This design belongs to the Dhalwangu clan who’s spiritual base is at Gangan. The Dhalwangu are one of more than 16 interrelated landowning groups in north-east Arnhem land. Baraltja, is just a tiny fragment of the physical and spiritual whole of this land and other surrounding clan estates. The lightning snake Burrut’tji (also known as Mundukul), lives underneath the sacred waters of Baraltja, a mangrove creek. Burrut’tji lives in the mouth of Baraltja and appears periodically as a constantly shifting sandbar. During the wet season, monsoonal rains flush out the stagnant brackish water that has built up in Baraltja during the dry and pushes it towards Blue Mud Bay. Sensing the mixing of fresh and salt water, Burrut’tji rises on his tail and spits lightning into the sky. Communicating with other ancestral lightning snakes to the north and the south, Burrut’tji illuminates the large offshore thunderhead, Wanupini. The thunderheads are seen flicking lightning on the horizon in the deep water named Mungurru connecting with Madarrpa clan lands and beyond. This natural phenomenon is expressed in the sacred song that narrates these Ancestral actions over land, through sea and air. Alternating wavy lines of colour with crosshatching evoke the movement of freshwater mud and leaves as they are flushed over the floodplains and through the river symbolically connect lands of the Dhuwa and Yirritja moieties.