Gwoya Jungarai

Who was Gwoya Jungarai?

Gwoya Jungarai, known as One Pound Jimmy, was an Australian Aboriginal man of the Anmatyerr people of central Australia.

His relatives were killed in the Coniston Massacre in the Northern Territory in 1928. He was the first named Aboriginal person to appear on an Australian stamp, in 1950. The design of the Australian 2 dollar coin was inspired by a drawing of him by artist Ainslie Roberts.

It is said he got his One Pound name because whenever asked how much it would cost to buy one of the boomerangs he made, his answer was "One pound, boss". However, that has been questioned.

Two stamps were issued in 1950 and 1952 with his picture - an 8½ pence stamp and a 2 shillings and 6 pence stamp - featuring similar images of him in profile, looking upwards. They were based on a photograph taken by Roy Dunstan in 1935 for Australian Geographic which appeared on the cover of Walkabout magazine in 1936. That photograph represented a typical Australian Aboriginal man and was well known in the 1950s following the stamp issues. He appeared on the cover of Walkabout again in September 1950.

Two of his sons, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri were noted artists, and one of the latter's paintings was the subject of another Australian stamp.