Snake Ancestor Story, 2000 by Dr George Tjapaltjarri 76x104cm Cat 4298DG

Set against a red background (sandhill country) the spotted Kunia (Carpet) Snake twists and turns across the surface of the canvas. It was during the Creation Era when the Kunia ancestral snake travelled underground from Tjukula, west to Jupiter Well in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia, the artist’s traditional country.

As the ancestral snakes made their long and adventurous journey they created and shaped many significant landforms such as rockholes, creekbeds and valleys, many of which possess profound cultural and spiritual significance to the Pintupi people. Rockholes have for millennia been the focus of ceremonial and social life because of their invaluable and generally reliable source of water, so necessary for the survival of the Aboriginal people in these harsh and often inhospitable regions of the Gibson Desert.