The main language consultant for the research of Jiwarli was Jack Butler. Jack was born on 4th May 1901 at wilukampal Caraline Well, which was a shepherding outcamp east of Maroonah Station. His mother Silver was a shepherd’s cook and his father was Dick Butler, a white shepherd. Jack was brought up by his mother and step-father jinapuka, a Warriyangka man, also referred to as yawartawari. His section was karimarra, totemic group wariyarra, totem kajalpu ‘emu’, conception totem papalhura ‘type of wild potato’ and conception site pirtanngura.

He spent his early life on Ullawarra Station where his younger brother Joe was born in 1903, and Glen Florrie Station. There he lived in the Aboriginal camp and looked after the old men, learning their languages and histories. He learned Jiwarli, the language he preferred to speak, from wangki, known to the whites on the station as ‘Stumpy’, and also learned Jurruru and Thalanyji. As a child, he seems to have lead an almost traditional life, and entered the white man’s world as a station labourer shortly after his sister Molly was born in 1908. He continued to learn and practise traditional hunting skills, and to work on the stations as a stockman and dogger (dingo trapper), spending much of his adult life on Mt Stuart station.

Although his initiation was arranged as a child, by the time Jack came of initiation age the wholesale destruction of the coastal groups had led to the abandonment of traditional ceremonies. He married Molly Ashburton in 1927 and had four children. He retired to Onslow in the 1970’s where his brother Joe also lived. He died at Carnarvon on 10th May 1986.