Fate has painted a dramatic scene likely to have originated from Ancestral stories among the Ömie or certain clans[1]. The border is known as orriseegé or ‘pathways’ and provides a compositional framework for the designs. The large zig-zag that Fate has painted represents a bend in the river, jowo tahgwe. The river is the same one that Fate often paints known as Uborida, or the Jordan River, which is close to Gora village where she has lived most of her life since she married as a young woman. The fine markings within the triangles are the banks of the river breaking from the powerful flooding waters of Uborida river after the rain. In this same design in the past, Fate included a design called horé hitahi’e, representing the legs of a man. In highly abstract form, Fate painted his feet, toes and the hairs on his legs. She explained how the man was attempting to cross the Uborida river during a flood—which is incredibly dangerous with the risk of being swept down the river and drowning.

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

Note [1]: Similarly, an Ömie song written by Aiden Gadai of Duharenu village (artists Aspasia Gadai’s late husband) also tells of a man’s dangerous journey to cross a river during a flood.