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Billy Doolan
Barracuda – The Big Fish, 2006
84 x 200cm, Acrylic on canvas

One time long ago, two men were spearing fish from a canoe situated between the big rock off Onion Bay Point (Palm Island) and Barber Island. One was an old man and the other a young man. They saw a big fish coming and the old man explained not to spear the fish, for it was a sacred old man fish, and it should not be speared. The young man refused to listen and speared the big fish. The big fish was very strong and it pulled the canoe and the two men past Barber Island. Eventually returning to Onion Bay, the men tried to pull the fish in. The wives of the men saw what was happening and walked around to Pompey Bay, calling out to their husbands to let the fish go. Again the younger man would not listen, and so the barracuda overturned the canoe and both men drowned. Today you can see where the two men and the canoe were turned into the reef of Onion Bay.