Community
8 December, 2025
Smoking ceremony heralds JCU’s The Yeinie Building
JAMES Cook University staff are about to move into their new $50-million-plus The Yeinie Building (formerly known as Cairns Tropical Enterprise Centre – CTEC) near Cairns Hospital.
The four-storey building will house a multi-disciplinary clinic on the ground floor, with teaching and research facilities on the floors above.
Earlier this week a smoking ceremony was held with Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder Professor Henrietta Marie leading the event with fellow traditional owners joined by JCU chancellor Professor Ngiare Brown and JCU vice-chancellor Professor Simon Biggs.
“The smoking ceremony is very important for Yidinji people and it is all about cleansing the air and the environment that one is in,” she said.
“We burn native plants like lemon myrtle, paperbark and other species and use a traditional kuybuk, a fire stick and then that smoke can carry through the new building and help take out any bad spirits or energy that is within the building.
“Before they first started construction on The Yeinie Building and turned the first sod we did a smoking chanting ceremony and now that the building has been constructed it’s important we come back and run the smoke through again.”
Professor Biggs said the ceremony was a significant milestone and an important step as staff prepared to move into the state-of-the-art facility and gear up to welcome students from next year.
“The Yeinie Building will bring together clinical teaching and service delivery as well as training and research in medicine, allied health and related disciplines, with everything aligned to the needs of the people in this region and its health workforce,” he said. Nursing, medical and research staff will move into the newly completed building which includes a two-bed demonstration ward set up for medical clinical skills demonstration and a 10-bed hospital ward.
