Butcher Joe

<p>He used to wake at about three in the morning and sing. Sing the lines over and over, until he remembered them, I guess. Paddy had put us two fellas together in the same camp out at Coconut Wells, in those early days, and Butcher Joe would get me to smuggle in a couple of cans of VB. We would smoke rollies and sip our warm beers in the tropical night, having a laugh. Then, well before dawn, that singing would half wake me. This was what was called his <em>nurlu</em>, coming through from his Aunty’s spirit.</p> <p>The pictures in this notebook come from that same place, the place where the dead come visiting to lend us some of their power. As he crosses over the threshold to or from sleep, he meets someone he knows, someone who is dead but not gone. And further, Aunty’s songs are about human beings who “mix it up” with animals and spirits. A man, Butcher Joe Nangan, and the pelican (<em>mayarda</em>) and that <em>balangan</em>, the spirit of the dead: this work could be a portrait of an Indigenous Australian aesthetic, with Butcher Joe putting it all into a picture “so <em>gardiya</em> [whitefellas] can understand more better.” So, what have we here?…</p>