Anangu Happily Sitting and Working Together : Ceramics and Pictures from Ernabella
Past exhibition
Derek Jungarrayi Thompson Australian, Pitjantjatjara, b. 1976
Watersnakes (Rainbow Serpent), 2018
10 x 20 cm
841317
Two women were hunting carpet snakes for food. Two Rainbow Serpent (Wanampi) men are watching. Next morning the sisters again hunt for snakes and find two tails lurking from a...
Two women were hunting carpet snakes for food. Two Rainbow Serpent (Wanampi) men are watching. Next morning the sisters again hunt for snakes and find two tails lurking from a hole in the ground. But they are the Wanampi tricking the women into following them. Each time the sisters grab for the tails, the snakes disappear underground, and they keep doing this all the way to a place called Piltardi, where the women finally see them in human form. The men make the sisters transform into Wanampi and take them as their wives. The two Wanampi couples live at Piltardi, and in the old days, people would go there in times of need and ask the spirit of the Wanampi to help them. The snake ancestors gave them cooked meat and made rain.