Original Painting Acrylic on Canvas

By Helen Norton

62 x 76 cm

1991 Pidgeon Series (Jandamarra)

Pidgeon and his group of 20 men and women killed Tom Jaspers, a white man who was camped away from Oscar Range Station.  They then seized his weapons and attacked the homestead the next day. You can see how frightening this must have been for the white settlers to have the hunted now turning upon the hunters who had previously viewed the lands of the Kimberleys as up for the taking and using as they saw fit.  Pidgeon and the cattle spearers did put up resistance as one would expect to do if your country was being invaded. As whites we may well make a judgment about who might use the 'land' more productively but this does not change what was happening in that time. Lands were being invaded by outsiders and I can well understand the desire the aboriginals had to protect it.