Banana Bird and the Snake Men by Percy Trezise & Dick Roughsey

Percy Trezise AM (1923 - 2005) was a painter and writer as well as an historian and documenter of Aboriginal rock art. Trezise served in the RAAF during WW2, and from 1956 he worked in northern Australia as an airline pilot. From the air he would gauge areas likely to contain Aboriginal rock art that he would later explore. Trezise collaborated on a series of children’s books with Aboriginal artist Dick Roughsey, and as well as being a member of the Order of Australia, in 2004 he received an Honorary Doctorate from James Cook University.

Dick Roughsey was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Lardil language group on Mornington Island in the south-eastern Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland. His tribal name was Goobalathaldin, meaning “the ocean, dancing”, describing a “rough sea”.