Pearl fishing in Australia
The pearling industry in Australia has been through the centuries Aborigines operated. After the European colonialists discovered the pearl fields mainly in Western Australia in the 1840s , pearl fishing was an important economic factor for about a hundred years and only came to a standstill after the Great Depression . It only became economically important again with the production of cultured pearls in farms in the area around Broome . Today it employs around 1000 people. In addition to pearl farming in Western Australia, there have also been cultured pearl farms in Queensland for around 50 years . In the Australian farms the South Sea mussels with the golden or silver lips, which belong to the pearl mussels , the Pinctada maxima are bred.
Aboriginal
The pearl trade in Australia was not only of cultural importance before the European settlement. Ornate mussel shells were also used by the Aborigines as a medium of exchange. The ornate seashells were ornaments; evidence of widespread distribution is found about 500 miles offshore. The artistically designed shell shells made of mother-of-pearl are called Riji in the language of the Aborigines . This jewelry was traditionally worn in northwest Australia, in the area of today's Broome, and was only allowed to be worn by men who were initiated at the highest level .
Stories and songs tell of the fact that the Aborigines traded with the fishermen of the Makassar Strait from Indonesia and Sulawesi in mussels and pearls, sea cucumbers and turtles .
Colonialists
When the Europeans settled in Australia, they realized the value of the pearl fields that they discovered in Roebuck Bay , later Broome , in Shark Bay and in Torres Strait . 16 companies fished for pearls from Thursday Island in 1877 . In 1910 almost 400 loggers , special sailing ships from the 18th century, and more than 3,500 people were looking for pearls near Broome, which was then the largest pearl fishing center in the world.
The Torres Strait was primarily fished for mother-of-pearl , which was used to make buttons, cutlery, combs, jewelry products, and furniture inlays in the US and UK. This fishery in the Torres Strait was so successful that half of all shellfish products worldwide came from there.
This economic development attracted numerous Europeans, South Sea Islanders and Asians to Australia who worked as divers and sought their fortune. In Torres Strait in 1886 about half of the pearl fishermen were non-islanders. In Broome, most of the pearl fishers were Chinese who worked not only as pearl fishers, but also as cooks and businessmen, as they did later in the gold digging industry. As this area was booming, business in food, wood, water and prostitution was also made.
Pearl divers
In the years 1862–1868, Aborigines had to collect oysters as slaves in the shallow water bay Shark Bay for free . Later larger boats were used two kilometers from the coast, on which six to eight Aborigines had to dive naked in deep water for mussels without a diving mask, snorkel or compressed air. First of all, female Aborigines are said to have been used, whose larger lung volume is said to have allowed a longer time under water. Numerous diving accidents and deaths occurred. Therefore, in 1893, the Queensland Parliament took care of the social situation of the workers there and appointed a state inspector to oversee wage payments and working conditions.
With this measure, pearl diving became more effective, as diving equipment was used which enabled deeper and longer diving with diving suits with bronze helmets and thus produced a considerably larger catch of mussels. The work was still dangerous, the Europeans mainly used Japanese divers and they were either paid according to the amount of mussels or they had to work off their transport costs from Japan to Australia. In addition to the general danger in the diving suits, the divers were also attacked by sharks and the death rate is said to have been 50%. The ships were also threatened by cyclones . Between 1908 and 1935, 300 ships were destroyed by cyclones, with 300 men drowning.
Immigration of non-European pearl divers was hampered by the White Australia Policy in the early 20th century . The government then recruited 12 British Navy divers, who unfortunately all perished. After this incident, 200 workers who worked and processed the mussels were unemployed and the London Missionary Society founded a company on Badu Island in 1904 , which purchased these natural products from fishing boats on Torres Strait Island. The island's fleet grew to 18 loggers by 1907.
The Great Depression led to a collapse in demand, and during the First and Second World Wars , most pearl processing workers and Japanese divers were fired or imprisoned in prisoner-of-war camps when Japan entered the war.
After World War II, plastic buttons and buckles came on the market, and the demand for mother-of-pearl declined until the 1960s. Only by inserting a transplant could cultured pearls be produced and the demand increased.
Pearl fishing today
Broome is now home to an industry in Western Australia that produces pearls with an annual economic value of $ 200 million with about 1000 employees. The result of pearl fishing has left its mark on the architecture of Broome, the so-called capital of the pearl industry, with Chinese and Japanese buildings and cemeteries that are now a tourist attraction.
Pearl farming has existed in northern Queensland since around 1960. The farms are located between the Cape York peninsula and Papua New Guinea . On lonely Friday Island in Torres Strait, these mussels have been cultivated for 50 years.
The decline in pearl fishing has forced the islanders to leave their ancestral islands and look for work on the mainland. Today two thirds of them live on the mainland. However, they still have a strong bond with their home, with their art and culture, which they continue to foster. Numerous works of art are based on the past of pearl fishing. Works of art by Alick Tapoti , Dennis Nona and Rosie Barkus bear testimony to this.
Today, cultured pearls are mainly grown in farms. The Pinctada maxima pearl mussel, which is used for breeding in Australia, is an extremely large mussel that can weigh over 5 kg. It occurs in the eastern Indian Ocean to the tropical western Pacific. The pearls of these shells, the South Sea pearls, can grow up to 20 mm.
"Real pearl" or natural pearls can only be described as naturally occurring, i.e. not cultured pearls. Occasionally they are also referred to as "Orient pearls".
Web links
- History of pearl fishing in Australia ( April 30, 2010 memento in the Internet Archive )
- Sailor, a pearl fisherman
- Illustration of a logger, a pearl fishing boat
- Information about the pearl farms in the Kimberleys ( Memento from February 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b South Sea Pearls on allaboutgemstones.com . Retrieved September 8, 2010
- ^ Geoffrey Blainey (1975): Triumph of the nomads: a history of ancient Australia, pp. 203-204. ISBN 0-333-17583-2
- ↑ figures decorated shells on nga.gov.au . Retrieved September 8, 2010
- ↑ a b c Australia's pearling industry on Australian Government ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 8, 2010
- ^ Stan Florek, Reports of the Australian Museum, 2005, at publications.australianmuseum.net.au . Retrieved September 8, 2010
- ^ John Singe, The Torres Strait: People and History, University of Queensland Press 1979, ISBN 0702214175
- ↑ Australian Pearl Industry ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 8, 201
- ^ Website of Dennis Nona . Retrieved September 8, 2010
- ↑ Website of osi Barkus ( Memento of the original from April 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved September 8, 2010
