Jack Butler (4 May 1901 – April 1986) was an Indigenous Australian and perhaps the last speaker of the

Jiwarli dialect Jiwarli (also spelt Djiwarli, Tjiwarli) is an Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken in the Pilbara region of Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the ...

Early life

Jack Butler was born on 4 May 1901 at Wilukampal (also known as Caraline Creek and Caraline Well), an outcamp near Moroonah Station in northwestern

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. His mother, called Silver in English, was a

Tharrkari The Tharrkari, also referred to as the Targari, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. Language The Tharrkari spoke one of four dialects of Mantharta language, Mantharta, the other members of the dialec ...

woman who worked as a cook at the outcamp. His father was Dick Butler, a white shepherd who moved to Darwin. His stepfather, Jinapuka, also known as Yawartawari, was a Warriyangka man. In 1905 or 1906 Butler and his family moved to Glennflorrie Station, where he helped to look after male elders. In 1923 the family moved to Gifford Creek Station on the West Lyons River. In 1926 Butler moved to Mount Stuart Station and in 1927 he married Molly Ashburton, a

Thalanyji The Thalanyji, also spelt Thalandji, Dhalandji, and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Country Thalanyji lands, according to Norman Tindale, encompassed approximately , running along ...

woman. They had four children – Paul, Maggie, Sid and Claude – between 1928 and 1938.

Jiwarli language

With his younger brother Joe Butler, Jack Butler was one of the last speakers of the Jiwarli dialect and contributed to its study and documentation. Between 1978 and 1986 he collaborated with linguist Peter Austin to document Jiwarli history, language and culture, and to create a Jiwarli dictionary and story collection. Butler and Austin recorded more than 70 texts and a lexicon of around 1500 words, as well as related linguistic recordings. Butler's recordings provide one of the only audio documentations of Jiwarli. In 1985 he recounted two stories from his childhood to Austin in Jiwarli. One story describes an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

in about 1906. The other describes the appearance of

Halley's Comet Halley's Comet is the only known List of periodic comets, short-period comet that is consistently visible to the naked eye from Earth, appearing every 72–80 years, though with the majority of recorded apparitions (25 of 30) occurring after ...

in 1910. The stories are culturally, linguistically and historically significant, as they provide evidence that traditional Jiwarli cultural and family life were relatively intact when Butler was a child. According to Austin, although white colonisation of the area began in the 1860s, it was not until the expansion of the Western Australian pearling industry and its forced labour system in the 1920s that traditional Jiwarli life was "irreparably disrupted".

References

External links

Information on the Jiwarli language and cultureSound recording of Jack Butler speaking JiwarliBiography of Jack Butler
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Jack 1901 births 1986 deaths Indigenous Australians from Western Australia Last known speakers of an Australian Aboriginal language 19th-century Indigenous Australian people 19th-century Australian people