Visitors to the rainforest: Engagements with environments and outsiders in far north Queensland.

Abstract

• The chapter discusses a series of objects in UK museums (including the British Museum) from the Queensland tropical rainforest region. The discussions are linked by ideas of visitors to the rainforest, both European and Pacific Islander. The chapter proposes that the barkcloth made in the region may have been introduced by Pacific Islanders visiting the region before European settlement. It also discusses a very rare decorated belt from Epi, Vanuatu, brought to the rainforest by a Melanesian labourer brought to Queensland to work in the sugar plantations before 1872. A series of other rainforest objects are also discussed.