Mer (Murray Island)
Located about eight hundred kilometres north-northwest of Cairns and two hundred and thirteen kilometres east-northeast of Thursday Island at the eastern end of the Torres Strait, Mer (a.k.a. Murray Island) is a small island of volcanic origin and a population of around 450. It is the largest of three similar islands (Mer, Waier and Dauar), generally known as the Murray Group, named by Captain Edwards of the ill-fated HMS Pandora in 1791.
The island is an extinct volcano, formed over a million years ago when the Indo-Australian Plate slid over the East Australia hotspot, which rises to a plateau about eighty above sea level with a high point (Gelam Paser, 230 metres) at the western end of the crater. The island has red fertile soil and is covered in dense vegetation.
With Erub (Darnley) and Ugar (Stephens), Mer is home to the eight tribes of the Meriam people:
- Komet
- Zagareb
- Meuram
- Magaram
- Geuram
- Peibre
- Meriam-Samsep
- Piadram
- Dauer Meriam.
The Meriam people speak Meriam Mir, which Stephen Wurm classified in the Eastern Trans-Fly family of the Trans–New Guinea Phylum. It is the only Papuan language spoken in Australian territory, along with Torres Strait Creole (Yumplatok or Ailan Tok) and Australian English.
European visitors who followed Edwards and the Pandora included Matthew Flinders, who found the people friendly and eager to trade in 1802. Beche-de-mer and pearling luggers began working the reefs and waters in the 1860s.
The need to regulate activity in Queensland waters prompted the British Government to issue Letters Patent, creating a new boundary encompassing all islands within sixty nautical miles of the Queensland coast around the time the London Missionary Society founded a missionary school on Mer in 1872. The Queensland Coast Islands Act of 1879 extended the boundary and brought Boigu, Erub, Mer and Saibai, which lay beyond the previous boundary, enabling the Queensland Government to regulate the fisheries.
More recently, Mer and the islanders' traditional landholding practices became the focus of activist became the focus of the island's most famous resident, Eddie Mabo's legal challenge to notions of terra nullius, which ultimately led to the High Court of Australia's "Mabo decision" on 3 June 1992.
Links to add:
Thursday Island
Waier
Dauar)
Murray Group
Captain Edwards
HMS Pandora
Indo-Australian Plate
East Australia hotspot
Erub (Darnley)
Ugar (Stephens)
Stephen Wurm
Eastern Trans-Fly family
Trans–New Guinea Phylum
Torres Strait Creole (Yumplatok or Ailan Tok)
Beche-de-mer
London Missionary Society
Queensland Coast Islands Act of 1879
Boigu
Saibai
Eddie Koiki Mabo
terra nullius
Mabo decision
