Gwoya Tjungurrayi
Tjungurrayi was born around 1895[1] in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, 200 km (120 mi) north-west of Alice Springs, in the region surrounding Coniston Station.
As pastoralism expanded in the region during the early 1900s, encroaching further into Tjungurrayi's ancestral country, tensions intensified during the drought of the 1920s, with increasing competition over water and food.
Another described Tjungurrayi "worm[ing] his way out from among the dead and dying' at Yurrkuru to 'narrowly escape death from a hail of rifle fire poured at him by men".
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's oral account of his step-father's capture and evasion records that a mounted policeman arrested and chained him up before "carry him 'round to show'm every soakage.
This chain he broke'm with a big rock and he take off... to mine...".After the massacre, Tjungurrayi spent time in Alyawarre country near Arltunga.
Tjungurrayi came to public attention when photographer Roy Dunstan took a striking portrait of him in 1935, under the instruction of a young tourism executive from Melbourne, Charles H. Holmes, who described the encounter:[8]During a visit to the Spotted Tiger mica mine out east of Alice Springs, I once met as fine a specimen of Aboriginal manhood as you would wish to see.
Tall and lithe, with a particularly well-developed torso, broad fore head, strong features and the superb carriage of the unspoiled primitive native, he rejoiced under the name of "One Pound Jimmy".The image was used as the cover of a new tourism magazine called Walkabout in September 1936.
[1] Dunstan's original photograph of Tjungurrayi and others taken during their meeting featured in magazines and early central Australian tourism campaigns.
[4] With the photos leading to international recognition, people regularly travelled to central Australia seeking Tjungurrayi's autograph or fingerprint.
His obituary appeared in the Northern Territory News and on the front page of the Centralian Advocate,[14] a rare honour for an Aboriginal person at that time.
