Mamam Eud [Red Death]

In 2018 the Australian War Memorial commissioned artist and Elder Kapua Gutchen Senior (Meriam Mir) of Erub Erwer Meta (Erub Arts) on Erub (Darnley Island) in the Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait). He was asked to create a suite of drawings depicting Second World War stories unique to Erub and the eastern region of the Torres Strait, including those relating to his own service with C Company, 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment.

Born on Waiben (Thursday Island) in 1957, Gutchen grew up on Erub. A Meriam Mir man, he enlisted with the Australian Army in 1987, and later taught himself to draw. For more than 20 years he sketched people, campsites, community infrastructure, shipping, and boat movements, before he began to draw from his imagination and memory.

Although too young to have witnessed the war firsthand, Gutchen’s drawings reflect knowledge of the war gathered from his own military service and that of other Erubam families, as well as from accounts passed down through oral history, dance, and song. They are inspired by contemporary commemorative ceremonies performed in the region, and by Gutchen’s contributions and performances made with the Australian Army’s Sarpeye dance troupe.

This painting depicts the first ever war plane dance in the Torres Strait on Erub (Darnley Island). According to Elders, the scene took place at the back of current day Mogor Village. The dance features the First World War German flying ace Manfred Von Richthofen, also known as the Red Baron. The late Sweeny Morseu, dancing as the Red Baron and identifiable by his tri-wing aircraft, leads war biplanes of the German airforce as they close in for battle with the British war planes.