Joe Nangan (Butcher Joe Nangan) (1902-1989) was an Australian Aboriginal lawman and artist. In his role as custodian of legends, Nangan was responsible for the preservation of the sounds and performances of ceremonial dance and songlines. As an artist, he created paintings and engravings conveying powerful connections to his country: the country of a traditional Nyikina man.
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Country and family
Joe Nangan was born around 1902, a Nyikina man whose Country was the Dampier Peninsula, between Broome and the Fitzroy River in Western Australia. His father was a Walmatjarri man from Paliara, near Christmas Creek station, later given the European name of Dicky Djulba. His mother, a Nyikina woman from Jirkalli on Dampier Downs station, was given the name Anne Binmaring. Nangan worked as a butcher at the Catholic mission at the Beagle Bay Community between 1920 and 1940 when he became known as Butcher Joe. On 26 January 1937, he married Therese Bende and they had a daughter, Mary. Widowed in 1963, Nangan married Josephine Balgalai on 17 June 1967.
Ceremonial songs and dance
Elders passed down the spiritual ceremonies associated with the nulu (also known as nurlu), Alice Moyle recording Nangan’s Nulu ganany series of songs which include references to his mother’s death and the spirits near her grave. An aunt endowed him with the marinji-rinji nulu and Mayata, the pelican being. She showed him the pelican headdress depicted in Nangan’s sketchbooks held by the National Museum of Australia. He wore the headdress and used dyabi sticks in the Mayata nulu (dance of the pelican), which he performed in the Broome area from the 1920s until 1985. Ceremonies of the Nyikina people are also described in the sketchbooks and audio tapes held in the Butcher Joe Nangan collection held by the National Museum of Australia.
Engravings and paintings
Nangan was familiar with the riji - the pearl shell and cloth ceremonial insignia traditionally worn by Aboriginal men from his country. Riji influenced the pearl shells engravings he created during the 1950s and 1960s, some of which are held by the National Museum of Australia. Boab nuts were another medium Nangan used for his engravings.
Nangan’s pencil sketches and watercolour pictures of flora and fauna, spirit beings, historical events, traditional law and stories of his people are not only important records of Aboriginal life and legends but also significant works of art. Nangan fulfilled regular commissions for Australian exhibitions during the 1970s and 1980s and his work is now included in major Australian collections including the following:
Publications
Although unable to read or write English, Nangan recorded stories which were published. These stories include:
Order of Australia
Butcher Joe Nangan was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in June 1987 for "for service to the arts and to Aboriginal heritage as a painter shell carver keeper of legends.
Death
Joe Nangan died on 21 January 1989 at Broome where he was buried.