Barrow Point

Barrow Point is located around 150 kilometres north of Cooktown on Cape York Peninsula’s east coast. Once home to several Indigenous groups, Barrow Point is now part of Cape Melville National Park.
 
The original inhabitants of the area were victims of the detrimental effects of government policy and well-meaning missionaries in the early 1900s. The Barrow Point people — including the Amu Wuringu clan — were removed from their traditional lands and camps were relocated, while ‘mixed-race’ children were separated from their parents and schooled by missionaries.
 
The story places of the Barrow Point people — as told in Old Man Fog and the Last Aborigines of Barrow Point — centre around the Dreaming figure of Old Man Fog. This book, authored by Roger Hart and anthropologist John B. Haviland, attempted to preserve the language, culture and history of Hart’s people. Barrow Point is also well known for being the home of artist, Joe Rootsey, who was known as ‘the second Namatjira’.

 All places

See also . . .

Learn about (Eastward from Bathurst Head).
Learn about artist Joe Rootsey.