Opinion: It’s time to leave behind the name Fraser Island

The origins of the name Fraser Island is reason enough to fully embrace the change to its traditional Indigenous name, K’gari, Carlie Walker writes.

Eliza Fraser was marooned on the island following the wreck of the Stirling Castle in 1836.

Oh Queenslanders. Remember back in high school when we were being taught Shakespeare?

Remember that part in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet said: “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”?

I think of the quote now every time I write a story about K’gari and it gets shared on social media.

Because every time I do, a bunch of moaners jump on our Facebook posts – regardless of what it’s about – and start complaining endlessly because K’gari isn’t called Fraser Island anymore.

Why are people so attached to the name Fraser Island?
Is it cultural laziness?

Is it resistance to embracing, even in any small way, our nation’s Indigenous heritage?

I’d hate to think so.

And yet the resistance to this simple name change, just like Uluru and Ayers Rock before it, is certainly there.

As well as being a vital step in reconciliation to recognise the centuries-old names of important destinations such as K’gari, the name change was also significant because of the meaning behind the naming of Fraser Island.

Eliza Fraser.

It was named in honour of Captain James Fraser and his wife, Eliza Fraser, who, if she was alive today, would be what we like to call “cancelled”.

Back in 2019 when the push to change the name of the island really began, Associate Professor Daryl McPhee of Bond University, began researching the story of Eliza and what she had said about her time marooned on the island.

What he discovered made him throw his support wholeheartedly behind changing the island’s name back to its original indigenous moniker of K’gari, which fittingly means paradise.

On May 21, 1836, a ship named the Stirling Castle struck a reef of the north coast of Australia, and some of the crew – including Eliza and her husband – ended up on the shores of K’gari.

While her husband died, Eliza and other survivors were helped by the island’s Butchulla community.

But upon returning home, she painted the people who had helped her as primitive, barbaric, murderous and cannibalistic.

Eliza’s tale was debunked by other survivors of the shipwreck, but the damage was done after Eliza spread stories branding them as savages.

Dr McPhee said at the time that it was not fitting that the island bore her name.

“In the end I came to the conclusion that long before television, Eliza Fraser was Australia’s first reality star desperate to cling to her 15 minutes of fame,” Dr McPhee told the Chronicle.

Maheno Shipwreck Fraser Island

“Her lies, exaggerations and cultural misinterpretations had deep repercussions for the traditional owners of Fraser Island and Aboriginal people in general.”

He said like many current day reality TV stars, Eliza Fraser ultimately lived a sad existence and became an object of ridicule when her lies unravelled.

Most importantly, doing away with this insensitive colonial name has led to the restoration of a name of much significance for the Butchulla people.

A quick Google will tell you that K’gari means paradise in the native tongue.

The name K’gari is taken from an Aboriginal Dreamtime story about a goddess named K’gari who fell in love with the earth and never wanted to leave.

Knowing the terrible truth about Eliza, let’s all agree that this name and its backstory is far more appropriate and embrace the name of K’gari once and for all.

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Originally published as Opinion: It’s time to leave behind the name Fraser Island