This image - which at first sight appears to represent huddled natives and a looming totemic head - was inspired by explorer, William Dampier's (1652-1715) comments about the Aboriginal people of Australia:
The inhabitants of this country are the Miserablest People in the world?they are tall, strait-bodied and thin, with small limbs. They have great heads, round foreheads and great brows. Their Eyelids are always half-closed to keep the flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here. They have great bottle noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. They are long-visaged and of a very unpleasing aspect, having no one graceful feature in their faces?
(A Voyage to New Holland, 1688).
What is not immediately apparent, is that it actually represents himself and his own family. Thake made clear to his friends who received this image as a Christmas card in 1953.
Thake was the proud owner of what Dampier might have called a 'bottle nose', which he happily caricatured on a number of occasions. With gentle humour instead of bombast Thakes makes the point that the Aborigines seen by Dampier were no more 'odd-looking' than he was himself. Thake offers himself as a target to deflect Dampier's barbs.
The Inhabitants of this Country (full image) | 
