Patrick 'Jupiter' Smith Tjapaltjarri was born in 1949. As a young boy he survived the massacre of his families at Sturt Creek Station in the early years of the 20th Century (c1922).
Growing up as a skilled bush man at a time when Australia’s ‘last frontier’ was being encroached upon by cattle men, he travelled widely living and working on one cattle station after another across the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. He settled down in Wirrimanu (aka Balgo) in the 1960s with his promised wife Nakamarra Marie Mudgedell so their children could go to mission school. With a keen knowledge of Law and Country matched by an intense interest In matters of the wider world, he has long been a wise mentor for his families, and a stalwart leader for his community.