New Installations at the Norfolk Island Museum

We are really excited to announce two new installations this week.   A short term display in The R.E.O. to compliment a story on Roy Bell featured in the current Your World Magazine and new display material in the Pier Store Museum to enhance our Norfolk Language display.

Roy Bell was born in 1882 on Raoul Island in the Kermadec Group east of Norfolk Island, coming here to live in 1911 it is now fifty years since Roy was laid to rest in our cemetery at Kingston.  Being born into the Bell Family on isolated Raoul was the beginning of an incredible life story for Roy.  The hardships the family endured and the immense appreciation for nature were no doubt inspirational for his life’s work as a photographer, ornithologist and a naturalist.  On Norfolk Island he was also known as a spiritualist. Roy is remembered for his work supporting Tom Iredale and a group of scientists studying birds, molluscs and shells on Raoul Island.  On Norfolk he continued to be a natural history collector making contributions to Gregory Mathew’s valuable publication ‘Birds of Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands’ published in 1928.  Today on Norfolk we can be grateful for a wonderful collection of Roy’s photography that has captured the visual history of our island.   

Masked Booby's by Roy Bell

Call into The R.E.O at Kingston to see our display commemorating the life of Roy Bell.  Then come across to the Pier Store Museum to see the new iPad installed at our Norfolk Language display.

The app design provides an easy to follow audio and visual for visitors to experience, learn and play with the Norf’k language.  It begins with an introductory page that prompts you to learn the Origins of Norf’k (Wesaid Norf’k kamfram); Old Folk – Food and Whaling (Oel Salan – Wetels en  Wielen); Language of Love (Laengwij’ Law); Humour (Kasedri); Modern Education (Lernen Norf’k Des Dieh); Teach Yourself Norf’k (Tiich Yusaelf fe Tork Norf’k)

Mary Cooper enjoying the Norf'k Laengwij App

The Origins of Nor’k features audio and visual showing four men speaking a single passage in Tahitian, English dialect, Pitcairn and finally Norf’k itself.  The Old Folk – Food and Whaling is a group of Norfolk Islanders talking in the 1960’s about gathering food, cooking, whaling and the younger generation.  The Language of Love is a story written by Rachel Nebauer-Borg about a young couple courting and the Humour features a poem composed by Andre Nobbs titled Baswaagas that depicts the Norf’k sense of humour in describing a man and a woman who overcome their dislike for each other to fall in love.  Modern Education is an audio of three school students learning the language at school and to illustrate the difference one student is Australian, the other a New Zealander and the third a Norfolk Islander.   And finally Teach Yourself Norf’k is a set of simple language lessons progressing from simple greetings, questions and phrases through to full conversations, all with written translations and wonderful images.  We also have colouring in and lettering activities for the children.

The Norfolk Island Museum offers thanks to both Eddie Hooker and Ron Edwards for providing information to develop our Roy Bell story and many thanks also to all dem sullen who have contributed to the content for this wonderful Norf’k Language resource in the Pier Store Museum. 

We also sincerely thank Nicky and Wally Beadman for giving generously and freely so much of their time and expertise to develop the Norf’k Language app and to Peter Muhlhausler for his continued support of Norf’k Language in the Norfolk Island Museum. 

Janelle Blucher

'Bounty' Food Pounder

At the end of last year we reported that to celebrate the Museums 25^th birthday this year we had secured the loan of a penu, or food pounder, from the Museum of Tropical Queensland and it is currently displayed in the Pier Store Museum. The connection between this late 18^th Century object and Norfolk Island lies in the story of the ‘other’ Bounty mutineers who decided to stay in Tahiti when Christian and his crew sailed off to eventually find Pitcairn Island.

 Those fourteen mutineers were captured in Tahiti after Captain Edward had been sent by the British Admiralty to find the Bounty ‘pirates’ and bring them home for trial and punishment.  Sailing on the Pandora, Captain Edwards arrived at Tahiti on 23 March 1791. Within twenty-four hours eight of the mutineers had given themselves up leaving another six men at large (another two had been killed earlier in a feud). Armed parties were sent out to hunt them down and in a matter of days they were found.

On board the Pandora the mutineers were placed under arrest and shut in a specially built wooden box on the deck, measuring 11 by 18 feet (3.3 x 5.4 metres) and known as Pandora’s Box. This was unusually harsh treatment of prisoners at sea but Captain Edwards had a reputation amongst naval officers for brutality. On the return voyage to England the Pandora was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. Thirty four men drowned including four mutineers, one of whom was unable to escape from the wooden box.

The pounder was recovered from the wreck site of the Pandora and is thought to have been confiscated from either of the mutineers Peter Heywood or George Stewart. Stewart was one of those drowned in the wrecking. All the survivors finally reached Timor in open boats, ironically following the route taken by Bligh in the longboats. When they arrived back in England the mutineers were imprisoned to await trial. Four were pardoned following written evidence by Bligh that they only remained on board the Bounty because there was no more room in the longboat. The remaining six were sentenced to death. Of them, Peter Haywood and William Morrison were pardoned and William Musprat was released on a technicality. Finally three Bounty mutineers, Thomas Ellison, Thomas Burkitt and John Millwood, were executed by hanging in October 1792.

In Tahiti the pounder is known as a ‘penu’, or in English a ‘pestle’.  It was used to mash taro which is cooked and then fermented to become a starchy food staple called ‘poi’. It was also used to pound breadfruit and bananas. Now this beautiful object provides a link between our islands mutineer forefathers and those others on board the Bounty at the time of the mutiny. It is displayed at the Pier Store and looks across the Bounty cannon to the display panel on the Pandora’s voyage – if only it could speak! The pounder is on display until the end of the year; make sure you don’t miss seeing it.