The square designs are mweje, gardens. Sometimes Fate also refers to this and related garden designs as mwe and or’e, gardens and paths through the garden. The crosshatched lines drawn in red and yellow pencil are garden plots. The lines commonly seen running throughout Ömie women’s paintings known as orriseegé or ‘pathways’, originate from the ancient mwe/mweje/or’e garden designs.

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

~ The criss-cross design is mi’ija’ahe, animal (wallaby) bones found while digging in the garden.

~ The small black infilled triangles are moköjö hwe ahe, the markings on the red chest feathers of the parrot. The moköjö bird appears in several Dahorurajé and Sahuoté clan stories. The birds often appear as a flock in the form of a cloud, stealing children or collecting deceased children and carrying them/delivering them to the Ancestor spirit villages high on the volcano Huvaimo and other mountaintops where deceased Ancestors reside. In the old stories, the parrots also commonly communicate and bring messages of warning to Ömie people.

~ The short trailing marks are 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 (Mt. 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 with natural pigments for dance performances.

~ 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.”

~ The chevron (arrow-tip) design is buborianö ’e, beaks of the Papuan Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus).

~ The short bristle-like design that can be seen is dubidubi han’e, representing the leaf of a rainforest vine that often grows on mountaintops.