Interweaving Oral and Written Sources in Compiling Torres Strait Islander Genealogies

Oral History Australia Journal No. 41, 2019, 87–97 Necessary but not Suffcient: Interweaving Oral and Written Sources in Compiling Torres Strait Islander Genealogies Anna Shnukal under which the information was recorded; by whom 1 Introduction and for what purpose information was recorded; the Despite their defciencies, Torres Strait Islander informant’s relationship with the named individual. genealogies are relevant to oral, family and local The defects of oral sources include unreliable or even historians, linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists contradictory memories, generational confation, the and native title practitioners.Kinship and the creation of use of alternative names for an individual and gaps individual and family connections (‘roads’) which are in the early genealogical record (for reasons outlined orally transmitted over the generations are fundamental below). to Islander culture and society. It is only through In 1980 I was awarded a post-doctoral sociolinguistic detailed genealogical research that the relationships research fellowship by the Australian Institute of between individuals, families, clans and place in Torres Aboriginal Studies (today AIATSIS). I was to devise Strait can be discerned. These relationships continue to a spelling system, grammar and dictionary for the infuence the history of the region and, more generally, regional lingua franca – now called Torres Strait Australia. Creole or Yumpla Tok – and document its history. I Although Islanders began to record genealogical subsequently compiled over 1200 searchable family information in notebooks and family bibles from the databases from the 1830s to the early 1940s (and, 1870s, the academic study of Islander genealogies in some cases, beyond). Describing this unwritten began with W.H.R. Rivers of the 1898 Cambridge language meant learning its two main dialects through Anthropological Expedition to Torres Strait. Rivers conversations with as many people in as many compiled family trees on Mer (Murray Island) and communities as possible. Their interests centred on Mabuyag (Jervis Island). His original purpose was to family, descent and land ownership. Anthropologists trace psychological traits within families and so he commonly acknowledge that, in Indigenous societies, compiled genealogies for every Islander ‘as far back as ‘knowledge is not a free good’. Instead, information could be remembered’ (in effect, to the late eighteenth remains a major bartering currency among Islanders, century).2 His few inaccuracies are the result of with each family guarding its own stories. Having transcription errors between his original manuscript (then) a good memory, I found the knowledge I had and the fnal version, linguistic misunderstandings, gained to be invaluable when arriving at new places and immigrant infuence, the widespread practice of attempting to establish relationships of trust. Not only unregistered adoption and reluctance of his interviewees could I speak the language but I could often identify, to name adoptees’ birth parents. solely from people’s frst names, their island of origin and the names of their grandparents. In addition, I In this article, I argue that neither written nor oral could often recount a few anecdotes. sources are by themselves suffcient to compile accurate and comprehensive Torres Strait Islander genealogies. My feldwork convinced me that conversation is Instead, these sources are complementary: each is essential for learning language, forging emotional necessary, each informs the other and each requires connections, tracing movements and family links, contextual and cultural knowledge to assess reliability. and discovering the conscious and unconscious The defects of written sources are well known. Some norms of Torres Strait society. I am now attempting problems arise at the time of recording or during the to incorporate information about lives which have transcription process – for example, the conscious previously been little documented into the historical or unconscious bias of the recorder, inaccurate or record. In Greg Dening’s words, I am aiming to ‘rescue illegible transcriptions, the vagaries of English the individual and identify personal signatures on life’.3 spelling conventions and linguistic misunderstandings. Only by assembling fragments of individual lives can Other problems include a lack of understanding by one fully assess the social, cultural and linguistic subsequent researchers regarding: the circumstances contribution made by nineteenth-century immigrants. 87 OHAJ No. 41, 2019 another. Thursday Island government and church offcials kindly allowed me to consult registers which were later closed to outsiders for 100 years. I am deeply indebted to many people for allowing me to compare Islanders’ stories with written accounts, in particular two Bishops of Carpentaria, the clerk of the Thursday Island Court of Petty Sessions, Thursday Island Catholic personnel and the Community and Personal Histories (CPH) section of the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships (DATSIP). This article focuses on diffculties inherent in attempts to identify individuals from multiple, sometimes conficting, oral and written sources. I discuss how personal names refect signifcant All Saints Anglican Church, Erub (Darnley Island, 1981). Courtesy historical events. I also discuss name exchange and Anna Shnukal photographic collection, AIATSIS. name taboo, nicknames (pleinem), name variations and the relevance of names to Islander kinship These immigrants brought a variety of Pacifc Pidgin networks. I conclude by refecting on the researcher’s English to the region and from it their children created responsibilities and reasons for engaging in such a new language shaped by their new lifeways. research, and why research conducted by outsiders Unfortunately, commercial family tree computer may be of use to Islanders. programs have proved too rigid to capture the intricate generational interconnections of Islander descent, marriage and adoption. For example, traditional A brief historical outline adoption practices meant that often adopted children Making sense of the available material requires some 4 were never told their biological parentage. When contextualised knowledge of the geography, legends extended families replaced the clan as primary and history of Torres Strait. The Islanders are not affliation, childless couples or single men and women Aboriginal people, despite centuries of intermarriage adopted a male child who would take their adopted between the southwestern Islanders and Cape York parent’s name, thus preserving the new nexus between Aboriginal people. They were originally Melanesians family and land. Mamai from Erub (Darnley Island) from coastal New Guinea who belonged to an extensive adopted Kangroo Solomon, who became Kangroo trade and culture area. Mamai and, after Mamai’s death, claimed his land. Willie Santo from Vanuatu adopted the son of Sam The Islanders’ sea domain was frst breached by Lackon (another ni-Vanuatu), John Sam, who changed European sailing ships in the 1830s, naval surveyors his surname to Santo. The early Rotuman and Samoan in the 1840s, and trepangers and traders in the 1860s. immigrants often sent a frst-born child back to their In 1870 pearlshellers arrived, followed by Christian original families. This unrecorded information was missionaries in 1871. The Islanders’ territory was often retained only within families. As researchers, we annexed by colonial Queensland in 1879, whereupon must assess our informants’ reliability, the extent of the Islanders became British subjects and their islands their knowledge, and their relationship to the individual became crown lands. Pearlshelling attracted thousands in question. In Torres Strait everything is political, so of men from all parts of the world, some of whom we must seek out and compare multiple sources and married local women, fathered local children, and/ continually check assumptions – and we rarely feel or settled permanently in the Strait. Their descendants confdent about the results. now identify as Torres Strait Islanders. This genetic and cultural inheritance, together with the widespread Current sensitivities around native title restrict access practice of adoption, means that every Islander has at to much relevant material, including the (sometimes least one biological ancestor from Papua New Guinea, inaccurate) genealogies held by the various native Cape York, the Pacifc, Europe, Asia, America, Africa or title agencies. Fortunately, I began my research when the Caribbean. Sustained contact with others and pressure many giz le (elderly people with knowledge of the to join the new economic, religious and sociopolitical past, born only a generation after the beginning of order has largely erased traditional linguistic and cultural sustained European contact) were eager to tell their divisions between the east and the rest and given rise to stories. They told me that, although their young people contemporary pan-Islander identity.5 were not interested at the time, one day they would be. At that time, relatively few Europeans were living Attempts to bring the Islanders under bureaucratic or working in the Strait and most of us knew one control were resisted by the frst two government 88 Shnukal, Necessary But Not Suffcient residents who considered such ‘protection’ of individual baptisms, marriages and burials from the unnecessary. Mission schools commenced from 1873. 1870s through

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