Mary Cobus

Mary Cobus : cooktown

DOB:

Birth Site:

Mary Cobus is an elder of the Nugal clan group whose Tabletop lands can be seen from Cooktown. Willie Gordon’s local indigenous tour takes you there.

Mary’s fathers’ country is around Ipswich in southern Queensland. Mary knows little about her father’s story.

Mary remembers the dormitory days at Cape Bedford mission, when Emma Kay Bedford made the grass basket dilly bag Bajin, for straining yams with a bayjin grass: Lomandra longifolia.

Mary shares that she has never seen the baby carrying basket that the Lockhart clans made and which was photographed by Donald Thomson in Cape York in the 1930’s.

Mary remembers many stories that her mother Hilda told her as she was growing up. Mary’s great grandmother used the Bila to carry each of her seven children in. Mary’s mother Hilda used to make a most beautiful Mungan, Pandanus & lawyer cane basket that she would sell to tourists at the show grounds in Hope Vale. She was also famous for her round biscuits. She made, what Mary currently pronounces as “seesal”, sisal hemp string, which the men made fishing lines out of for fishing. Sisal was a big industry for the mission; it was exported to Europe for rope.

Mary’s daughter Eunice is painting this Bila story on canvas.

Mary was little when her mother Hilda died after trying to help Mary get out of their vehicle which had been involved in a major accident. Mary got stuck in the vehicle, so mother had difficulty in getting her out and damaged her kidneys in the process. Unfortunately dialysis treatment was not available for her mother, and she died when Mary was 10 years of age. Mary’s Aunt Ruby brought her up.

Mary’s mother’s father, her grandfather was Joe Burns. He married Minnie Gordon, but after Minnie died; Joe Burns remarried Charlotte Burns who is still living with her family in Hope Vale today. Joe and Minnie Gordon, Mary’s grand parents, had seven children: Major; Susie; Ruby; Tulo; Hilda; Vernon & Robert. Mary’s mother Hilda was slightly older than Vernon and Robert and so she became their little mother.

Mary had an arranged marriage at the age of 18. She shares how she was in love with another man and so prevented from marrying him. Arranged marriages were still a disciplined part of culture in those days.

Mary’s uncle, Robert Gordon married Ivy Mark whose sister Florence still lives in Weipa. At the time of Mary’s 4^th child’s birth Granny Alice Gordon, Robert’s mother-in-law and mother of Ivy and Florence came down to visit Hopevale. She came from Weipa, a big mining town in the north west of Cape York. Mary tells us that Granny Alice came down to Hope Vale to meet her family and taught her and some ladies how to make the grass basket dilly bag called ‘bayji’ in language. Mary’s Uncle Robert enabled Mary to ‘escape’ her marriage and stay within his families care for a year in Napranum. This is the aboriginal village community at Weipa South outside of Weipa. Mary went to her mother’s brother, her uncle when her marriage ended; having sadly becoming a victim of violence. She made baskets with Granny Alice during this year.

Mary made a basket that won first prize in the Art show at the Hope Vale show grounds. She tells us that this was when she and Maureen Wallace decided to start a woman’s weaving group. Mary tells me that Maureen had always been busy making baskets from the time she was a little girl: learning from both her mother and granny. The winning of prize money for Mary’s basket weaving, opened up a potential market for the women to make extra cash with. The Mangal-Bungal book ‘clever with hands’ tells their Hopevale story.