Kuniya Snake Dreaming (2000) By Barbara Napangarti Reid 92x92cm

Kuniya Snake Dreaming associated with Tjukurla, Gibson Desert - also Ulura region so plenty written about it from there... also Maruka Arts

The Kuniya (carpet python) creation story from Kunumata is one of a network of Snake Dreaming stories stretching hundreds of kilometres from near Watarrka (King’s Canyon), west of Alice Springs, to southwest of Kunumata.

Kunumata also includes this well-known story from Uluru of a non-venomous Kuniya woman and her nephew who battle a poisonous western brown snake. The two Kuniya are later transformed into wanampi (rainbow snakes/water snakes). Transformation into wanampi also figures in an important snake story from Piltati rockhole, fifty kilometres north of Kunumata. There, two brothers are angry with their wives for eating all the food the women had gathered while the men were performing inma (dance, ceremony). To teach them a lesson, the brothers turn into giant wanampi, but leave tracks that make the wives think there is a huge kuniya, an edible snake, nearby that would be good bush food. The wives try to dig up the kuniya but it constantly eludes them, making a great deal of futile hard work for them. Eventually one wife manages
to confront the snake but, alarmed by its size, she throws her digging stick at it. Wounded and angry, the wanampi attacks and eats her. The other brother then eats the other wife. kuniyapirti Python hole, places at Ayers Rock and at Blackstone. Rainbow Serpent Piltatinya," he said in Pitjantjatjara. It involves two women who end up spearing a rainbow serpent.

This beautiful work by Barbara Reid, Kuniya Snake Dreaming is a creation story that come from a network of Snake Dreaming that stretch hundreds of kilometres through Central Australia into Western Australia. Kuniya Snake Dreaming is associated with Tjukurla, Gibson Desert. The story is about a non-venomous Kuniya woman and her nephew and their battle with a poisonous western brown snake. In the battle they are transformed into wanampi (rainbow snake/water snake).