The painting depicts the Rainbow Serpent penetrating the earth. The concentric circles represent both his eyes and vital organs and specific sites in the Pilbara where the Rainbow Serpent entered the ground on his subterranean journey to the sea following the destruction of Darwin on Christmas Day 1974.
Representing the ‘big rain’, Jabanunga, the dreamtime Rainbow Serpent, is depicted attempting to penetrate the Ophthalmia Ranges, west of Mount Newman, to fullfil his destiny and return to the sea from whence he came. In a radical departure, Rover depicts his disembodied entrails, and vital organs.
Despite it being one of his favourite dance stories, this work on linen is believed to be Rover’s first attempt at picturing the final chapter of the story, apart from perhaps some small early corroboree boards.
Most stories relate the fact that in the beginning the land was flat and treeless and that the Serpent created everything. Some tell of the two boys that were swallowed by him, and were released in the form of two Rainbow Lorikeets, that escaped from his entrails after cutting his belly.
In some versions the Rainbow Serpent is depicted with what looks like two horns. A close inspection of this image reveals the trail of the horns manifest as mountain ranges etched into the landscape. (The ragged Ophthalmia Ranges stretch 20 kilometres from Newman for a hundred and fifty kilometres in a north-westerly direction, before flattening to disappear into the vast plains of the Pilbara.)
Adjacent to the ranges are many of today’s mining tenements, including the Hancock Ranges and Gina Rinehart's huge Hope Downs mine. This is country that Rover Thomas’ family and related clan groups, walked on foot for eons, as they travelled between available water and food sources.
The Serpent is thought to have risen in Lake Waukarlykarly, north of Newman, or Lake Dora. This is the country where Rover spent his youth, where Punmu, is located. He entered the Fortescue River near Ophthalmia, as it passed through Newman, and later travelled on to the ocean. The Fortescue mining group (FMG) has going concerns adjacent to, and derived its name from, this major Pilbara river.
