HIGHLY COMMENDED
This is a solemn Torres Strait Islander (TSI) story from both my family’s side and my husband’s, Kapua family’s side. My father Opeta Fauid (deceased) a Porumalgal man from the Kulkalgal Nation was a deep-sea pearl shell diver of our Poruma community lugger boats McCoy and Caroline.
My husband’s grandfather, Kapua Gutchen (Snr) (deceased) was also a deep-sea pearl shell diver aboard a lugger boat named ‘Yoela’. He was an Erubam Meuram-Samsep person from Erub (Darnley Island) of the Meriam Nation. From the early 1900’s until the late 1960’s pearling lugger boats operated throughout the Torres Strait’s Sea Country and elsewhere in northern Australian regional sea country. These lugger vessels were manned with Indigenous or non-Indigenous crewmen seeking fortunes or just forced to dived for the pearl resources of our deep and dangerous seas. Many divers lost their lives at sea especially working around the ‘Darnley deeps’ within the Erubam sea country.
Stories from both our families tells us that although Torres Strait Islander men and Aboriginal men, including men of other nationalities accidentally died in this perilous employment, it was the Japanese men divers whom in particular perished the most, because of the ‘Unnecessary Risks’ they undertook on the ocean and sea floor. This is evident of the bigger Japanese diver’s cemeteries on both Waibeni (Thursday Island) and Erub (Darnley Island) and smaller gravesites on other TSI communities, and also scattered upon uninhabited islands and high sand cays.
My Ghost Net Artwork is a representation, and it speaks about those lost Divers Brass Helmets trapped within those deep underwater caverns on the ocean floor, that my late father and my husband’s relatives talked about. Our Stories say that it was also Customary when seeking blessings and protections from Spirits of deceased divers, TSI and Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) Aboriginals divers, including Coastal Village Papuans divers would remove a pearl shell oyster or two from their diving bags and placed them beside a lost diver’s helmet, when they see them during their divers walk also on the sea floor. These lost divers brass helmets, although probably all now covered over with coral and other growth of the sea, tells stories of unfortunate Souls now gone, but became part of our Nations Maritime History. This is an emotional story for me.