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GABARLA, also known as BARNABAS ROBERTS (c1898–1974), was an Aborigine of the Alawa tribe from
Ngukurr (Roper River), the son of Ned Weari-wyingga, well known to the Church Missionary Society missionaries
who founded the Roper River Mission in 1908. Gabarla grew up at the mission and then worked as a stockman
for a number of years on the surrounding cattle stations. He married Norah and later Judy (widow of Long Tom).
He had six children, Phillip, Silas, Jacob, Mercy, Vera and Maisie. Phillip became well known through Douglas
Lockwood’s book, I, the Aboriginal. Silas worked for many years at the government settlement of Maningrida.
Gabarla became a convinced Christian as a young man and maintained this stance throughout the rest of his
life. He was closely associated with James Japanma (Jibanyma), helping him in his work as a lay reader and an
evangelist visiting the nearby pastoral properties. Gabarla became the main lay reader on Japanma’s death and
continued to take services and visit the cattle stations for the rest of his life. He was a great help to Margaret Sharpe
in her recording of the Alawa language.
Gabarla died on 27 May 1974. The Ngukurr community mourned his passing. Many spoke of him as a faithful
Christian, a man of gentle bearing and gracious manner.
D Lockwood, I, the Aboriginal, 1962; K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; Records of St Matthew’s Church, Ngukurr; CMS
Records, Melbourne.
KEITH COLE, Vol 1.GADEN FAMILY: see SMITH/GADEN FAMILYGAGAI, KAPIU MASI (c1895–1946), pearling lugger worker, lay mission worker, boat captain, carpenter, bosun
and soldier, was born in about 1895 at Badu Island, Queensland, the son of Niwa Gagai and Kubi. He belonged
to the Kodal (crocodile) clan, was educated at Badu Island School and received religious instruction from the
London Missionary Society and Church of England missionaries. He worked on pearling luggers and in about
1915 married Laina Getawan, also of Badu Island.
In June 1921 Methodist Minister Reverend James Watson visited Badu and recruited Gagai and Sam Doy
to join the staff of Goulburn Island Methodist Mission. Gagai captained the mission boats (a job he shared with
another Baduan, Yoram) and helped with other mission work, both at Goulburn Island and Milingimbi. His wife
Laina and their three daughters, Alice, Lena and Mugur, went with him. Laina died at Milingimbi in about 1925.
In 1929 he married Mujerambi Brown, daughter of Alf Brown and an Iwaidja speaking Aborigine, at the
Methodist Mission and they had nine children: Alfred Massi, George, Kaidai, Maiquik (Michael), Gaiba, Martha,
Thomson, Lacy and Polly Anne (Pauline). Mujerambi helped at the Methodist Mission too.
In April 1932 Gagai left the mission and took his family back to Badu, where he worked as a carpenter, then
on pearling luggers. In May 1935 he was recruited by anthropologist Donald Thomson to take charge of the
auxiliary ketch St Nicholas during Thomson’s two years of work in Arnhem Land. During this time Thomson
named ‘Kapiu Point’ near the entrance to the Koolatong River in Gagai’s honour but this has not been officially
recognised.
In 1937 Gagai returned to carpentry and pearling lugger work at Badu until October 1941, when he enlisted with
the Citizen Military Forces and became Q 85142 in the Torres Strait Infantry Battalion. Donald Thomson arranged
his transfer to the Army’s Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, which operated under Thomson’s
command in Arnhem Land until May 1943. Gagai initially held the rank of Private but was promoted to Acting
Sergeant, then full Sergeant, serving for 19 months without a break. He was bosun of the armed vessel Aroetta,
which patrolled the Arnhem Land coast, and he was twice placed in charge of an outpost at Caledon Bay. Thomson
recommended that he be decorated but this did not eventuate. Thomson said of him, ‘He was not only a fine
seaman, experienced in sail, but knew the waters of the Arnhem Land coast well. He was also on good terms with
the natives of Arnhem Land, knew their language and became an expert Vickers gunner... Of his fine service, his
sense of responsibility and his great devotion to duty I cannot speak too highly.’ When the unit disbanded in 1943,
Gagai returned to the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion at Thursday Island. Torres Strait Islander soldiers were
unable to be Sergeants in the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion so Gagai served as a Corporal.
In October 1943 Thomson again arranged for Gagai to join him, this time on a long and hazardous Army
patrol behind Japanese lines in Dutch New Guinea, from Merauke to the Eilanden estuary. Gagai, Thomson and
another soldier were badly wounded when natives loyal to the Japanese attacked them. Thomson later said: ‘I well
remember the quiet steadfast courage of Sergeant Kapiu... who had been with me in Arnhem Land for years and
was a first-class waterman. He was strong and he had no nerves. He could work and when the tension was over he
could sleep like a log. He did not fret and worry and waste nervous energy... He proved himself throughout a loyal
and faithful companion and a fine soldier.’
After recovering in hospital from a deep cut to his neck, Gagai returned to the Water Transport Section of the
Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, from which he was discharged in March 1946. He died of pneumonia and a
bacterial infection at Thursday Island Hospital on 21 August 1946 and was buried at Badu Island.
There have been few men who knew the coast from Townsville to Darwin as well as Gagai. He spoke Western
Island Language (Torres Strait), some Arnhem Land languages and English. Like other Torres Strait soldiers,
he never received the same rate of pay as white soldiers of the same rank. The unfairness of this was recognised