Do you know who the Aboriginal man who features on Australia’s $2 coin is?

Gwoya Tjungurrayi
1895 – 28/3/1965

A Walpiri-Anmatyerre man of the NT - how did Tjungurrayi be come so famous?

(Thread)

Tjungurrayi was born in the Tanami Desert in the NT, 200 km Nw of Alice Springs, in the region surrounding Coniston Station around 1895. His first name Gwoja means water. His last name reflects his skin name.
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As pastoralism expanded in the region early 1900s, further into Tjungurrayi's ancestral country, tensions intensified during drought of 1920s, with increasing competition over water & food.
He survived the Coniston Massacre in the then Territory of Central Australia in 1928
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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:
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“I once met a striking Aboriginal man, as fine & proud example of Aboriginal manhood as you would wish to see. Tall & lithe, with a particularly well-developed torso, broad fore head, strong features -powerful. He introduced himself as Jimmy”
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The image was used as the cover of Walkabout magazine in 1936. It drew such a response that the magazine's editors requested that Tjungurrayi be rewarded by the Dept of Internal Affairs, with a gift of camping equipment, including a camp oven..6/9.

In 1950 Tjungurrayi became the first Aboriginal person to appear on an Australian postage stamp
The
Judge image was used $99 million pound
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The design of the Australian two-dollar coin was inspired by a drawing of Tjungurrayi by artist Ainslie Roberts in 1988..
The coin officially replaced the $2 note in 1991, which had carried the image of Agriculturalist & wheat farmer, William Farrer. 8/9

T& his wife Long Rose Nagnala had 3 sons; Tim, & Clifford both went on to be notable artists, & Immanuel became pastor.
Tjungurrayi continued to live in Tanami region, dying there on 28 March 1965. He is thought to have been over 72 at time of his death.

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