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This paper analyzes the functions of interactional devices used by co-tellers in multiparty stories in Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u, two closely related dialects of a Paman language of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Within the Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u speech community there is a strong cultural preference for multiparty storytelling – a preference which has been noted in a number of Aboriginal Australian contexts. This paper seeks to understand the mechanisms through which co-tellers in these multiparty narratives contribute to the story. It first discusses co-teller roles, and distinguishes three key narrator roles and orders of conduct associated with each. The analysis then focuses on the use of questions and evaluative comments used by one type of co-teller, supporting narrators. The following discussion demonstrates that questions and evaluative comments go beyond immediate functions of seeking information or spontaneous expressive reactions. They help to fulfil expectations on supporting narrators to engage actively in the talk. It is additionally shown that these devices have functions in highlighting key aspects of the story and developing stance in intricate ways that complement the main line of the storytelling. The analysis demonstrates the close coordination of co-tellers in constructing a story; piece-by-piece they collaboratively describe and evaluate the story events as a group, prioritizing a local and situated shared telling over other potential story goals like performance and progressivity of a plot. The analysis of Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u storytelling contributes to the field of interaction and narrative studies by furthering our understanding of the organization of storytelling in different cultures and languages contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abundant shell matrix sites around Albatross Bay near Weipa, western Cape York Peninsula, provide an important source of evidence for models of mid- to late Holocene Aboriginal subsistence strategies in the region. While there is considerable variation in the size and spatial distribution of these sites, their surficial species composition is almost invariably dominated by Anadara granosa (blood cockle). In this paper I describe a complex of shell matrix sites at Norman Creek, ∼60 km south of Weipa, that do not conform to this trend. Like the Albatross Bay sites, they exhibit considerable variation in size, but their surficial species composition is dominated by Marcia hiantina (hiant Venus). This suggests that, in the past, shellfish foraging in the region was not exclusively focused on A. granosa. There are several factors that may influence variation in species composition, including shellfish ecology, economic and cultural values, and taphonomic processes. Further research, including detailed sub-surface investigation of shell matrix sites, is necessary to evaluate the role(s), and interplay, of these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of personal and family connections to traditional homelands has been the subject of considerable attention—and dispute—in Australia's ‘native title era’. This paper examines contemporary Indigenous connections to country in Central Cape York Peninsula and, in particular, the affective aspects of local and diaspora ties to place. Drawing on recent theorisations of place and locality, I outline some of the ways in which Indigenous attachments to specific localities are becoming both more complex and increasingly inflected by the location of Indigenous people within late modern liberal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large mounded deposits of shell are prominent archaeological features across much of the north Australian tropical coast. Many of the shell mounds are composed almost entirely of the bivalve Anadara granosa (Linnaeus 1758), a food source for Aboriginal people in the past. A relatively long history of inquiry into the nature and significance of the shell mounds has focussed primarily on analysing the shell component as clues to Australian Aboriginal coastal economies in the past. This paper presents results of new analyses on the non-shell sediments, examining the physical and chemical signatures of depositional and post-depositional processes within shell mounds near Weipa in far north Queensland, Australia, with a view to obtaining insights into how they formed and for what purposes, and how their morphology, structure and content may have changed since they ceased accumulating. We also consider how such changes might relate to past and present environmental conditions. Physical and chemical analyses indicate that the primary purpose of mound building was most likely to discard the large volumes of shell resulting from A. granosa harvesting and consumption. Post-depositional diagenetic alteration has strongly influenced the present day composition and form of the shell mounds, in particular the accession of carbon and silica to the mounds by environmental burning aided by strong leaching under the seasonal high rainfall conditions. As such the mound chemistry is more likely to reflect modern environmental conditions rather than provide an archive of, or an opening to, the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrenched contests about the future of Cape York Peninsula's lands, waters and people have for long received national prominence. In the federal arena, this has climaxed with the campaign to overturn the State's declarations on wild rivers. Initially pursued as a means of influencing decisions on the determination of the government in a finely balanced federal parliament, it has been retained as an early test of the survivability of the minority Labor government. The peninsula's prominence is founded on its iconic conservation status and the continuity of Aboriginal occupance of their country, reinforced by the formidable capabilities of Indigenous and conservationist leaders. Contests are characterised by their complexity, durability and intractability. Contests are bedevilled by shifting alliances and schisms within Indigenous and conservationist constituencies. Increasingly potent is the schism between modernist/reformist/regionalist visions of Indigenous futures, forcefully presented by Noel Pearson against more traditionalist/localist visions held by many community leaderships. Other participants, notably conservationists, State politicians and bureaucracies have needed to align their policies around these contested visions. Over the last two decades, policies of State Labor governments have maintained some continuity, being pro-active on conservation goals, selectively supportive of Aboriginal advancement, necessarily passive in the determination of land claims, reactive in the resolution of land tenures and property rights, and inconsistent and ineffectual in conflict resolution and in providing leadership in shaping sustainable, multifunctional futures, attuned to the peninsula's unique challenges and potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses reasons for optimism regarding the future of Indigenous health in Australia. Willingness of Premier Peter Beattie to engage with Noel Pearson and other leaders as they seek solutions for the people of Cape York; Intimate familiarity of Indigenous Australians with disadvantage and the ramifications of the change of political tides; Cape York's Alcohol Management Plans; Appreciation of the history of black-white relations in Australia.

To study the prevalence of rheumatic disorders in two Aboriginal populations on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula.Physical and radiological examination of 217 adult Aborigines at Aurukun Aboriginal Mission and 71 Aboriginal adults at Weipa Mission. The study was performed in October 1965.Mild to moderate degenerative arthritis was not uncommon in the populations examined. However, generalised or nodal osteoarthritis was not seen. One young woman had definite sero-positive rheumatoid arthritis. This woman's appearance suggested some Torres Strait Islander influence. No case of gouty arthritis or classical ankylosing spondylitis was encountered. An incidental finding of retrospective interest was that the calculated body mass index showed that the majority of adults were underweight by Caucasian standards.These findings are of historic interest given the health impacts of social, cultural and environmental circumstances of Aborigines currently reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]