Martyn, 1993:

" 'Spirit of place' is an idea which is fundamentally Aboriginal. The spirit of a place does not refer to actual ghost-like beings but rather to the meaning or significance a place has. Through storytelling and singing, the legends of antiquity which speak about dreamtime ancestors are passed on from generation to generation right up to today. There are many Aboriginal legends associated with the reef and the shoreline nearby. Some of them are still held as sacred, and these are unlikely to ever appear in print.

One of the many legends about Green Island concerns a little turtle. He came to a big gathering at the creek but there were so many other turtles that he kept being pushed aside. As he was thirsty he looked for another place and came to a puddle of rainwater. He pushed his nose down to take a big slurp when suddenly he let out a scream. A big angry mudcrab was hanging off the end of the his nose with its pincers. The little turtle jerked his head back in fright and this shook the crab off, but from that day forward he had two little nostrils. The other turtles noticed that he grew up to be big and strong so they appealed to the spirits to get them too.

One Gungganyji storyteller explains that this is the way the turtle was able to adapt to living in the sea, by breathing through these nostrils. Indeed it is true that originally the turtle was a land-dwelling creature which eventually moved into the sea and freshwater creeks.

Another story relates how the sea rose up and covered much of the hunting ground that stretched to the outer fringe of the Great Barrier Reef. Although we know that this would have happened fairly slowly with the melting of the polar ice caps which ended about 6,000 years ago, in this story it seems to have happened as quickly as a cyclone, which are certainly more memorable and devastating in their consequences. This is one of many legends about certain dreamtime characters called Damarri and Guyala.

The story about the flooding of the land goes like this.  One time Damarri was out in a canoe with his two wives when he speared a sacred fish.  Suddenly a big wind started to blow and a storm came up. The sea began to rise and flood the whole land.  Everything was underwater. All Damarri could see was the top of some mountains in the distance so he paddled back past Green Island straight towards them. He was quite a clever man and placed a magic "balur" or curved spear thrower on the front of his canoe. Everywhere the canoe when the sea was made calm by this balur. They quickly paddled in and when they reached a bit of dry land they all raced up the mountain as the sea was rising all the time. Damarri called out to his wives to hurry up but they could not make it any faster and were caught in the flood and drowned. Then he made a big fire and put some stones on it. When the stones were really hot, he threw them back into the sea and they prevented the water from rising up further. This is how Damarri stopped the flood.  You can still see those stones off the coast at Yarrabah today."

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Citation and/or URL

Martyn, J., 1993, The history of Green Island - The place of spirits, Hidden Valley, Queensland.

Spatial Coverage

Green Island and Cairns region

Temporal Coverage

1993

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

None