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The article presents information on the role of Scandinavians in the pearl rush starting in the 1870s in the area of Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, with special attention to the wages of the workers, the pearlshelling industry, and various settlers including Alfred Christian Mortensen and Andrew Oscar Charles Sinclair. Other topics mentioned in this article include the establishment of a Scandinavian community in Australia, historical sources, and residents of Thursday Island.

'Taibobo' is the name the Torres Strait Islanders give to the style of singing and dancing that they learned from the Rotuman sailors who worked in the marine industry in the late 19th century. The Islanders of Eastern Torres Strait continued to practise them long after the Rotumans had gone, as a part of a repertoire of songs and dances, old and new. Beckett recorded Taibobo in the 1950s. When a Rotuman researcher came to Torres Strait in 2004, Islanders could still sing the songs which, as it eventuated, only the oldest people in Rotuma could remember. The paper will place the Torres Strait adoption of the songs and dances in historical context and describe Taibobo - both the songs and the dances -as one of us encountered it in the 1950s, and later in 2004. Finally the response of contemporary Rotumans on hearing Taibobo recordings from the Torres Strait is documented, as well as the Islander responses to the re-establishment of contact after so many years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the media coverage of Aboriginal women and girls who were forced into prostitution for Japanese pearlers in the 1930s. The author analyzes the use of the term "Black Velvet" in the print coverage of the scandal as colloquial language referring to interracial sexuality, explores the sexualization of indigenous women, and examines the territorial issues of the pearl trade.