Worshiping the North: Early Chinese Temples in Mainland Tropical Australia

Abstract

Early Chinese immigrants built at least 43 temples in mainland tropical Australia and over 155 nationally, basically following traditional forms and techniques favored in China but heavily influenced by physical resources, population, and community finances. Once a feature of many colonial and early twentieth-century towns, now only one original and two reconstructions remain within the mainland tropics: Atherton, Darwin, and Innisfail. The architectural modifications in the two latter temples reflect innovative melding of cultural styles. These structures, associated artifact collections, a handful of modest images, some biased newspaper reports and even fewer archaeological resources offer researchers limited analytical tools to better understand the material culture of Chinese migrants to Australia’s tropics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For the most part temples were furnished with imported, handcrafted carvings of immense complexity, sharply contrasting with their modest exteriors of timber and corrugated iron. Reasons for the varying degrees of divergence and compliance are explored, along with identifying opportunities for further research.