Gardens (with spots of the wood-boring grub, women's white seashell forehead adornment, boys chopping tree branches, small white plants that grow on mountaintops, old animal bones found while digging in the garden, pig hoof-prints, bees, chest feathers of the red parrot and beaks of the Papuan Hornbill).
This painting by Fate is of mweje (also known as mwe and or'e - gardens and paths through the garden). The lines commonly seen running through out Omie women's paintings known as orriseege or pathways originates from the ancient mwe/mweje/or'e garden designs. the border and diagonally sloping lines in this painting are orriseege or pathways through the gardens and garden plots. Within the gardens Fate has painted a number of designs.
The cross hatch design and also the parallel stripes that bisect some of the diagonal lines are also mwe, land and gardens. The dots within the orriseege are sabu dje, representing the spots on the wood boring grub. This grub is sacred to Omie people as it plays an important part in the creation story of how Huvaimo (Mt Lamington) came to be volcanic. It is traditional sor'e (tattoo design which was most commonly tattooed running in one line under both eyes. Today it is applied to Omie people's faces with natural pigments for dance performances. The curved lines and the diagonal lines are nenyai, a white seashell forehead adornment work by women/ Fate says these were made 'in the the time of the ancestor' and are still worn today. Omie people obtained the seashells from costal tribes of Oro province by means of trade and they also collected them from the beach. Seashells were a foreign, rare and beautiful material from the faraway coast so they were highly valued in the Omie mountains and would be displayed as a form of wealth on both men and women's jewellery. Fate's father Lokirro told her about his travels to find a trade for seashells on the coast. Other diagonal lines 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 finishes planting all of the plants, they ate al of the food from the garden and lived along life.
The short bristle like design is ijo bune, representing the roots of trees after they have been chopped down in order to clear the garden for planting food. Another short bristle like design that can be seen is dubi dubi'e, representing the leaf of a rain forest vine that often grows on mountain tops. The criss cross design with the diagonal lines are mi'ija'ahe, animal bones found while digging in the garden. The small black infilled triangles are mokojo bineb'e, the red chest feathers of the parrot. The mokojo bird appears in several Dahoruraje and Sahuote 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 mountain tops where deceased Ancestors reside. in the old stories, the parrots also commonly communicate and bring messages of warning to Omie people. The solid black triangles are mahuva'oje, pigs hoof prints - showing how the garden has been trampled and destroyed by hungry pigs. The circular concentrations and trails of fine dots are uje bees. The chevron design that run through the diagonal lines is buboriano'e, beaks of the Papuan Hornbill. The zig zag design are the mi'ija'ahe, the animal bones. The spots within the squares are ja'ino carticarti, representing the spotted markings that can be seen on a stone on the Uborida River south of the village of Gora. This is a significant site by the swimming hole known as Maruro, and by the waterfall known as Juoho, where a footprint was left by a Nyoniraje clan man ancestor as he ran and escaped from a cannibal spirit belonging to the Misaje clan. Fate explains that the markings look as if a grub has dug holes in the stone and left the marks.