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.

STORY OF THE FIRST MUSTARD (FOR BETELNUT CHEWING) [1]

In the beginning there was no mustard. A man was living in a village while his friend lived in a neighbouring village. The man went with his dog to visit his friend in the other village. When he arrived at his friend’s house there was a pig beside the house. The man’s dog smelled the pig and ran toward it to try to catch it. The two men heard the dog barking at the back of the house so the friend said, “Go down and chase your dog out so it doesn’t kill my pig!”. The man was running towards the dog on the path and became caught up in the vine of the mustard plant. He freed himself by lifting the vine up to his mouth and biting through it. At the same time, he was chewing betelnut. His mouth turned red when the mustard vine combined with the betelnut in his mouth. While the man was caught in the mustard vine, the dog had killed the pig. The man returned to his friend and said, “Sorry friend, my dog has already killed your pig.” The friend said, “It’s OK.” and both men stayed in the house.

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.”

Note [1]: Story told by Fate Savari (Isawdi). Recorded in April 2014 at Gora Art Centre, translated by Raphael Bujava and transcribed by Brennan King.