ropes

Romanies arrived in Australia with the first fleet in 1788 from England. Very few were actually identified as Romanies as they travelled under the nationality of the country they came from. Centuries of persecution had made them very cautious and secretive about their true cultural identity. It’s highly likely that this family in the photo from Queensland, which was taken around the turn of the last century, was from the Machwaya group. This group came to Australia from Serbia via Greece and travelled the country in horse drawn vans looking for seasonal work such as fruit picking, farm work, cane cutting, mining, laboring, blacksmithing, horse handling, leather work, metal work, timber mill work and tree felling. Source including the same photo: www.oocities.org/romani_life_society/indexpics/MagApr08.pdf

Effing fabulous pharos photo!

It gives me the willies as well 😀😩!!

Previously ...

Mr Ball must have been on the old lighthouse (on the left above) to look down on the new one growing.

beachcomber australia That makes sense! I had an image of him at the top of a mast trying to take the shot as the ship rocked back and forth!

The popular image of master pearlers is of Anglo-Celts in ‘pearling whites’ and pith helmets overseeing their ‘coolie’ labour. But, in reality, they came from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, and some were women. They exerted power and influence at all levels of government. Some of the early master pearlers – the McRae brothers, for example – were settlers and pastoralists; others were merchant seaman. Many were opportunists keen to exploit a lucrative trade for profit, even if this meant engaging in slaving. Some Asian pearlers owned pearling operations until their ownership was banned; others formed ‘dummying’ partnerships with white pearlers. Other Asian and European pearlers operated from East Indian ports, such as Dobu (Aru Islands). Under foreign flags of convenience, they exploited pearlshell outside the three-nautical-mile exclusion zone around Australia’s coast, thereby evading the fees, duties and regulations imposed on those based in Australia. In the Torres Strait, the London Missionary Society set up Papuan Industries, which allowed communities to build and own their own luggers. Each with its own colours, these ‘company boats’ were a source of pride and income for the Islander communities. Some pearlers founded pearling dynasties, but only the Paspaley family has survived into the twenty-first century. Source: museum.wa.gov.au/explore/lustre-online-text-panels/master...