The
Torres Strait Islands: 1936 Strike.
Widul
and Marte and Their Brother Umai
In January 1936, the Torres Strait Islanders who worked on
the Commonwealth government 'Company boats' that fished in the Strait, held a
general strike in order to protest against the lack of freedom they experienced
under the Aboriginal Protection Act. The strike was non-violent and was
organised secretly using Islander networks to transmit messages. It was
successful in the sense that the islanders were able to dispute their
circumstances in an organised and non-violent manner that accumulated in the
creation of a separate Act (the
Sources:
Beckett, Jeremy. 1987.
Nonie Sharp, 1993. Stars of Tagai: the
"At a time
when Waubin was fighting the people of Muralag, a man named Sararai lived on
the hill called Kubaiudaizi Pad. He had
an only son. One day Sararai and his son
went fishing at a lagoon in the reef outside Badukut. Sararai said: 'if we continue to live at our
home on Kubaiudaizi Pad, sooner or later we will have to fight Waubin. It would be better for us to stay in this
lagoon in peace. From here we shall
always be able to look back at our home. Then he and his son laid down in the
lagoon and turned to stone'" (Saila Miskin,
"Once upon a
time two sisters, Widul and Marte, lived with their brother Umai at the
north-west end of Mabuiag. Widul had a daughter named Sarabar, and Marte had a
daughter named Iadi.
One day Widul
and Marte quarrelled. Widul threw a
spear at Marte, which split her down the middle, at the same instant as Marte
through several spears at Widul. Marte's
spears split the top of Widul's scale and struck into it.
Umai put a
stop to the fight between the two sisters - as their brother, he had the right-
and duty to do it - by moving them far apart from each other and sending them
to places of his choosing on the reef which surrounds Mabuiag.
The sisters
and their daughters became islands. Umai turned to stone and has ever since
stood guard over them at the edge of the passage through the reef between Marte
and another island, Aipus. He can be seen at low tide. Widul stays south of
human and keeps her small daughter, Sarabar, behind her. Marte's place is north
of him, and she also keeps her daughter, Iadi, behind her.
For a long
time, pandanus trees grew at the top of Marte - they were the spears that were
thrown at her by her sister, Widul" (Dakanatai Kiris, Mabuiag,
"Before young
men were permitted to fight in Daudai, they had to go through a ceremony which
was held in the iut, the men's house
from which all women were excluded.
Beforehand, men went across to the mainland and charmed Agabe from the
scrub by singing for it:
(E)
Agabe tumuruda.
Nima Nima
(da)
Tumuruda.
Nima Nima
(da)
(Sa) (e).
And hearing
this song, Agabe [the pig and a source of strength for the men of Saibai] came
to them and allowed itself to be taken to Saibai, where it was killed in the iut and said to be young men. Afterwards they were given bows and
arrows. In future, whenever there was
fighting to be done in Daudai, they fought along with the other Saibai men"
(Enosa Waigana,
"While all the
people of Keirari were away from their village working on their gardens one
day, a man named Aib, whose home was at Bumeo, was out fishing on the reef. Aib
happened to glance towards Keirari and see something which could send on the
sunlight at that place. Curious, he went
to find out what it was.
From a tree
hung a bu shell filled to the bream
with water which caught the sparkle of the sun as the wind blew. Aib removed
the shell from the tree and set out for his home with it. He carried it very carefully; nevertheless, a
little water spilled at Ewi. [To become a spring of brackish water at that
place] When he reached Bumeo, he drank from the shell until he had drained it
dry. Then, his belly swollen from drinking
so much, he lay down in the shade of a tree and fell asleep.
Later in their
daily, the people from Keirari returned from their gardens to find that the
sacred water brought back after the trip to Kerged had been stolen. The men
followed the tracks of the thief to Bumeo, where they saw Aib asleep on the
ground. Beside him lay the bu shell from Keirari - empty.
Furious, one
of the men drove his kusbager into
Aib's belly, whereupon all the water that Aib had drunk that day gushed out
from him
It became a
spring which never goes dry, not even in drought years. [Today there is an
engine beside it, pumping water to many villages on
Source:
Lawrie, Margaret (collected and
translated). 1970. Myth and Legends of
Reference for