Dotting and Weaving
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa (with Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri), Ngalyipi (A Small Snake), 1972

This chapter considers the puzzles provoked by Ngalyilpi (A Small Snake), a painting from late 1972 by the great master of the early Papunya period, Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, made, the authors argue, in collaboration with his cousin Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri. The image itself may be seen by uninitiated viewers, but the Indigenous significance of the painting is obscure. Comparison with other paintings of snakes/serpents by Kaapa and his family leads the authors to the work of another cousin, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, specifically his innovative ways of presenting sacred places and the ceremonies that created them. These, in turn, led to the larger-scale works combining several stories across wider tracts of the landscape that become prominent during the later and more recent phases of the Aboriginal art movement.