This painting is about the Wati Malu Ancestors participating in sacred rain-making ceremonies, as part of Tingarri, to create rain to fill rock holes. Malu [kangaroo] Men travel with a Number 7 Boomerang. This story is part of the Tingarri Ceremonial Cycle that travels across the Gibson Desert region, and beyond. The sites and stories Linda paints belong to Linda's adoptive father, acclaimed Lawman and Artist, Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi. He was born at Warlukurritji, south of Lake MacDonald. Unusually, he taught his daughters to paint, including Linda, and championed them participating in the early Papunya painting movement.
The Tingarri Men are a group of Ancestral Senior Law Men who travel over the Western Desert, performing rituals that create the features of, or open up, country. In the Tingarri heartland of the Gibson Desert, three major journey-lines traverse the Country. At the many sites that make up these song lines, groups of Tingarri Ancestors hold ceremonies, experience adversity and adventures, in the course of which they either create or become the physical features of the sites involved. In mythological terms, Tingarri exploits often enhance or modify features at pre-existing Tjukurrpa sites, or revive and extend more ancient local traditions.The oral narratives that describe these adventures stretch to thousands of verses, and provide countless topographical details that assist people in navigating and surviving the arid landscape.
Tingarri-related visual designs, such as those used in ceremonial body and ground paintings, are usually considered ‘dear’ to Pintupi families, rather than ‘dangerous’, which probably explains why so many artists have concentrated on painting Tingarri. The more esoteric elements of these designs are usually modified or omitted by the artist.