Papunya rests on the Tropic of Capricorn in Honey Ant Country. Beginning in October each year, monsoonal storms move across the plain from the Tanami Desert. Below the ground, Tjarla (Honey Ants) hang suspended in the darkness of underground chambers. Unmoving, they wait to be fed by worker ants that bring secretions from the branches of mulga trees, under which the colonies reside. The chambers of the Tjarla are invisible from the surface, but well known to Aboriginal people, who follow the cryptic traces of worker ants across the ground to tiny holes that plummet three feet into the earth. From this cool place, numerous smaller tunnels reach to further chambers where more honey ants cling with their abdomens swollen with sweet nectar.

Honey ants are important to the people of Central Australia. Not only do they provide a rare source of sweetness but, more significantly, their interconnected chambers exemplify important aspects of Indigenous ontology. The subterranean honey ant colonies epitomize the notions of community and connectedness at the heart of Aboriginal belief. Their underground presence gives force to the concept of the earth as the original life giver.

Papunya has always been a site for the celebration of Honey Ant ancestors. The innumerable children conceived in the vicinity of Papunya are recognized as having ancestral connection to these eternal honey ant forebears. Papunya is Honey Ant country.