Obed Raggett worked as a stockman in his early life. He married in 1942 and after living for a while at Haast's Bluff moved to Papunya, north of Alice Springs around 1961 with his wife, Coralie and four children. Raggett was a Lutheran pastor and a skilled storyteller in several languages - Pintubi, Luritja and English. He wrote stories for the Pintupi-Luritja schoolchildren at Papunya. Fluent in Pintupi, he was also an indigenous school assistant to art teacher and aboriginal art promoter, Geoffrey Bardon.
Diane Bell (2002) observes that: 'With the assistance of Obed Raggett, Bardon drew diagrams and documented the stories depicting the relationships between specific sites and Dreamings. The paintings can be read as maps of the country by those schooled in the Law, but what could and should be made available to a wider public fuelled local debates regarding the propriety of making sacred art public.' Raggett also wrote a number of school readers in the Pintupi language. He contributed to the Finke River Mission submission to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on Aboriginal Land Rights Legislation in 1976. The Pastor Obed Raggett Memorial Park at Papunya was named after him.
(Source: Diane Bell, 'Person and Place: Making Meaning of the Art of Australian Indigenous Women', Feminist Studies 28.1 (Spring 2002): 95; McDougall, 'Shorthand Tradition' CRNLE Reviews Journal 2 (December 1981): 50; Northern Territory Census Papunya 1961, 1969; Northern Territory Parliamentary Record No.12 Eighth Assembly First Session 24/11/98, Member for Stuart, Mr. Toyne.)
