Wanampi is the great ancestral water-serpent of the Western Desert, the desert form of the widespread Rainbow Serpent. It dwells in the deep, permanent rock holes, soakages and swamps of Pintupi country, which it both fills and guards; the serpent is bound up with the rainbow, with rain and storm, and with the life-giving but perilous presence of water in an arid land. Wanampi is treated as intensely dangerous: to approach its home without proper knowledge and conduct, or to foul or disturb the water, risks storm, flood or being drawn under and drowned. Snake ancestors of this kind, including the great serpent said to sleep in the swamp at Marawa near Wilkinkarra, form one of the recurrent strands in Pintupi and Kukatja accounts of the making of the country.