Since events associated with the Tingari Cycle are of a secret nature no further detail is given. Generally the Tingari are a group of ancestral beings who travelled over vast stretches of country, performing rituals and creating and shaping particular sites. The Tingari Men were usually followed by Tingari Women and accompanied by novices and their travels and adventures are enshrined in a number of song cycles that map country. These mythologies form part of the teachings of post initiatory youths today as well as providing explanations for contemporary customs.

Kanya Tjapangati Biography

Born near Kiwirrkura in 1950, Kanya grew up ‘in the bush’ and was brought in to Papunya by one of the NT Welfare Branch patrols in the early ’60s. In Peter Fannin’s time of running Papunya Tula Artists, a few years after painting had begun at Papunya, he moved to Balgo in WA, to Docker River, Warakuna, and then to the Pintupi camp at Yai Yai, where he assisted some of the older artists with their paintings. After he moved to Kintore with the majority of his Pintupi tribesmen and women at the start of the ’80s he began to paint regularly for Papunya Tula Artists. He lived at Kiwirrkura, and painted Tingari stories in the region of his country, which included the sites of Mukula, Yardinga, Nungami and Likilinga, west of Kiwirrkura. He passed away in 2006.

He exhibited extensively with Papunya Tula Artists.

See here for a sensitive catalogue essay that gives more insight into his artistry and life.