Tudu, Torres Strait

Influential Torres Strait leader Maino first met visiting anthropologist Alfred Haddon in 1888.

Explore how their cultural exchanges helped the British to learn about the richness of Tudu culture.

Setting the scene

Ned David, Magan man, 2015:

In terms of what I tell my children and, you know, my grandchildren ... this is evidence of our people, how they lived their life, how they celebrated their life … evidence of how they connect, respect and interact with their own environment — land and sea.

Chief Maino

Maino was an influential leader in the Torres Strait. Anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon met Maino when he visited Tudu, in Magan country in the Torres Strait, in 1888.

Later they travelled together to New Guinea and around the islands of the Torres Strait, with Maino providing Haddon with valuable cultural information. They became good friends, and Maino’s contributions were crucial to Haddon’s work.

After Haddon returned to England, they exchanged letters, and worked together again during Haddon’s extended visit to the Torres Strait in 1898.

Haddon visited Maino again in 1912, when he went to Tudu with his daughter.

Dhari (headdress)

Alfred Cort Haddon, Torres Strait expedition journal, August 1888 entry:

I paid Maino a tomahawk, some calico (5 yds) & a little tobacco for the mask and the other articles [including these headdresses]. He said he was going to give the two former to his mother-in-law!