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Cordell

Negotiating Sea Rights

If I were to visit another country. I would ask my local companion, before I saw any museum or library, and factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memory over the land. I would ask to taste the wild nuts and fruits, to see their fishing lures, their bouquets and fences. I would ask about the history of storms there, the age of the trees, the winter color of the hills...

Introduction - 15.2

This installment of Cultural Survival; Quarterly is special in number of ways. It is the first issue specifically dedicated to one of the sub groupings of the Pacific islands, to Melanesia in particular. The contributors were asked to explore variations on a theme that looms large in the region's future: development and control of ancestral homelands and seas. This framework is also directly relevant to the quests for territorial rights of Aborigines (non-Melanesians)) and Torres Strait Islanders (a Melanesian people who are Australia's other indigenous minority).

Torres Strait: Cultural Identity and the Sea

For the people of Mabuiag, the westernmost island in Torres Strait, heaven is not straight up; it lies on Kibu, an island to the northwest. When Islander die, their spirits sail to Kibu at sundown with the prevailing winds. The local Anglican Father regularly visits the ancestors in this mythical sea space.

Belief in a marine afterworld is Melanesian custom. In Torres Strait, personal and cultural identity are as dependent on the sea as the local marine hunting and fishing economy and rhythm of daily events.

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