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Name
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Torres Strait, Zenadth Kes
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Type of carceral site
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Other
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Dates of use
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1868 – 1985
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Quote
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Without your language you become a foreigner, lost in another person's culture.
Artist statement.
Alick Tipoti, 2019, qtd. in "Alick Tipoti: Cultural Leader and Artist." Australian National Maritime Museum, 2019, https://www.sea.museum/en/person/alick-tipoti. Accessed 17 June 2026.
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They say if you live on an island for too long, you merge with it. Your bones become the sands, your blood the ocean. Your flesh is the fertile ground. Your heart becomes the stories, dances, songs. The island is part of your makeup. The earth. The trees. The reef. The fish. The music. The sun, moon and stars surround you. You are only part of the integral world called life. You and those who follow you will always be a part of it. No matter where you and your children will travel, the island is always home.
Novel.
Janke, Terry. Butterfly Song. Penguin Group, 2005, p. 3.
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Thin shadows dance
On the glowing camplights
Like knives that slice
So much is lost
Under these sails of this conquest
Left to abide
Under the shadow of this divide.
Poetry Performance.
Batzke, Robbie. "'Imagine Gardens of Forgiveness', Robbie Batzke Australia Day performance 2021." YouTube, uploaded by Robert Batzke, 20 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-oVGjDG1-U. Accessed 17 June 2026.
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Sally was born on Thursday Island or Waiben (meaning dry well), a tropical island in far north Queensland. Thursday Island is an island in the Torres Strait, so that meant she was an Australian citizen. However, if she had been born on Daru Island, another island to the northeast of Thursday Island (T.I.), she would be a Papua New Guinea citizen. She was pretty happy she was born on the right Island, she loved being an Aussie, but she loved her island home as well.
Short story.
Faulkner, Samantha. "Maiem (Welcome)." International Writing Program Collections, March 2016, https://www.iwpcollections.org/nw2-samantha-faulkner. Accessed 17 June 2026.
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I was told that one of these domestics was actually kicked and beaten by a child, abetted by his mother, because at long last the girl had refused to submit any longer to abusive and slave-like treatment. Island women do not submit to this thing out of natural submissiveness but out of that web of confusion, shame and frustration in which the farce of "protection" involves them.
News record.
Devanny, Jean. "Torres Strait Islanders Need A New Deal." Tribune, 10 March 1948, p. 4.
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Authority
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Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897; Torres Strait Treaty 1978, Native Title Act 1993; Torres Strait Regional Authority 1994
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Archives and sources
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Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Data Archive | ATSIDA
Collections | AIATSIS
Island Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2013, pp. 55-66.
McMahon, Elizabeth. "Reading the Planetary Archipelago of the Torres Strait." Island Studies Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, 2013, pp. 55-66.
National Library of Australia (NLA)
Neuenfeldt, Karl. "Torres Strait Islander Musics: Tradition, Travel and Change." The Cambridge Companion to Music in Australia. Ed. Amanda Harris and Clint Bracknell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 40–55.
Queensland State Archives - Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
News record.
Devanny, Jean. "Torres Strait Islanders Need A New Deal." Tribune, 10 March 1948, p. 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/208108836. Accessed 20 August 2026.
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Contact
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Kieren
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identifier
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SITE-TOR