Goba of Mua: archaeology working with oral tradition.

David, Bruno ; McNiven, Ian ; Manas, Louise 等

The ability to write history using archaeological information is more than a process of writing about the past; it is also a power to control constructions of identity (cf. David 2002; McNiven 1998a). When archaeology, an elite tool of Western science, is engaged in the construction of regional histories, it is rarely community research--historical research of direct relevance to, and directed by, local communities--that is of concern, but rather questions of academic interest that may have little relevance to those whose past is being investigated. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to learn that archaeology as a mode of historical research may not be as pertinent or as accessible in a meaningful form--and therefore may not be as acceptable--to everyone, for all peoples have their own means of historicizing the past (cf. Biolsi & Zimmerman 1997; Echo-Hawk 2000; Nicholas & Andrews 1997). Archaeology's greatest social challenge is thus its place in a postcolonial world, its ability to elucidate the past without unduly imposing its own programmatic hegemony and Western historical agendas onto the world (David 2002; McNiven & Russell in press; see also Marshall 2002).

This being so, all peoples possess oral traditions by which their own place in the world is articulated and understood. Oral histories link the present with the past at deeply personal and community levels, representing and communicating those aspects of the past that are nearest to home, and signalling for local peoples those aspects of history that have most meaning in the present. However, times change and new historical information on places of the past may interest a new generation of custodians for a range of cultural, social and political reasons. Of relevance to this paper are the decisions of indigenous communities in various parts of the world to engage archaeologists to research various dimensions of already narrated pasts, targeting events or periods of time already meaningfully inscribed in social consciousness through narratively shared experiences (e.g. Anyon & Ferguson 1995; Hemming et al. 2000; L'Oste-Brown et al. 1995). The archaeology of oral tradition thus allows for a meaningful historicizing of the present in socio-political and cultural contexts where indigenous communities control the research directions that underwrite how history is understood. In this context, an archaeology of oral traditions does not aim at scientifically testing indigenous narratives as positivist historical 'truths', but rather aims to add new dimensions to community history in ways that complement both methods of historicizing. The key is to ensure that all participants in the research project are aware of the potentials and limitations of undertaking archaeological research in terms of the greater range of possible outcomes. In this way archaeological analyses can be tailored to provide historical information to complement oral tradition, rather than necessarily (con)test it. A measure of the success of a mutually constructed research approach will be the degree to which unexpected research results are accepted as non-threatening, even when scientific results do not match oral testimonies or vice versa (we tend to forget that it is more often the archaeologists than local communities that feel threatened by unexpected results). Archaeological results and oral narratives can be mutually complementary when each is used in a way that adds new dimensions about already perceived pasts. Threatening results say as much about problems associated with the research process and issues of control and ownership as they do about archaeological results per se. In this sense, the difficulties that Mason (2000) raises with respect to what he perceives as the profound incommensurability of oral traditions and archaeology as different means of historicizing the past are bypassed, for each adds its unique perspective in the mutual construction of a meaningful past, while at the same time recognising that each also approaches history from epistemologically, and at times ontologically, varying stances. Simply put, history is not simply about the past, but about how people historicise their lives. Accordingly, historical research requires the construction of meaningful pasts; the question comes back to whose history is being written, and at what costs of social and intellectual exclusion.

Following this commitment to the explicit recognition of meaningful historicism, this paper presents results obtained when one indigenous Torres Strait Islander community sought the assistance of professional archaeologists to undertake historical research of their own past, a past already richly textured in oral tradition. In 2000, BD and IM--the university archaeologists involved in the present research (JC and LB became involved at later stages)--were contacted by the Kubin Community Council on Mua Island (Torres Strait) to visit the local community to discuss the possibility of undertaking archaeological research on the island. Mua Islanders hold rich oral traditions about the past, but it is also recognised that there are many aspects of history for which oral traditions are silent. The Mua community invited the above archaeological team to undertake research on Mua after hearing 'on the grapevine' about positive results achieved by the team working with a neighbouring Islander community. Initial round-table discussions were thus held between Saila Savage (Kubin Community Council Chairman), Elders John Manas and Oza Bosun, Councillors Paul Tom and Roy Genai, and archaeologists Bruno David and Ian McNiven, followed by other discussions over the ensuing months with Louise Manas (Madam Chair of the Mualgal Native Title Group) and other local Islanders at the Kubin Community Council. Ongoing discussions were also held internally between Islanders after the archaeologists had left but prior to investigative research--in particular with appropriate clan members--to determine broad community views and the appropriateness and protocols for undertaking archaeological research of places already meaningful through oral traditions on the island. Because these community narratives have a material presence--in architecture, rock-art, ritual arrangements, burial structures, roads, gardens and the like--it has since been possible through archaeology to detail those aspects of the past for which the stories are silent. The community relevance of such historical research is perhaps best encapsulated by the project's direct control--including a setting of research agendas and joint writing of results--by community representatives, in particular by the Elders in consultation with Native Title holders (representing the indigenous peoples of the island, as legislatively recognised by Australian law) and the archaeologists, following community protocols. One of the first places the archaeological team was shown by Mua Elders was the site of Goba's father's grave at Uma and the nearby rockshelter of Turao Kula. This paper presents results of the archaeological project jointly developed to further explore the history of this culturally important site complex.

Torres Strait

Torres Strait is a 150km-wide aquatic realm separating the Australian and New Guinean mainlands. It is home to Torres Strait Islanders who, like their ancestors, harvest the seas and reefs for fish, shellfish, turtle and dugong. On some islands, population densities of over 100/[km.sup.2] existed at the time of early European contact in the nineteenth century, which is an order of magnitude greater than the highest densities documented for Aboriginal Australia. Globally, Torres Strait is most famous as the place where the Melanesian and Australian (Aboriginal) cultural and ecological domains meet and as a transition zone between the horticultural and hunter-gatherer worlds (Harris 1977; Walker 1972). However, it is more than this, for Torres Strait Islanders are neither Melanesian nor Aboriginal; they possess their own distinctive Islander culture(s) and identities and trace their own distinctive histories. Coring of reefs and islands reveals the Straits were established 8000-7000 years ago and that island formation is ongoing (e.g. Barham 1999, 2000; Woodroffe et al. 2000). Thus, Islander society must have developed within this period and functioned as a bridge and barrier for diffusion of cultural traits (and flora/fauna) between NE Australia and Melanesia (McNiven & Hitchcock in press; Walker 1972).

Torres Strait was put on the world anthropological map by Alfred Haddon and colleagues on the 1898 'Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits' (Haddon 1901-35; Herle & Rouse 1998). Haddon documented in detail cultural features of each of the three distinctive Islander groups--Western (now divided into Top Western and Western), Central and Eastern--in six volumes published between 1901 and 1935. These island groups are reflected linguistically with the Western and Central Islanders speaking Kala Lagaw Ya and a dialect Kala Kawaw Ya (Top Western Islands) and the Eastern Islanders speaking Meriam Mir (Shnukal 1998). While the Central Islanders interacted directly with their neighbours, Islanders from the Eastern and Western halves of the Straits rarely met. Direct interactions involved huge dugout canoes and oscillated between enmity (raiding/headhunting) and amity (trade/exchange) (Lawrence 1994; McNiven 1998b). Headhunting was an important aspect of Islander and nearby southern Papuan worldviews, with captured heads having important roles in male initiations and the establishment of male bravery and prowess. Islander settlement focused on 'home' islands supplemented by seasonal visits to smaller islands. Subsistence involved cropping (e.g. yams, sweet potatoes, bananas) supplemented by plant collection (particularly in the SW) and specialised fishing and hunting of marine animals (e.g. turtle and dugong). These essential features of Torres Strait lifeways form part of what Tony Barham (2000) refers to as the Torres Strait Cultural Complex. Despite this ethnographic detail, however, very little archaeological research has been undertaken in the region and very little is known about the origins and history of Torres Strait Islanders.

Mua Island and the Kubin Community

Measuring 17 x 16km in area, Mua Island is one of the Western Islands and the second-largest island in Torres Strait (Figure 1). It is separated from Badu Island to the west by a narrow, 2km-wide passage. The Mualgal--the indigenous people of Mua--presently live mainly at Kubin, a coastal village on the southwest side of the island, with a smaller indigenous population residing at St. Paul's Village 14km away along the east coast.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Like other Western Islanders, the people of Mua had, over the course of history, fluctuating relations of amity and enmity with the people of Badu and their allies. A rich oral history emphasises headhunting raids between Badu and Mua Islanders. During such raids Badu Islanders were commonly allied with Mabuiag Islanders to the north during the immediate pre-European contact period, while Mua Islanders established close relations with the Kaurureg of the SW Strait (cf. Wilkin 1904 for an example of such wartime alliances). It is in tracing the events surrounding one such raiding party on Mua that oral tradition and archaeological research converge.

Goba

On 8 November 1967, the late Mr. Wees Nawia, a local Mua Islander, recounted the following oral tradition to amateur anthropologist Margaret Lawrie (1970: 45-46):

 "Amongst the Mualgal (people of Mua) who were living on the eastern
 side of the hill called Gunagan was a man who had a young son named
 Goba. When this man said to his wife one day, "There's a good low
 tide today--I'll go and spear some fish', she warned him to be on
 his guard against raiders from the neighbouring island, Badu. He
 intended to leave his son at home, but the boy pleaded so hard and
 so long to be allowed to go that he yielded, against his better
 judgement, and took the boy with him.

 "Father and son walked to Isumulai [Imusulai] on the western coast
 of the island and went out on the reef and fished--unaware that they
 were watched the whole time by members of a warring party from Badu
 whose canoes were beached on the other side of the nearby point,
 Karbai Gizu. After they had filled a basket with fish, they picked
 up some big bu shells which were lying on the reef and began their
 journey back to Gunagan.

 "Both Goba and his father felt very thirsty by this time. When they
 reached the spring, Uma, they halted for a drink. Goba then
 complained of hunger, so his father lit a fire and roasted some
 fish, although he knew it was extremely dangerous for him and his
 son to dally alone in the bush. "Should we be attacked', he told
 Goba, 'run away and climb a tree. Hide amongst the branches and
 leaves. Make no movement. Utter no sound'.

 "Soon after they sat down to eat the cooked fish, the father
 glimpsed movement in the scrub nearby. 'Run!' he whispered to Goba
 and when the boy had gone stood up to face the men of Badu who were
 about to strike him down. 'Don't kill me', he said to them, 'I am a
 friend'. The men of Badu clubbed him and afterwards removed his
 head with a bamboo knife (upi). Goba, watching from a tree, saw his
 father killed. He shut his eyes before the moment of his father's
 beheading. When he opened them he saw his father's headless body
 lying on the ground and the retreating figures of the men from Badu,
 one of whom carried his father's head.

 "Goba stayed up the tree until long after sunset. Late at night he
 climbed down and ran all the way home to Gunagan, where he told what
 had happened to his father. "Take us to your father's body
 tomorrow', the men said.

 Next morning Goba led the Mualgal to his father's body. They covered
 it with stones."

Lawrie (1970: 46) notes that 'After finishing the story, Wees Nawia added this detail':

 "The events related in this story happened just prior to the coming
 of Christianity to Torres Strait in 1871.

 "Goba was about eight years old when his father was killed by the
 raiders from Badu. The mound of stones beneath which his father's
 bones lie is approximately a quarter of a mile from the spring,
 Uma."

Turao Kula

The story of Goba is today popularly retold in the Kubin community. The grave of Goba's father--the same pile of rocks of Wees Nawia's 1967 recounting--is a prominent landmark near the permanent water source of Twin Springs at Uma (Figure 2). According to current oral tradition, here, on the alluvial flats next to a small creek, Goba's father's death and the pile of rocks that mark his resting place date to before the 'Coming of the Light' (Christianity) in 1871. The rock cairn is today surrounded by a rectangular array of rocks added around 1988 to protect the grave.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

One hundred metres from the grave is a small, low hill on top of which is a large granite boulder known as Turao Kula (tura = spy, ao = past tense, kula = rock), a lookout rock onto which local Islanders once climbed to survey the surroundings (Figure 3) This site has been given the reference number Moa 10 in our cultural site recording system. It is located at 10[degrees]12.90'E and 142[degrees]13.35'S. Turao Kula displays material evidence of past occupation: on the flat rock and soft ashy surface are numerous stone artefacts, marine shells, bones, pieces of use-worn ochre, charcoal and various items of material culture of the European contact period (glass, metal). Skeletal remains of a child and a trumpet (bu) shell were present around 1980, but there is no trace of these today (Guy Neliman, personal observation).

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The rockshelter at Turao Kula occurs under the large boulder. The shelter has a maximum height of 4m at the dripline, but it is between 1m and 2m high in most other places. Greatest ease of movement within the shelter occurs towards the upper slopes of the site, where a number of the rock paintings are found. Moderately thick vine thickets surround the boulder.

A small test excavation was undertaken in 2001 underneath the paintings, in a part of the site that appeared on surface clues to possess the deepest sediments. A single 50x50cm square (F15) was excavated in mean 2.0cm-thick excavation units (XU) following the stratigraphy. All cultural items and some pieces of charcoal noticed in situ were mapped on recording forms and individually bagged during the excavation. Sediment samples were collected for each XU. Sediments were sieved in 3mm wire mesh, and the residue retained for sorting in the laboratory. Excavation proceeded to bedrock, located a maximum 25.1cm below the modern ground surface (Figures 4-5).

[FIGURES 4-5 OMITTED]

Excavation

Two sedimentary layers were identified during excavation. The upper layer (Layer 1) consists of leaf litter and loose surface silts, brownish-black in colour (Munsell = 10YR3/2; pH = 4.5-5). Layer 1 is the present treadage zone, represented by XU1 only. Layer 2 below it, representing the bulk of the excavated sediments, consists of compact and consolidated silts and roof-fallen angular granite rocks. Small rootlets are common. Sediments throughout Layer 2 are uniform in texture, colour (Munsell = 10YR3/ 3, dark brown), pH (4.5-5), consolidation and compaction.

Cultural materials were recovered in all XU, and included weathered bone and marine shell fragments, charcoal, powdered ochre, and 179 flaked stone artefacts (Table 1). The charcoal came either from campfires or from burning of the surrounding landscape--the choice of options is uncertain as no hearth structures were identified in the excavation. The powdered ochre was exposed in situ in XU3 during the course of excavation. The bone and shell are unidentifiable except for a single Macropodidae premolar fragment (most likely an Agile Wallaby, Macropus agilis) recovered from XU4; however, much of the bone is likely to come from turtle or dugong given its size, morphology and nature of weathering. Table 2 standardises deposition 'rates' of cultural materials per 1cm of sediment deposition per 50x50cm area.

Two conventional radiocarbon dates have been obtained on charcoal. The uppermost determination, from 1.7cm to 4.6cm below the ground surface in XU3 (the unit with ochre powder), produced a date of 325 [+ or -] 61 years BP (Wk-9943), which calibrates to between 1400 and 1700 AD or between 1750 and 1850 AD at 2 sigma (95.4% probability, OxCal 3.4). The lowermost date, from charcoal sitting 20.9cm to 22.7cm below ground surface in XU9 (0mm to 9mm above bedrock) (the basal XU10 is a discontinuous, mean 3mm-thin excavation unit without sufficient charcoal for conventional dating), produced a determination of 960 [+ or -] 145 years BP (Wk-9944). This calibrates to between 750 and 1400 AD at 2 sigma (95.4% probability, OxCal 3.4).

In short, the stratigraphic, radiocarbon and cultural data indicate that the site first began to be occupied sometime between 750 and 1400 AD. At that time, people were likely camping under the rockshelter for short periods of time, during which they made or repaired wooden implements with stone tools. They are meat, including now-locally extinct wallabies. But afterward, sometime during the period 1400-1850 AD, a dramatic change took place in the way the rockshelter was used. People stopped using the sire as intensively as before (as indicated by a sudden drop in numbers of stone artefacts, a cessation of vertebrate faunal remains at the site, and a c.4-fold slowing down of overall sedimentation rates from 3.8cm to 1.0cm/ 100 years). Instead of eating the meat from large animals, users of the site are only a few small marine shellfish. The change from items of food that produce large amounts of meat to easily carried, smaller food items signals a change in site function, from a camp where food was communal or shared to one where small, individual meals were cooked and eaten. This period of change also saw a marked decrease in the incidence of stone tool making and use. However, an increase in charcoal deposition indicates that people began to either make more fires at the site or to burn the surrounding landscape more. These changes are pronounced, and a stratigraphically-constrained Nearest Neighbour Cluster Analysis on frequencies of all cultural materials (Figure 6) confirms major differences in site occupation between XU1-3 and XU4-10 (the excavation units above and below the ochre powder, respectively). The major occupational changes thus took place around the onset of painting activity at the site. Because the excavation pit was located beneath the paintings on the rock wall, the excavated ochre--of the same colour as the paintings--likely relate to the adjacent rock-art.

[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]

Rock-art

The motifs painted on the rock reveal important information on Turao Kula's history. All paintings are red. One set of paintings clearly depicts an anthropomorph climbing a tree, reminiscent of the oral tradition associated with Goba's father's death (Figures 7-9). No such painting had ever been seen in Torres Strait before--no such painting of an anthropomorph up a tree had ever been recorded from anywhere in the Australian/ western Pacific region. Indeed, this painting at Turao Kula cannot be easily seen today, as the colours have faded and the anthropomorph itself is indistinct. It was only by digitally enhancing this part of the shelter wall that the painted motifs were revealed (Figures 8-9). Islanders at Kubin village did not know of this painting's existence prior to these enhancements. If the powdered ochre excavated from XU3, located close to and below the painted wall, are the by-products of paintings that illustrate the Goba story--as we here suggest--then these paintings must postdate the events narrated in the oral tradition, for they could not have been done before the illustrated events had taken place. It thus appears that the above-documented changes in site use at Turao Kula--a decrease in intensities of occupation, as documented by a change from meat to shellfish consumption, and a decrease in the incidence of stone tool manufacture and use--took place around the time that the story was painted on the cave wall, sometime between 1400 and 1850 AD. This is consistent with the timing of Goba's father's death as determined from oral tradition (shortly before the arrival of Christianity on Mua).

[FIGURES 7-9 OMITTED]

Further indication of the age of the paintings is provided by Kylie Tennant, who visited Mua sometime during the first half of the twentieth century. She records being taken to a rockshelter boulder site by the then-Chairman of Kubin named 'Weiss' (Wees Nawia who related the Goba story to Lawrie in 1967, see above). The site exhibited human bones and 'the clearest painting' she had seen on Mua. This painting was 'a new thing' and represented 'a long-nosed man climbing a coconut tree. There was a row of coconut trees gracefully drawn and true, not just indications, but verifiable coconut trees' (Tennant 1959: 193). It is likely that the painting seen by Tennant was at Turao Kula given its uniqueness and matching site description. That the paintings have clearly degraded considerably over a period of less than 100 years suggests strongly that they were created not long before they were seen by Tennant, most probably during the nineteenth century. This conclusion is consistent with local oral history and the archaeological evidence.

Our research strongly suggests that with Goba's father's death, camping ceased to commonly occur in the rockshelter. Instead, visitation became occasional and fleeting, the site perhaps representing an opportunistic stopping point during intra-island travels.

Conclusion

The archaeology of Goba's father is the first instance in Torres Strait where oral tradition has been used in conjunction with archaeological research in the construction of a local, indigenous history. Yet it is unlikely to be the last, for on both Mua and other islands indigenous communities have, since this initial work, requested archaeological research at other important places known from oral tradition. Upon completion of the archaeological work at Turao Kula, and following community reporting, a major ceremony was held in October 2002. The celebration at Uma featured speeches and reference to Goba's direct descendants by a detailed and lengthy calling of genealogies. Recognition of Goba's descendants during the ceremony was important because it demonstrated key links to the past, a shared cultural heritage and an avowment of Mualgal emplacement and belonging. During the celebrations community Elders conveyed the significance of using this celebration of culture and history as an educational tool for teaching the younger generations about the importance of retaining cultural identity. Kubin Community Council Chairman Saila Savage began with the words 'this is an exciting day for the Mualgal' because of the opportunity the Goba tradition and related community history gave for the community to unite in a common cause, an opportunity made possible by a merging of oral tradition and archaeology sanctioned by the Elders.

The cultural celebrations continued into the evening with a feast involving traditional Islander foods, in particular dugong and turtle. The feast also provided an opportunity for the younger generations of Mualgal to utilise and demonstrate cultural knowledge in the preparation of turtle, cooked in a traditional kup mari earth oven. Islander dances, which had been taught by Elders and practised by the younger generations for months in advance of the ceremony, were performed (Figure 10). The enthusiasm of the young dancers and singers involved signalled a strong appreciation and commemoration of an important cultural event.

[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]

The re-discovery of the rock paintings at Turao Kula generated keen interest amongst the Mualgal, and a journey was planned to visit the boulder with the archaeologists, Elders and children. Many Mualgal visited Turao Kula for the first time during this occasion. This was also an opportunity for the younger generations to visit the site of an archaeological investigation where cultural history was being researched in novel ways promising to shed new light on the local past. As a result, the Kubin State School, with the participation of Elders and other teachers, is now planning programs to aid promotion of cultural knowledge amongst children through activities such as bushtucker identification and cultural site recognition (see Brady et al. in press for a detailed reporting of the Uma ceremony and its community significance).

As Louise Manas says in the popular Australian weekly magazine The Bulletin, 'The paintings [at Turao Kula] are important to the community because they express oral tradition of a historic and true story that happened before. It was retold by our elders--many now deceased--and now we can see the story on the rock. Finding the paintings has brought joy to the community because it can now be shared with people of a different culture. The beautiful thing that I see is that we can share our culture, and people who come into contact with us share that part of us' (Beale 2003: 28). The celebrations at Turao Kula, Goba's father's gravesite and the ensuing feast signal the significance attached to local history and identity, and to the ability for Mualgal to historicise and communicate their own past in their own terms, yet also in a broader world and using tools not traditionally available on the island. The archaeology of oral tradition on Mua Island allows local peoples to add details to an already rich historical tradition. In the process, it is not an invasive history that is written to underwrite indigenous identities, but a history of those events that have greatest meaning and relevance to local peoples. Because the Mualgal own the process, the Mualgal also own the outcome. In doing so, such historicizing opens up archaeological research to indigenous communities in non-colonial power relations. Such an approach makes the tools of archaeology, as a means of historical research, available to indigenous communities in a world where, for a variety of social and political reasons, archaeological research programs are seldom accessible to indigenous peoples. In such circumstances where the setting of research agendas remains in the hands of indigenous groups, the archaeology of oral tradition represents a way by which indigenous groups can research and communicate one's own histories in a way meaningful both to local community members and to others. Furthermore, as oral traditions often relate to specific individuals, peoples and places, the archaeology of oral tradition allows for historical understandings at scales and in details rarely available in more common forms of archaeological research.

Table 1. Turao Kula: List of excavated items, raw values.

 Stone Stone Burnt Marine
 artefacts artefacts Charcoal earth shell
XU (#) (g) (g) (g) (#)

1 1 0.1 1.0 0.3
2 12 2.0 9.2 0.8 7
3 7 4.8 16.7 7.7 10
4 18 29.3 7.3 4.1 5
5 49 21.1 4.0 2
6 18 9.8 1.1 0.6
7 20 7.1 0.8
8 23 5.1 1.6
9 23 4.4 1.6
10 8 0.4 0.2

 Marine Ochre Land
 shell Bone Bone powder snail
XU (g) (#) (g) (g) (MNI)

1
2 0.81 3
3 0.87 0.05
4 0.71 9 1.55
5 0.13 8 0.48
6 14 0.75
7 1 0.09
8 3 0.08
9 1 0.07
10

Table 2. Turao Kula: List of excavated cultural items, converted to
frequencies per 50x50cm/1cm of sediment deposition. XU9 and XU10 are
united, as XU10 consists of a very thin excavation unit.

 Stone Stone Burnt Marine
 artefacts artefacts Charcoal earth shell
XU (#) (g) (g) (g) (#)

 1 2.5 0.3 2.5 0.8
 2 9.2 1.5 7.1 0.6 5.4
 3 2.4 1.7 5.8 2.7 3.5
 4 5.6 9.2 2.3 1.3 1.6
 5 10.7 4.6 0.9 0.4
 6 7.8 4.3 0.5 0.3
 7 8.3 3.0 0.3
 8 8.4 1.8 0.6
9+10 29.5 4.6 1.7

 Marine Ochre
 shell Bone Bone powder
XU (g) (#) (g) (g)

 1
 2 0.62
 3 0.30 0.02
 4 0.22 2.8 0.48
 5 0.03 1.7 0.10
 6 6.1 0.33
 7 0.4 0.04
 8 1.1 0.02
9+10 1.0 0.07

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Genai Goba, Maryann Mairu nee Goba, Naika Luta nee Goba and Nawarie Goba (Goba's descendants), the Mualgal Native Title Group and Kubin Community Council. Many thanks also to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the Australian Research Council for funding this project; Alan Hogg for advice on radiocarbon dates; Gary Swinton for drafting Figures 1, 4 and 5, and Cassandra Rowe for producing Figure 6.

Received: 27 July 2002 Accepted: 28 May 2003 Revised: 9 June 2003

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Bruno David (1a), Ian McNiven (1b), Louise Manas (2), John Manas (2), Saila Savage (2), Joe Crouch (3), Guy Neliman (2) & Liam Brady (1c)

(1) School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia. (1a Email: bruno.david@arts.monash.edu.au) (1b Email: ian.mcniven@arts.monash.edu.au) (1c Email: liam.brady@arts.monash.edu.au)

(2) Mualgal Native Title Group, Kubin Community Council, Mua Island, via Thursday Island, Queensland 4875, Australia. (Email: kubin@bigpond.com)

(3) Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia. (Email:joe.crouch@arts.monash.edu.au)