The border and lines that run throughout 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 zigzags forming crosses, as well as the small black-infilled repeated triangles, are dahoru’e (Ömie mountains). This design relates to the sacred ancestral geography of Ömie territory.
The radiating circles are mokoje nun’e, eyes of the parrot.
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The diamond design is siha’e, representing the fruit of the Sihe tree. The siha’e design is sometimes also called vinohu’e, the men’s tattoo design of the navel, which was applied during the sacred Ujawé initiation rituals conducted underground in guai (isolated tattooing chambers). Siha’e is a yellow fruit found in the rainforest and often eaten by cassowaries. In the time of the ancestors during times of tribal warfare, the Ömie male warriors had no food while they were defending their borders in the forest far from their villages so they survived by chewing the sihe fruit, swallowing the juice and then they would spit out the pulp.
The small zigzag designs are bubori anö’e, beaks of the Papuan Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus). Hornbills are the largest flying birds that can be found in the Ömie mountains. In the ancient story of how the first group of people emerged onto the surface of the earth from Awai’i underground cave at a site known as Vavago, one man [who cannot be named due to current Ömie jagor’e (law)], used his hornbill beak forehead adornment as a tool to chisel his way through the rock and into the light of the world.
The design of odunaigë, the climbing jungle vine with thorns and tendrils, can be seen. In the ancient story of how the first group of people emerged onto the surface of the earth from Awai’i underground cave at a site known as Vavago, one man [who cannot be named due to current Ömie jagor’e (law)], saw the odae jungle vine with its thorns growing inside the dark cave and was inspired to perform a self-initiation by tattooing odunaigë, the jungle vine design, onto his own body. This was the very first act of initiation performed by an ancestor. The odae vine began to grow up and up towards the light and then broke through the cave and came out through the top of the ground. The people living in the cave used the odae vine to climb out of the cave and saw the light for the first time.
The pattern of repeated, arch designs are duahe sore, an ancestral body design.
Text courtesy Ömie Artists.