In 2012 at Gora Art Centre, Fate Savari presented a schoolbook she had obtained from her granddaughter. It was filled from front to back with drawings about her ancestral Ömie stories (including the creation story), histories, culture and clan designs. There were also some loose pages in the front and back of the schoolbook and more drawings on paper wrapped up in a larger drawing on paper. Fate created the book and drawings because she felt a great urgency to record her profound knowledge before she passed away. She used whatever materials she could find on hand. After presenting this first book, Fate requested “another book and drawing materials” so she could still create art during the seasons that she didn’t have any barkcloth to paint. So in 2014, Fate filled yet another drawing book with her art and this drawing is from that second collection of drawings.

When Fate was young, her father Lokirro told her about the first ‘tohor’e’ or ‘white man’ that came to Ömie territory. The white man came with two Orokaivan men from the neighbouring lands named Vuwiji and Nyani. The Orokaivan men each carried a boroté, a fighting club fashioned from black palm. Fate has drawn the footprints of the white man, Vuwiji and Nyani, and their fighting clubs. She says Ömie people were scared when they saw the white man and wanted to kill him.

Fate also talked of her own personal experience of seeing a white man for the very first time. Before she was married (c.1947), there was a caucasian male doctor at Gora village. Fate helped carry the doctor’s medical supplies to another Ömie village, Gorabuna.

The borders are orriseegé or ‘pathways’ through the gardens and provide a compositional framework for the designs.

The lines that run diagonally are ije bi’weje, boys cutting the leaves of a tree. Fate explains: “The mother was cleaning the bush to make a garden with her two young sons. The boys climbed a tree to cut all of the branches and leaves down. The branches fell down and the mother took all of the leaves and threw them away. Then the mother got plenty of bananas, taro and yam to plant in their newly cleared garden. When they finished planting all of the plants, they ate all of the food from the garden and lived a long life.”