University Indigenous Studies Centre and the Haddon family, and free distribution to Tagai colleges and community centres across Zenadth Kes and mainland Australia was supported by the Torres Strait Regional Authority and AIATSIS.

1 Anita Herle and Jude Philp, Recording Kastom: Alfred Haddon’s Journal from the Torres Strait and New Guinea 1888 and 1898 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2020), p.49. 2 Herle and Philp, Recording Kastom, pp.100–1. 3 Herle and Philp, Recording Kastom, p.299. 4 Herle and Philp, Recording Kastom, p.127. 5 Herle and Philp, Recording Kastom, p.203.

Jude Philp is Senior Curator of the Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney. Anita Herle is Reader in Anthropology and Senior Curator, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge