Culture
The indigenous people of the Torres Strait have a distinct culture which has slight variants on the different islands where they live. They are a seafaring people, and engaged in trade with people of Papua New Guinea. The culture is complex, with some Australian elements, some Papuan elements, and Austronesian elements, just like the languages. The Islanders seem to have been the dominant culture for many centuries, and neighbouring Aboriginal and Papuan cultures show some Island influence in religious ceremonies and the like. Examples of Torres Strait Islander language can be found on the State Library of Queensland's ReTold website, a collection of online stories gathered in partnership with Torres Strait Islander language speakers and community members living in mainland Queensland. Stories told through this website come from the Margaret Lawrie Collection of Torres Strait Islands material.
Archaeological, linguistic and folk history evidence suggests that the core of Island culture is Austronesian. Unlike the indigenous peoples of mainland Australia, the islanders were traditionally agriculturalists although they supplemented their food supplies through hunting and gathering. Dugong, turtle, crayfish and reef fish were all traditionally hunted and collected and remain an important part of their subsistence lifestyle. Traditional foods play an important role in ceremonies and celebrations even when they don't live on the islands. Dugong and turtle hunting as well as fishing are seen as a way of continuing the Islander tradition of being closely associated with the sea.
Their more recent, post-colonization history has seen new cultural influences, most notably the place of Christianity (particularly of the Baptist and Anglican strains) which caused major shifts in cultural paradigms, as well as subtler additions through the influence of Polynesian (particularly Rotuman) pearl-divers brought by black-birders in the 19th Century.
Read more about this topic: Torres Strait Islanders
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The first time many women hold their tiny babies, they are apt to feel as clumsy and incompetent as any man. The difference is that our culture tells them they’re not supposed to feel that way. Our culture assumes that they will quickly learn how to be a mother, and that assumption rubs off on most women—so they learn.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)
“The highest end of government is the culture of men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)