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The collecting impulse amongst anthropologists, missionaries and museums was zealous and continued unabated until very little material culture remained. All of the pieces collected between 1874 and 1888 by missionary Samuel McFarlane, for instance, sold at auction in London and were divided between three European museums, and this precious connection to the islander’s past now resides in major cities from London to Dresden, from St. Petersburg to Dublin as well as a number of mainland Australian museums. 8

By far the most prodigious collector was Alfred Cort Haddon whose zeal and scholarship was legendary. In his book published in 1932 he relates his own story of purchasing a stone effigy doiom , used for the rain making ceremony on the island of Mer, off a man named Gasu. The following day islanders objected to its purchase as it would no longer be available when needed. Haddon recalled, ‘

I must confess I felt sorry for Gasu, when he regretted his importunity and wanted his dojom back, but the collecting instinct was stronger than pure sentiment, and I had to inform him that it was then too late.’ 9

By 1904 the Straits were covered by the draconian powers of the Aborigines Protection act. However in 1899, due to the work of John Douglas, a process of electing island councils was initiated aimed at loosening the stranglehold of the missionary influence. In the western islands in particular, where the lifestyle tended toward the nomadic, the council system thrived and is still in place today. 10

Throughout the arly 20th century Torres Strait islander men found work in the pearling industry while others sought work on the sugar plantations and the railways of north Queensland and their success prompted a continuing exodus of islanders to the mainland and the establishment over time of a larger TSI community on the mainland than in the islands themselves. 11

Apart from weaving and the production of ephemeral items for particular festive occasions, Torres Strait Islander culture has, during the 20th century, been largely restricted to dance and song. However in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s a large group of visual works on paper were produced by islander artists. These had been commissioned by Margaret Lawrie, who was employed by the Queensland State Library. She travelled widely throughout the Torres Straits, supplying men with watercolour paints and paper, and encouraging, collecting and recording their stories to accompany the artworks. 12 The paintings visualised aspects of traditional culture and creation myths and legends. The individual paintings however, illustrated only one particular point or incident in much longer narratives and it was not until Dennis Nona, a young art student at Cairns TAFE college in the late 1980’s, that a new style of visual narrative was be created which would influence a whole new generation of islander artists.



While mainland Aboriginal tribes entered the spirit world through body painting and personal totemic representations during ceremony, pre Christian spirituality amongst Torres Strait Islanders had always been given form through the creation of ritual objects especially ceremonial masks. Masks were, in fact, the focal point of the ritual during which participants sought to transcend the sameness of the everyday through a spontaneous release of inner stress. 13

Old anthropomorphic masks collected by Haddon and others from the mid 1800’s were often made of composite pieces of intricately carved turtle shell and included a wide flange around the sides with detailed painting, or incised and infilled patterning and decoration. The creators of these masks skilfully depicted subtle details of facial structure like the shape of cheekbones, the rise of the forehead, the elongated ears with distended ear lobes from wearing decorative wooden weights. 14

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