Overnight, Mabo's gravesite was attacked by vandals who spray-painted swastikas and the word "Abo" (a derogatory slang term for an Aboriginal person) on his tombstone and removed a bronze bas-relief portrait of him. His family decided to have his body reburied on Murray Island. On the night of his re-interment, the Islanders performed their traditional ceremony for the burial of a Meriam king, a ritual not seen on the island for 80 years.[18]