Amami nioge (moköjö bineb’e, mi’ija’ahe, ije bi’weje, dubidubi’e, ohu’o sabu deje) - Cloth of the Ancestors (with chest feathers of the red parrot; animal bones; boys chopping tree branches; leaves of the dubi’e plant; and spots of the wood-boring grub)

"When I was young I used to live with my mother at old Sidonejo village near the volcano, Huvaimo. I always stayed with her learning to mix red, yellow and black coloured pigments and I learnt where to find everything I need to make barkcloth in the forest. Our ancestors were living in the bush and when I was a small girl I saw Bamu Tenny start to build the town [Popondetta] with sago leaf rooves. At that time there was no school and no airport. Now as an old woman, I paint my barkcloth designs to show the world I am still here, living and painting at Gora village so that my memory will live on, otherwise our Ömie culture will be lost.” – Iswadi (Fate Savari)




Fate Savari’s nioge (painted barkcloth skirts) capture the sacred geometries and clan-specific cultural knowledge of the Ömie tribeswomen from Huvaemo (Mt. Lamington) in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. Ömie Artists is a cooperative of women who paint their ancient clan designs with natural pigments in freehand onto sections of hand beaten bark from the inner skin of the paper mulberry tree. Artists paint designs inspired by the Ömie territory's lush rainforests, wild rivers and sacred creation sites such as the volcano Huvaemo and Mount Obo. The red, yellow, and black colored pigments are created from fruits, ferns, leaves and ash, skillfully mixed into a vibrant palette.




Barkcloth painting is an ancient art for Ömie women. The first nioge was made by Sujo, the founding female ancestor of the Ömie. After experiencing her first period, Sujo cut the bark from a sihe tree and soaked it in red mud to symbolize menstrual blood and her capacity to give birth. She then cut this barkcloth in half to create two skirts – one worn by herself and the other her husband Mina. Following Sujo, all Ömie women make and paint nioge once they are of reproductive age. Nioge serve important purposes in marriage, funerary, and initiation ceremonies and are still worn today by men, women and children during traditional ceremonies which involve feasting and spectacular performances of singing, dancing, and kundu drumming.




In the middle of the twentieth century, a series of catastrophic events on the Ömie territory led women to start painting their barks with the sacred clan designs associated the ancient initiation ceremony known as the ujawé that involved tattooing clan insignia (sor'e) onto the skin. During the Second World War, an Australian patrol arrived to recruit young men as labor on the Kokoda Track. They arrived in the middle of the initiation ceremonies that only take place on a seven-to-twelve-year cycle, and removed the young men before they could finish the rites or receive their marks. As much as the devastation of the war, elders grieved the failure to complete these ceremonies, which left the mountain unprotected. In 1951, Huvaemo erupted, causing widespread destruction of Ömie villages. Dahorurajé clan Chiefs Warrimou and Nogi took the eruption as a warning from the Spirit of Huvaemo and the ancestors to all Ömie people - that they must hold onto their traditional culture and turn away from these outsiders. The Chiefs therefore spread the word to encourage the women to paint their tattoo designs onto the barkcloth to appease the ancestors. And so triumphantly, the Ömie have managed to preserve their traditional tattoo designs through the women's strong barkcloth painting tradition.




Fate Savari painted barkcloth from a young age and made artworks for the Ömie Artists collective since the Gora Village Art Centre was first established in 2008. She was among the most knowledgeable female cultural leaders of the Ömie. Her mother was Majaho and her father was the legendary Lokirro, both Dahorurajé clanspeople from Sidonejo village. The old village of Sidonejo was destroyed during the 1951 eruption of Huvaimo (Mount Lamington) and the village was relocated to present day Savodobehi. Both Sidonejo and Savodobehi are highly significant villages as they are nestled high in the mountains close to the sacred mountains frequently referred to in the Ömie creation story—Huvaimo (Mount Lamington), where the world began; and Mount Obo, home of the first people, Mina and Suja.



Here, Savari has painted a highly significant barkcloth known as Amami nioge, the cloth of the Ancestors. She explains, “This is how the first ancestors painted in the beginning… my mother showed me everything.” The Amami nioge painting designs are believed to be the earliest form of painted barkcloth designs created by Ömie artists. Fate was one of the last living masters of these special Amami nioge designs, of which this is an exceptional example. The borders and lines that run through the work are known as orriseegé or ‘pathways’ and provide a compositional framework for the designs. The or’e (path) designs are ancient and originate from the time of the Ancestors. They relate to the intricate footpaths that run through food gardens and garden plots.




The large zigzag patterns that intersect this work across four panels are one of the earliest known barkcloth painting designs Savari calls “the design of our Ancestors.” The design also resembles dahoru’e, the design of the Ömie mountains, indicating the ancient origins mountain designs to Ömie art, and their ties to ancestral beings.



Set between the main orriseegé of the work are smaller designs that refer to various elements of Ömie life and ancestral stories. The fine zigzag or tooth design is known as moköjö bineb’e, the red chest feathers of the parrot. The moköjö bird appears in several Dahorurajé and Sahuoté clan stories, often appearing as a flock in the form of a cloud, stealing children or collecting the deceased and carrying them/delivering them to the Ancestor Spirit village high on the volcano Huvaimo. In the old stories, the parrots also commonly communicate and bring messages of warning to Ömie people. The small groups of crosses are mi’ija’a, animal bones found while digging in the garden. The lines that run diagonally through the orriseegé and large zigzag design are ije bi’weje – boys cutting the branches and leaves of a tree. Fate tells the story for this design: “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 bristle design of fine, short lines are dubidubi’e, the leaves of small white plants called dubi’e that grow on mountaintops. The spots are a design called 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 Huvaemo (Mount Lamington) came to be volcanic. It is a traditional soru’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.