Memoirs of the Queensland museum BRISBANE VOLUME 34 l March, 1994 Part 2 CUSTOMARY EXCHANGE ACROSS TORRES STRAIT DAVID LAWRENCE Lawrence, D. 1994:03 01: Customary exchange across Torres Strait Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 34(2):24l^46. Brisbane. ISSN 0079-8835. Customary exchange across Torres Strait is examined through a study of documentary sources, oral history and museum collections. The study includes an analysis of the material culture of exchange illustrating (he variety of artefacts of subsistence, ornamentation and dress, recreation, ceremony and dance, and warfare The idea that customary exchange across Torres Strait was a system of fixed, formalised, point-to-point trade routes is contested. This misconception, based on Haddon (1890, 1901-1935), McCarthy (1939) and Moore (1979), has arisen from reliance on historical documentary sources. By contrast, oral history from Torres Strait Islanders and coastal Papuans suggests that customary exchange was flexible and open, tied to changing social, political and cultural factors and operated within the framework of a dynamic Melancsian economic system. Customary exchange is re-evaluated and the paths and patterns of exchange are restructured. Panems of customary exchange formed as a result of separate linkages between individuals and groups and served to distribute scarce resources between the Islander, Papuan and Aboriginal peoples across <i region <>f considerable geographical, ecological and cultural diversity. Exchange is therefore interpreted in the context of the cultural and ecological discreteness of human groups within the Torres Strait region. This study also investigates the extent to which customary exchange exists in the contem- porary period and the implications of recent legal and administrative decisions such as the Torres Strait Treaty. Custnman exchange, oral history, Torres Strait, south coastal Papua, inter-island trade. David Lawrence, Material Culture Unit, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsi'ille, Queensland 48U . present address;- Great Barrier Reef Marine Park'Authority, P.O. Box 1379. Townsville, Queensland 48J0. 25 July 1992. This study examines the material culture of GuineatPNG) and northern Australia that is often customary exchange, across Torres Strait, within overlooked and regarded as being on the political the framework of a dynamic Melanesian ex- and cultural periphery. The Torres Strait/Fly ex- change system. Both indigenous and European tuary region is culturally diverse, and politically perceptions of customary exchange are presented divided and has been subjected to different pat- followed by assessment of the similarities and terns of colonial subjugation. However, cus- dtfferences. Misconceptions concerning the na- tomary exchange has served, along with mamagc lure of customary exchange in the Torres Strait and warfare in the pre-colonial period, to in- region have arisen fromthe continued reliance on legrate the region. This integration has enabled historical documentary sources. It will be shown the small scale communities of the region to that these sources may have distorted the true balance unequal resource allocation, for the es- eharacter of customary exchange across this sence of exchange is circulation of both materia) diverse region. Oral testimony from the Torres and non-material items. Strait Islander and Papuan people and examina- Historical sources recording contact with Is- tton of the objects of exchange, which are essen- landers commenced with a brief description of tially material evidence of customary exchange, outrigger canoes off Yam Island by Luis Baes de are important elements. Tones in 1606 (Hilder,l980:76). Sustained con- Change in the customary exchange system may tact, following the voyages of William Bbgh in also be evidenced by changes to the material 1796 (Bbgh, 1976)and Matthew Flinders in 1802 culture of exchange. A further objective was to (Flinders, 1814), began in the mid-nineteenth determine how dynamic and repliant was cus- century with the scientific voyages of the survey lomary exchange in z region of Papua Nev, ships sent to chart a safe passage from the Memoirs OF THE Queensland Museum Brisbane © Queensland Museum PO Box 3300, SouthBrisbane 4101, Australia Phone 06 7 3840 7555 Fax 06 7 3846 1226 Email [email protected] Website www.qm.qld.gov.au National Library of Australia card number ISSN 0079-8835 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum maybe reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations may be made but queries regarding the republication of any papers should be addressed to the Editor in Chief. Copies of the journal can be purchased from the Queensland Museum Shop. A Guide to Authors is displayed at the Queensland Museum web site A Queensland Government Project Typeset at the Queensland Museum 242 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM Australian colonies to the markets and ports of tion and commercial exploitation of the Torres India and Asia (Jukes, 1847; Macgillivray,1852; Strait, has served to alter the cultural and Allen & Corris,1977; Moore,1979). economic focus of the Islander people. Political Following missionary activity and estab- pressure imposed from outside resulted in the lishment of the London Missionary Society on enforcement of legal and quarantine regulations Damley Island in 1871, commercial fishing and across the Torres Strait which inhibited the free pearling began. European commercial activity movement of goods and people across the led to exploration of the Fly estuary and the SW Australian-PNG border. This had a detrimental coast of PNG by adventurers (Chester, 1870; D' effect on Islander-Papuan relations and, despite Albertis,1881) and missionaries (Macfarlane, the ratification of the Torres Strait Treaty in 1985, 1875/76; Gill, 1874a,b; Chalmers, 1903a,b; Bax- which formally recognized indigenous rights to ter-Riley, 1925). Colonial administration estab- free movement and exchange, the political, social lished at Mabudawan in 1891 and then at Daru in and economic separation of Islanders and 1895, encouraged field officers (Jiear, 1904/05; Papuans is now almost complete. Beaver, 1920; Austen, 1925) to report ethno- Of the multitude of islands in Torres Strait, only graphic data so that the colonial government 16 are inhabited, although use of uninhabited could exercise control over the various ethnic islands, either permanently or temporarily, has groups inhabiting this isolated region. This rich occurred during recent time. source of historical documentary evidence may The SW coast of PNG extends from Parama be compared with oral evidence from indigenous Island in the east to the entrance of the Mai Kussa, peoples. opposite the island of Boigu. The most important work on the social, The triangular Fly estuary extends from Parama economic and cultural life of Torres Strait Is- Island in the south and Dibiri Island in the north- landers is by Haddon (1901-1935) who led the east to Somogi Island at the entrance of the Fly Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres River proper. The estuary contains c.40 large Straits in 1898. islands and numerous tidal islets. The largest The Finnish anthropologist and sociologist island in the estuary is Kiwai Island, the original Gunnar Landtman, a protege of Haddon, noted home of the Kiwai-speaking people, some of that extensive 'trade' had been carried on be- whom now dwell in coastal villages along the tween the Kiwai region and the Torres Strait northern (Manowetti) bank and the western Islands (Landtman, 1927: 213-216). He assumed (Dudi) bank of the Fly estuary. Kiwai-speaking a degree of resource specialization among people also live along the SW coast (Fig. 1). various ethnic groups inhabiting coastal and 'Western Province' refers to the political region riverine areas and collected oral evidence of of PNG immediately to the north of the Torres inter-ethnic relations, kinship connections and Strait and will be used in preference to the earlier population movements (Landtman, 1917) as well names: 'Western District' and 'Western Divisi- as artefacts which he documented and catalogued on'. himself (Landtman, 1933). Landtman (1927:215) Preliminary fieldwork involving two trips by could see no clear difference between 'actual small boat, principally to the Torres Strait islands commerce* and the 'exchange of friendly pres- of Moa, Badu, Boigu, Saibai, Dauan, Masig, Mer, ents' and remarked (Landtman, 1927:205) that Erub and Ugar, was undertaken in 1 984. This was , socially sponsored journeys, which originated followed by two extended periods of fieldwork, from gift exchange between visitor and host, as- during 1985, in PNG. The first trip, by boat, sumed, in most cases, the 'character of regular commenced in Buji, opposite Boigu, and was trading enterprises'. Both these points will re- completed at Kadawa, opposite Daru. The second quire further clarification. trip included journeys by canoe and on foot to Oral evidence of exchange relations, inter-eth- villages visited during the first trip. As well as an nic contact and coastal population movements inland walking trip from Masingara to Kulalae, I between Torres Strait Islanders and coastal also made a long trip on a hired double-outrigger Papuans has survived most strongly among the canoe from Kadawa into the Fly estuary. During coastal people of PNG. There are many historical this canoe journey, coastal Kiwai villages