Belonging

Ömie women would grow up learning their clan and/or sub-clan insignia totem which was painted onto barkcloth. These motifs are always based on plants or particular aspects of plants. When a woman would marry into another clan, she would become a part of his clan. Her mother-in-law, and in some cases her husband, would teach her the clan insignia of his clan by way of painting on barkcloth. Knowing what this clan insignia may have looked like in the early-mid twentieth-century has been shown to us by a single artist only—Isawdi. She painted this design on a few barkcloths but purely as a subject in itself in her painting #14-128 (p.51). She painted the clan insignia of her Dahoruarjé birth clan—varib’e, representing a small palm. If Isawdi was wearing a nioge (barkcloth skirt) with the varib’e clan insignia, members of neighbouring villages and clans would easily be able to identify her as belonging to the Dahoruajé clan.

13. Dahorurajé clan design of the small palm (with small black palm, leaves of the warubé plant, pig hoofprints and plant stems)

Natural Pigments on Barkcloth 86 x 52cm 14-128