significance

Yarrabah is the traditional country of the Gunggandji and Mandingalbay Yidinji people. These people had traditional beliefs and values different to those we have today. They were guided by Buleru, ancestral spirits who gave us our cultural law, belief system and creation stories and followed a defined social structure and kinship system. Our people were hunters and gatherers, the surrounding rainforest and beachside traditional lands around Cape Grafton provided food in abundance. Dwellings were made from material found within the environment, the structure dependent on wet season or dry season needs. The initial route of Captain James Cook and the crew of the HM Endeavor anchored off the northern shore of Cape Grafton and crew members made land looking for water. This was the third landing as part of the journey northward and the perils at Cape Tribulation. While Australia had been colonised by the British in 1788, Aboriginal people living on the eastern coast of Cape York had little contact with non-Indigenous people prior to the 1850s. Only a few brief encounters with British Royal Navy crews were documented. Cultural practices, particularly language ceremony and beliefs were all suppressed during these mission days. Traditional values were transformed swiftly to adopt clothing, and Christianity replaced traditional creation stories. Hunter gathering was discouraged and with the arrival of people from other cultural groups, Gungganji cultural protocols were dismissed. Source: www.yarrabah.qld.gov.au/our-history-and-future/

Education at the Mission The mission was declared an Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act in 1865 English was the only language of instruction and all links with the children's culture were deliberately broken Children slept and learned on concrete floors and often harsh discipline Education was only 2 hours a day but often came 2nd to work The education levels were low They didn't really aim for much to come out of the education except for the Aboriginals learning white ways Sometimes if there were brighter Aboriginals they would teach them more so that they could become teachers and end up teaching at the mission when they were older Education standards were purposely low so that more attention was on obedience, discipline, work, and routine Children would go to school to be taught how to fit in with the rest of society For adults, there was limited education- often just teaching them how to read and write so that they could become servants Source: yarrabahlife.weebly.com/yarrabah-mission.html

: Annual sports days have been featured in Yarrabah in north Queensland since the Church of England established the mission in 1892. From at least 1917, sports have been held to commemorate the mission’s birthday and are tinged with religious associations. The foundation sports day competitions themselves include a mixture of footraces, quaint recreational activities, and traditional Aboriginal events such as fire lighting and spear throwing. Imposed on inmates of the mission as a colonial event, they are embraced by residents and celebrated as the ‘Pride of Yarrabah’. On 17 June 1892, Reverend John Brown Gribble established the Yarrabah Mission (initially called Bellenden Ker after a nearby mountain range) on behalf of the Church of England, 16 kilometers by sea and, today, 60 kilometers by road from Cairns in north Queensland. Sports days in Yarrabah, documented since 1895, have been central to foundation commemorations since at least 1917. These annual events have included myriad activities, as indicated in a church report (Northern Churchman, 1 August 1941, p. 16): There were races to suit every taste – long-distance, flat races for those who liked hard work, thread the needle, book races, boomerang and mirral [woomera] throwing, etc. for those who prefer testing their skill: a lemon race for those clean folk who are fond of washing their faces; for the adventurous ones, there was a greasy pole to be climbed. Aquatic events such as boat races have disappeared from the contemporary program, but foot races, traditional Aboriginal activities, and novelty competitions continue. Local Aboriginal man, Darren Miller, argued that the annual sports day represented more than just sports, but was ‘a day of existence’. Miller was referring not only to the celebration of Yarrabah’s founding, but also its continued existence as a proud, Aboriginal community. Source: espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_6e87ff4/Yarrabah_sports_...