Norfolk Island Proverbs (20)

Dar wind frum hoem.

“The wind from the east is the wind from home.”

The easterly trade wind is remembered as a nostalgic reference to Pitcairn Island, the ancestral homeland of Norfolk Island's Pitcairn-descended community.

He ell sii dar guude he ell see roun ar kornaa!

“He'll see so good, he'll see round a corner.”

A humorous exaggeration remembered as one of the sayings of islander Charles Henry Evans (born 1886), still recalled today under the nickname "Dar thing fe Chat's" — part of Norfolk Island's tradition of cherishing individually name-tagged sayings.

Wuthing you kar do des day, waal morla el do.

“Whatever you can do today, do it well tomorrow.”

A line from islander Archie Bigg's Norf'k poem "Morla el do", encouraging care and quality over rushed effort.

Hi miek mais haat kepsais.

“He makes my heart flip over.”

A figurative Norf'k expression for falling in love, borrowing the nautical word "kepsais" (capsize) to picture a heart overturned by affection.

Semes wan faasboet.

“Stuck together like a fastboat to a whale.”

Describes two people, usually lovers, who are inseparable — drawing on the whaling-era image of a small boat fastened tight to a captured whale.

Faasboet.

“That's a real fastboat story.”

Norf'k for a comic, "whale-sized" exaggeration — used to gently tease someone for stretching the truth for a laugh, part of the island's dry, nautical humour.

Kilen aa King.

“Murdering the King's English.”

A defiant nickname islanders gave their own Norf'k speech after 1915 school rules banned it from the classroom in favour of standard English; now recalled as a badge of the language's survival.

“Cruelty debases both the victim and society; punishment should not be vindictive, but aim at the reform of the convict.”

Alexander Maconochie's guiding principle as commandant of the Norfolk Island penal settlement (1840-1844) — the philosophy behind his "mark system" and a forerunner of modern parole.

“Our isolated, but happy home.”

How chaplain George Hunn Nobbs described the Pitcairn-Norfolk community's new life on Norfolk Island, writing to the Bishop of Lincoln after the 1856 migration.

“That, Captain Bligh, that is the thing; I am in hell — I am in hell.”

Fletcher Christian's reply when Lieutenant Bligh, during the 1789 mutiny on HMS Bounty, reminded him of past kindness. His despair set in motion the voyage to Pitcairn Island whose descendants would found Norfolk Island's modern community in 1856.

“It isn't what you are, it's who you are in a place like this.”

Colleen McCullough on why she made her home on remote Norfolk Island, valuing the island's peace and privacy over the trappings of literary fame.

“I hate living on Norfolk Island in many ways, but I'm married to a Norfolk Islander who won't live anywhere else.”

McCullough's candid, bittersweet acknowledgment that love of a place is often really love of the people who will not leave it.

“This day His Excellency Governor Phillip signified his intention of sending me to Norfolk Island with a few people and stock to settle it.”

Philip Gidley King's diary entry of 1 February 1788, recording the order that led to the first European settlement of Norfolk Island the following month.

Hello, myse fish!

“Hello, myse fish!”

A term of endearment comparing someone, often romantically, to the best catch of the day; documented among Norfolk Island cable station workers and islanders as early as the 1930s.

“I found the Island a turbulent, brutal hell, and I left it a peaceful, well-ordered community.”

Alexander Maconochie's own summary of what his "mark system" reforms achieved as commandant of the Norfolk Island penal settlement between 1840 and 1844.

“My object was to hold out that settlement as a place of the extremest punishment, short of death.”

Governor Ralph Darling's stated intent for reviving Norfolk Island as a place of secondary punishment for twice-convicted offenders during the harsh second penal settlement era.

“The felon who is sent there is forever excluded from all hope of return.”

Part of the instruction under which Governor Thomas Brisbane re-established Norfolk Island in 1825 as the harshest possible place of secondary transportation, intended as the furthest extreme of convict punishment.

“He should not hesitate to prefer death, under any form that it could be presented to him, rather than such a state of endurance as that of the convict on Norfolk Island.”

Sir Francis Forbes, first Chief Justice of New South Wales, testifying to the 1838 Select Committee on Transportation about the severity of punishment endured by convicts at the Norfolk Island penal settlement.

“Whenever a fellow is recommended to me by the religious instructor or the surgeon superintendent, I always set that fellow down as the greatest hypocrite of the whole lot.”

Commandant John Giles Price's stated distrust of claimed convict reform, reflecting the harsh, punishment-first regime he ran at Norfolk Island from 1846 to 1853.

“Norfolk-Pitcairn people see themselves as a people with some rights to self-determination.”

Lisle Snell, Norfolk Island's last Chief Minister before self-government was abolished in 2015, describing islanders' own sense of political identity in a Radio Australia interview.