Page 65 - Tropic Magazine Issue 28

TROPIC • REGIONAL HISTORY

1. Cairns Court House, 1925
Source: State Library of Queensland
2. The From the Ground Up exhibition by
Yarrabah Arts Centre artists on display
inside the Court House
2 3. Mural of Henrietta Marrie AM

My Granny Melambie lived in fear of the Cairns region south of the Barron the injustices experienced by the
of the police all her life, and when River – and received a “king plate” in Yidinji during the early years of British
she came to stay with our family in 1905 recognising him as the “King invasion and settlement in the region.
Mareeba in the early 1970s, she insisted of Cairns”. It was the administrative centre from
on keeping all the doors and windows Ye-i-nie was tried in the Cairns Court which the strict conditions of colonial
closed. In spite of the heat, she feared House in 1927 for the murder of an law and order were enforced.
1 the police would come and snatch us Aboriginal man who interfered with his Until the truth can be openly told about
children away. wife Kitty. why the Court House harbours so
Such was the scale of forced removals, However, in what appears to be the many bitter memories for Indigenous
with family members often being first recognition of tribal law in a families in North Queensland,
split up, that Dr Norman Tindale’s Queensland court, Ye-i-nie was our path to reconciliation will
genealogical survey in 1958 identified acquitted of murder on the grounds remain compromised.
members of 48 and 60 different tribes in that it was a “tribal retribution”. The
Yarrabah and Palm Island respectively. case was widely reported in newspapers Associate Professor Henrietta Marrie AM
Aboriginal people also appeared in around the country. Gimuy Walubara Yidinji Elder and
court. One of the most significant More than any other building in Cairns, Traditional Owner of Cairns
of trials involved Ye-i-nie, my great- the Court House precinct symbolises
grandfather, also known as King Billy.
He was a respected leader – or “nalan”
of the Yidinji people, traditional owners

Changing faces

1876: Gazetted as a Police Reserve

1922: Court room used for the first time

1992: The building was vacated after
a new courthouse and police station
complex opened in Sheridan Street

1998: Renovated as the Cairns
Courthouse Hotel

2020: Official opening of the refurbished
Court House building

3

65 • tropicnow.com.au