A group of Warlpiri men contemplate a black and white photo of a lean Aboriginal man. He sits, his hat at a jaunty angle, his beard neat, the scarification lines on his chest stark.
“Ahhh that’s the warrior,” one murmurs. “Bullfrog!” says another.
“That’s my great-great-grandfather,” Jamie Jungaryyi Hampton says.
Manchester Museum hands back 174 objects to Indigenous Australian islanders
Hampton has never seen this picture before. For more than 60 years it has been in Chicago along with hundreds of other photos, drawings and men’s secret sacred ceremonial objects from Yuendemu in the Northern Territory.
Emerita professor Nancy Munn studied the Warlpiri people at Yuendemu from 1956 to 1958. When she left, she hauled a large collection of Warlpiri objects back to the US, including that 1957 photo.
