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 Ömie 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. This is one of the special drawings from that first presentation of drawings.

Fate has drawn a traditional nioge (barkcloth skirt) design of the Dahorurajé clan. The main arching motif is of worro worrë, the matabuté (turtle) shell pendant which were made in the times of the ancestors. Turtle shell was a foreign, rare and beautiful material from the faraway coast so it was highly valued in the Ömie mountains and would be displayed as a form of wealth on necklaces. So highly valued, the worro worrë also became an important barkcloth design and was painted onto nioge, just as Fate has painted here. Fate’s father Lokirro told her about his travels to find turtle shells on the coast. He told her how the people living on the coast would hunt and kill the turtles but would leave the turtle shells on the beach. The Ömie would search for them and carry the turtle shell in one whole piece back up to the Ömie mountains. It is important to note that while the main arching motif is worro worrë, the turtle shell pendant, there is a smaller design representing the same thing painted similarly within the larger one. There are also similar slanted arching motifs which are not the jewelry but simply the turtle shell fragments as they are before being crafted into jewelry. These turtle shell fragments are referred to as ‘worro worrë in’e in’e’.

The lines that run through the work are known as orriseegé or ‘pathways’. Many other designs can be seen painted within the main design and the orriseegé, including:

~ The short bristle-like design is ijo bunobun’e (sometimes referred to as ijo bunë), representing the roots of trees after they have been chopped down in order to clear the garden for planting food.

~ Dubi han’e, leaves of the dubi’e tree.

~ The spots are known as sabu deje representing the spots which can be seen on the sides of a wood-boring grub. This grub is sacred to Ömie people as it plays an important part within the creation story of how Huvaimo (Mount Lamington) came to be volcanic. It is a traditional sor’e (tattoo design) which was most commonly tattooed running in one line under both eyes. Today it is applied to Ömie people’s faces for dance performances with natural pigments.

~ The slanting lines are ije biweje, representing 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.”

~ The criss-cross designs are mi’ija’ahe, animal bones found while digging in the garden.