Namanjwarre is the ancestral being of the estuarine (saltwater) crocodile among the Kunwinjku of western Arnhem Land, his name being the ordinary Kunwinjku word for that animal. In the Dreaming he is bound to the Mardayin, the great regional ceremony of sacred law: he is the guardian of its secret-sacred objects and is said to devour anyone who breaks the proper conduct of the rite. He is a major subject in the ceremonial bark painting of the region, most famously in the work of the Kuninjku master Yirawala, where the crocodile body carries the same designs as the Mardayin emblems, marking the identity of animal, ancestor and law.