Engraved boab nut 'Police Intervene after a Fight' by Jack Wherra

View this record on the National Museum of Australia's website

Type: Nut carvings
Date: 1964
Place: Mowanjum, West Kimberley, Western Australia, Australia
Materials: Boab nut
Collection: Jack Wherra collection no. 1
Accession number: 2003.0057.0008

Description

A tremolo engraved unpainted boab nut decorated with three rows of inscribed scenes in a series of frames, like a cartoon. The words 'JACK WHERRA' are engraved around the top.

The frames depict the following storyline. The stockman and his woman. Later he attacks her husband in camp. He strikes him on the head. The wounded man is cared for by his wife. Police with a tracker. An attack. The victim is killed.. The police interview witnesses then raid the camp. The witnesses are in chains.. Police interview the stockman.. Police lead men off in chains.

About the collection

This collection consist of a series of 21 incised boab nuts by the Kimberley artist Jack Wherra (or Wheera). They were executed between 1964 and 1966 and record contact history stories. The nuts are a significant social record of cross-cultural interrelations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people from the perspective of a known Aboriginal person. The range of topics as described in the titles include: Whiteman's Justice, Spearing A Stockman, Police Intervene After A Fight Over A Woman, Capturing The Cattle Killers, Illicit Drinking And Violence, The Card Game That Ended Badly and the anthropologist Records Rock Art. Jack Wherra's own story as an tribal man who found himself at the mercy of both white and black law after a tribal incident provides additional insights into the complexities of contact history.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:04:45 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-06-25. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.