Photos of Queensland Indigenous Portraits, Australia

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Queensland Indigenous Portraits

Queensland is unique in that it has two different groups of indigenous people: the Aborigines, living on the mainland, and the Torres Strait Islanders, living in the island archipelago between the tip of Cape York and Papua New Guinea.

Thursday Island boy
 
Girl of Thursday Island
 
Having supper
 
Thursday Island girl
 
Boy of Bamaga
 
Boy from Cherbourg
 
Djabugay boy, Kuranda
 
Boy of Moa Island
 
Girl from Mer
 
Boy from Masig
 
Boy from Masig
 
Boy from Warraber
 
Boy from Warraber
 
Girl from Lockhart River
 
Girl from Lockhart River
 
Boy from Mona Mona
 
Boy from Injinoo
 
Torres Strait Islander boy
 
Boy from Erub
 
Boy from Boigu
 
Boy from Masig
 
Girl with “tattoos”
 
Primary School student
 
Torres Strait Islander girl
 
Torres Strait Islander boy
 
Torres Strait boy
 
At a school camp
 
Hairdressing student
 
Murray Island boy
 
Boy from Yarrabah
 
Boy with topless hat
 
Girl from Gordonvale
 
Boy from Gordonvale
 
Boy from Woorabinda
 
Boy from Yarrabah
 
Girl with painted face
 
Boy with painted face
 
Boy from Weipa
 
Torres Strait Islander boy
 
Murray Island boy
 
Elder from Mer
 
Aboriginal school girl
 
Aboriginal girl from Yarrabah
 
Saibai Islander boy
 
Young man from Mer
 
Boy from Mer
 
Girl from Boigu Island
 
Djarragun College student
 
Elder from Boigu Island
 
Yidinyji boy
 
Torres Strait Islander girl
 
Boy from Boigu
 
Girl from Gordonvale
 
Boy from Yarrabah
 
Aboriginal boy, Gordonvale
 
Yidinyji girl from Gordonvale
 
Woman from Mer
 
Aboriginal boy, Gordonvale
 
Torres Strait Islander boy
 
Girl from Yarrabah
 

It is believed that migrations of people from Asia to mainland Australia began as far as 60,000 years ago and that they probably entered what is now Australia from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, from where they could walk across the then dry Torres Strait. These were the ancestors of today's Aboriginal peoples; the people who inhabited the island of New Guinea and the nearby west Pacific were the ancestors of today's Melanesian peoples, including the present day Torres Strait islanders; today's inhabitants of the Eastern Torres Strait Islands, Mer (Murray Island) and Erub (Darnley Island) speak a Papuan language, Meriam Mir. The other traditional local languages spoken in the Torres Strait, Kalaw Lagaw Ya and Kalaw Kawaw Ya, have affinities with Aboriginal languages of Cape York, indicating centuries of contact; but the people are Melanesian, except Muralug (Prince of Wales Island), the home of the Kaurareg, an Aboriginal group.

The Aboriginal people of Queensland also belong to very diverging groups of people, traditionally with their own identities and lifestyles. Life changed irrevocably with the colonisation of the whites, people were uprooted, culture and language lost and over the generations there has been lots of racial mixing, with the result that today's Aboriginal people come in every shade of skin- and eye colour. This is less so among the people who managed to remain isolated, like the people in remote Cape York and the Torres Strait, but even here there is great variety.

This portrait gallery illustrates and celebrates the present indigenous population of northern Queensland; most of the people here are children, who, as everywhere else, are always most keen to pose for a photo.