Mer (Murray Island), in the eastern group of Torres Strait Islands off the northern tip of Australia, is home to the Meriam people.
The Meriam people are perhaps best known for their involvement in the High Court of Australia's Mabo decision which fundamentally changed land law in Australia - recognising Aboriginal traditional ownership.
Although gardening takes priority, each Meriam family has sea rights, and on the reefs in front of their houses, which are mainly built above the beach, they maintain stone fish-weirs and crayfish holes. Skilled seafarers, the Meriam also retain fishing rights over reefs extending 60 km north and south of the islands.
Famous quotes containing the word people:
“These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas.... But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)