Two ancestor women are walking across the salt lake with a child. They are called by a stranger from the north, Wati Kinika (the Native Cat man), to hand over the child. The women try to escape but Wati Kinika releases a hail of spears, one of which impales the two women and the child as one. A rocky outcrop rising at one end of the lake is the women and child standing where they were murdered – a protruding seam of reddish brown and white is the clutch of spears hurled by the Native Cat man. Kinika travelled on to Ooldea, where he encountered Pira (the Moon man). A massive, rolling fight ensued between the supernatural beings, clashing repeatedly along the Ooldea Range and a number of large salt lakes in the area on the way to Lake Wyola, where Pira finally subdued and killed Kinika. Justice had been satisfied, harmony reinstated and Pira was able to take up his appointed role as the illuminator of the
night world. —Text by Vanessa Merlino, in Significant part II exhibition catalogue (D'Lan Contemporary, Melbourne) p. 67