 Now a vague, otiose, spiritual being, "the old woman" once travelled across the land with a band of heroes and heroines, and during the ancestral period she gave birth to men and women as well as creating the natural species.She could transform herself either into a male or female version of the Rainbow Serpent.The Kunapipi cult seems to have arisen among tribes in the Roper and Rose River areas, and gradually spread north-east into Arnhem Land, where it existed as a complementary masculine form with Djanggawul, a female figure.