In this work, Kaapa depicts the important Ngapa Tjukurrpa (Storm Dreaming) that ends at the sacred site of Mikantji. After creating a series of great storms, two ancestral men returned to Mikantji where they seeped into the earth creating a permanent water source. The circle in the middle is the main soakage, and the U shapes represent people seated there.

This painting is one of the ten works that was commissioned by the Aboriginal Arts Board for the exhibition Art of the First Australians, which toured the United States and Japan from 1976-1978. The commission heralded a new era of large-scale canvas paintings from Papunya. The larger surface enabled artists to explore the epic nature of their ancestral narratives.

In the Tjukurrpa, two old men sat, each at his own camp, hundreds of miles apart. They sang into existence all the different elements of a storm: lightning, thunder, clouds, wind, rain and hail. When all the elements had amassed they were sent off on a destructive path across the land. Descendants of these original rainmakers, and those associated with important sites along the storm’s path, have the knowledge and power to make rain by recreating the song of the original rainmakers.

They’re making rain, Tjampitjinpa, Tjangala, they’re singing. Tjakamarra, Tjupurrula too. After one week, you’ll see the clouds. From no clouds, you’ll see those clouds. Every way lightning, then a big wind, from the song. Start him raining now, the rain will come out. (Then they) bin turn back again, come right back to Mikanji. Altogether, whole lot. Everything all here long Mikantji. That Tjangala, Tjampitjimpa, all finish now, Tjakamarra, Tjupurrula and all.