Mornington Island Didgeridoos

Mornington Island is located off the coast of Queensland in the Gulf of Carpentaria, near the Queensland/Northern Territory border. The Lardil, Yangkal and Kaiadilt people live here.

The didgeridoo first entered Mornington Island in the 1930s as a result of visits to other Aboriginal settlements by the mission boat the Morning Star. This vessel was crewed by local tribesmen and paid occasional visits to Arnhem Land's Yirrkala mission. Items of material culture, including the didgeridoo, were brought back to Mornington Island from these visits. The didgeridoo became incorporated into local ceremonial performances despite deliberate - and highly successful - attempts by mission staff to suppress cultural expression. During the 1950s-70s, cultural revival was encouraged by the then mission superintendent, Reverend Douglas Belcher, and a local handicraft industry was supported: artifacts that were made - including didgeridoos - were sold in craft shops on the mainland especially in Cairns.

Mornington Island didgeridoos are basic generic-type instruments compared to their high-specificity counterparts in north-east Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt. The playing style on Mornington Island is also fairly basic despite the use of the overtone, a feature that is usually associated with complex and highly developed playing techniques and styles elsewhere. Kurrburu (Acacia sp.) and Ironwood (Erythropleum chlorostachys) are the most common tree used for making didgeridoos on Mornington Island. Instruments decorated with synthetic pigments such as acrylic paints are more prevalent than those decorated with earth pigments (ochres).