Joe has painted Dadbe (the king brown snake, Pseudechis australis) which is a venomous snake, like yirrbardbard (the taipan, Oxyuranus scutellatus). We have two types of brown snakes in our country here. One lives in open woodland areas, while the other lives on the floodplain. Perhaps in the past people used to eat dadbe, but there are lots of snakes we don't eat. We only eat borlokko (water pythons), manjdjurdurrk (olive pythons) and kedjebe (file snakes) these days. And perhaps maddjurn (black headed pythons). In other areas they eat barndol (carpet pythons). Lots of snakes aren't venomous, but dadbe, yirrbardbard
and bek (death adders) will kill you if they bite you.

The composition features one large snake and two smaller snakes, the large snake could be the mother of the two younger snakes. In western Arnhem Land it's important to be careful when walking in long grass, because of the nanbang nayin (dangerous snakes) that can be found there. The younger snakes are said to be particularly dangerous because they have not yet learnt that humans are too big to be eaten by them, and therefore to reserve the full force of their venom for a potential snack that may come along after.

Dadbe nawu nayin nakka mayh. Nawu yirrbardbard nabang yerrih nayin nawu kare kadjordmen nawu yirrbardbard kayimerran dadbe kakimukmen. Bokenh nawu dadbe ngarrikarrme kahdi kondah kunred. Nakudji nawu kare kore manberrk dja nabuyika nawu kare kore kabbal. Korroko djaying birringuni dadbe nawu dabborrabbolk. Nawern nawu nayin minj nawu ngarringun. Dja nawu ngarringun nakka borlokko manjdjurdurrk dja kedjebe dja ngalbu marddjurn nuk ngawakwan. Kunubewu ngalmak bu ngarringun. Dja ngalbu barndol ngalka kabirringun kore kubolkbubuyika. Nawern nayin yika djakwarre bu kanbaye minj karridowen. Dja nawu dadbe yirrbardbard dja bek nakka karridowen bu kandibaye.