PNG bilum travels over time and space: As a cultural material from Goroka to a modern fashionable item in New York.

by MONICA ORBE - www.pri.org (edited)

ON a sun-drenched day, you often spot women sitting under a tree for shade or perched against a grass hut, twisting plant fibers into yarn, weaving the yarn into a textile and making a carrying bag called a bilum.

A PNG girl wearing a bilum dress. Image: Mono Meri Enga / 2017. 

From the time that a young Papua New Guinean girl is old enough to remember, bilum bags are part of her life. She grows up seeing her foremothers weave them, wear them with a strap across their foreheads and even be married off with them. Traditionally made of plant fibers and other natural materials, such as feathers and fur, bilum bags show a girl’s social standing, where she came from and her marital state.

Bilum as a bride price

When marriages are arranged in Papua New Guinea, the husband and his family send a bilum bag as part of the “bride price.” After the exchange is made and the marriage is finalized, the girl slings the strap of the bag across her forehead and uses the bag to carry things, like food, on her back. The bilum notifies everyone that she is married.

Isolated Goroka has recently felt the impact of westernization. In the last five to 10 years, the Internet, cell phones and television have slowly changed the culture. Jaukae and other women say men are now more likely to abandon their wives and children for a modern life, often with a younger woman.

Two PNG girls in bilum dress. Image: Lovelyn Howard / 2017.

After this happened to Jaukae, she felt lost trying to support her five children. She found comfort in going back to tradition and weaving bilum cloth. But instead of making it into a bag, with all its marriage symbolism, she sewed it into a dress and wore it in town.

The 30-year-old single mother remembers the shocked reaction. “Everybody would say ‘Look at that! Is she all right? A bilum is something we carry our food in. Who is she to wear that?’” she says. “So I was really breaking through customary beliefs.”

Bilum becomes a business

News travels fast in small towns like Goroka. As people spread word of Jaukae's dress and other bilum creations, she became known as bilum meri, the bilum woman. Soon, she started to receive orders.

By showing the women of Goroka that bilum need not be limited by the confines of marriage, she unintentionally taught them that they need not be either.

A Papua New Guinean girl wears a wool bilum bag over her shoulder.

A girl in her bilum dress outfit. Image: Mono Meri Enga / 2017. 

Now, more and more women are starting to wear bilum bags, but over their shoulders, challenging the symbolism of bilum as a marriage bond.

In the past, “bilum” almost exclusively referred to the bag worn on a woman’s head. Largely due to Jaukae's unwitting act of rebellion, bilum has now come to mean the cloth used to make the bags.

Jaukae sells bilum dresses, hats and scarves in a variety of colors, patterns and materials, depending on the tastes and finances of the buyer. Many single women are customers, and some clients are abroad. How she got to this point explains that day in New York at a fashion show in 2014 when her cloth made it down the runway.

At first, she says, “it was really hard work trying to break down people to understand that bilum can be something different.” She needed a loan to build her business and to bring in other women to help her weave. “So I invited Pacific Islands Trade and Investment [a government business development agency] and said, ‘Come along. I am hosting a bilum festival.’”

She planned her festival just before a popular market event called the Goroka Show, so tourists would be in town with time on their hands. Jaukae saw it as an opportunity for single mothers, like herself, to sell their work.

PNG girls with their different bilums. Image: Lizzy Rylez Kela / 2017. 

The Bilum Festival was such a success with tourists and locals that it is now celebrated annually, she says. “When the tourists and guests come into Goroka town for the show, at least they come to my festival and then they buy bilums from my mothers [the weavers].” 

Competitors expand the market

While Jaukae focuses on a growing foreign clientele, other weavers have focused on modernizing bilum making for the local market. Dorothy Ketau heard Jaukae speak at a women’s empowerment event and, as a mother without a partner, wanted more control over her life, too.

A 'big shot' bilum design. Image: Bianca Barry / 2017.

To create a lower-priced bilum to sell locally, Ketau decided to use a machine, instead of her hands, to twist the yarn. That cut spinning time in half. She also works with less expensive, synthetically dyed wool — a material Jaukae wouldn’t dare use.

Ketau now also has a group of single mothers working for her. Each weaver can churn out a bilum bag in a week or so. Ketau sells a no-frills version of the traditional one used for bride price at just 100 Kina. One Kina in Papua New Guinea buys a pineapple at the market or a round trip bus ride into town. It's about $37.

Ketau spends about 10 Kina on supplies per item. “So if [the clients] are paying me 100 Kina for a bilum, I pay [the weavers] 40 kina,” explains the new business woman. She says she earns more than 500 Kina a month.

She is finding life as a single mother easier than ever before. “When I was working, I was still weaving, too,” she says, “but the type of money I make right now is far better than ... being employed.”

A PNG girl in a bilum dress with Simbu Provincial flag colours.
 Image: Image: Emily Andrias Aisa / 2017.

Ketau says she sees an uptick in sales prior to the wedding season. “When it comes to an occasion of bride price,” she says, “we make a lot of money. It is really valued in our society, in our community especially. Any bride price that is done can’t go without bilums.”

Ketau is making a living off a traditional way of life that has eluded her. Like Juakae, Ketau has seen an impact on the lives of the women who work tirelessly to make mass-produced bilums for her.

“I would like to take it to the next level where I can come back to help the weavers, ‘cause I have seen how they have struggled, too. All of the weavers tend to be ... single mothers, defectors [divorced women,] separated, all this. I think I can use this bilum to bring some help back to these mothers.”

Recently, Ketau was asked to make 5000 bilums to be given as gifts at the South Pacific Games (Papua New Guinea’s local version of the Olympics.) She has also been chosen to showcase her bilums at next year’s Bilum Festival and has registered as a bilum maker with the National Cultural Commission in its effort to preserve the culture and art of bilum making.

The future of bilum

Jaukae, though, has grander ambitions for bilum. She wants to bring it, and her business, to the world.

A girl in traditional attire with bilum products of bra and hand-band.
 Image: Ałphã Quĕĕñ Hålē / 2017. 

In September, 2014, she participated in the LDNY (London-New York) Festival. Held at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, the festival featured a fashion show and luncheon, aimed at empowering and inspiring up and coming female designers.

The experience opened her eyes to how far she had come, and how much further she still had to go. “Everybody knew where they were going and who were the buyers there,” she recalls. “There were women with money. They had factories and they had places where women work.”

“Everybody was talking about their products ... at least they were given times to talk about their products. And I was lost, I didn’t know what to say.”

Fashion students from Parson’s School of Design and the London College of Fashion were charged with selecting one of the international designers and creating an item of clothing from the designer’s material for the fashion show.

Once again, Florence found herself in the position of having to justify bilum as something more than a quaint tradition. Students would come up to her perplexed by the new fabric, inquisitively stammering, “How am I going to…?” She would then explain how it could be used in designs and they would politely retort, “Oh ... okay,” and move on to the next designer.

A PNG girl eating corn and her bilum. Image: Wandařïï Kimberly / 2017. 

She feared that “nobody would want to work with bilum, because everybody was confused.” But one lone student from the London College of Fashion came up to her and said she would like to make a hoodie of bilum.

“When my bilum came down [the runway,] I was like ‘That’s my bilum.’ I was completely lost. I just sat there and tears were coming down.”

It was the culmination of one dream and the start of a new one. “I want a huge market. I want to export more, like home wear [casual wear] fashion. Fashion from the ethnic side,” she says.

A member of Parliament Hon Sam Basil with a bilum dress on campaign rally.
 Image: PANGU Party / 2017.

From single mother — and now grandmother — trying to make money for her kids through a traditional craft, Jaukae now sells her custom work to clientele in Australia and is getting comfortable with the label of international designer.

“[Bilum] has changed my life greatly.”

PNG colour bilum. Image: Jmaio Diana / 2017.

Papua New Guinea 'bilums' to be showcased and promoted at the 2017 Pacifika Festival in Auckland, New Zealand

PNG secondary school girls geared up for graduation in 'bilum dress' attire.
Photograph courtesy of Marielisha Ilai. March 2017.

PNG's brightly coloured patterns and designs of the Bilum products will be showcased at Auckland’s Pasifika Festival 2017 on March 25-26.

        The showcase is part of the Pacific Trade & Invest (PT&I) NZ Pacific Path to Market programme, a structured approach to helping businesses entering the New Zealand market. PT&I New Zealand held Pacific Path to Market workshops in Port Moresby last year as part of 10 workshops held across the Pacific Islands.

Bilum is a traditional form of weaving done by the women in PNG. The style is distinctly from PNG with beautiful vibrant colours and patterns woven into the string bags and clothing.

Sharlene Gawi was the Executive Officer of the Bilum Export Promotion Association (BEPA) established in 2015, based in PNG capital Port Moresby.

BEPA was formed as part of an economic empowerment project through the exports of handicrafts funded by the Australian Government and managed by the International Trade Centre. BEPA has so by far established contact with and trained 12 co-operatives of 650 women throughout the Bilum weaving areas of PNG.

Bilums sold at the Goroka Bilum Market.
 Image Credit: You Tube / Google.

Bilums are a traditional handwoven bag. Traditionally made using extracted and dried tree bark fibre that was twisted into string and woven into a bag that was used to carry babies, food, or anything else that needed carrying. 
 Bilums have also been used for traditional ceremonial attire and in exchanges for ceremonies such as bride-price and marriage ceremonies. 

Today, bilums are made using acrylic yarn and nylon string which give the weavers an array of colours to weave with and form various colourful surface patterns. Traditional and modern designs are woven to make beautiful surface patterns and styles vary based on what Bilums are used for. Most Papua New Guineans still use the bilum bags to carry to work or school or as give away gifts to visitors and even still to put babies in and rock them to sleep.

“Our scope of work includes acting as a middleman to promote bilum and bilum products and identify and access markets for our members in our co-operatives,” Ms Gawi said.

Bilum hats on sale in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
Image credit: Texpatfaith blog - https://texpatfaith.com 

BEPA has formed strategic partnerships with the Tourism Industry Association and the PNG Small Medium Enterprise Corporation (SME).

“BEPA also looks for opportunities through the affiliations and partnerships with SME corporations and the Tourism Industry Associations and such, to empower our members through financial literacy, opening bank accounts and adult literacy.”

BEPA staff attended the PT&I Pacific Path to Market Workshop in Port Moresby last year.

“It showed us the difference in just selling a Bilum and having proper systems and documentation which help in finding a niche market for your product and how to attract the bigger clients,” Ms Gawi said.

BEPA is coming to New Zealand’s Pasifika Festival with the objective of showcasing the bilum and what BEPA does and gauging the New Zealand knowledge and response to bilum with a view to getting prospective clients and orders for Bilum products.

PNG Bilum in Australia.
Image credit: © hellaD 2012 

 Bilum is quite popular in Australia and the Pacific region, however, there is not much steady supply. “New Zealand is a market that we are not familiar with,” said Ms Gawi. 

She will be bringing several different styles of bilum and some of the bilum products samples that have been developed for the international market.

The popularity of bilum wear is one that has been gradually growing, its potential bubbling away gently since one of PNG’s local women entrepreneurs Florence Jaukae showcased a bilum dress back in 2000 at the Miss PNG competition. PT&I has an established association with Florence Jauke and PNG Bilum wear through PT&I Australia’s annual Maketi Ples exhibitions and other trade visits watching Bilum’ popularity rise, since the early 2000’s.

*For more information about this event, please contact Joe Fuavao, PT&I Trade Development Manager on joe@pacifictradeinvest.co.nz

(Extracted from Pacific Periscope blog - https://pacificperiscope.wordpress.com)

 'Madang bilums' sold at the Bilum Market in Madang. Image Credit: Leonard Epstein photography, 2017. https://leonardepsteinphotography.wordpress.com

Highlands Bilums on sale at Goroka Bilum Market. 

Image Credit: PNG Loop, 2017. www.looppng.com

Bilum – a souvenir to promote Papua New Guinea’s tourism industry

by PETER S. KINJAP 

While PNG is focusing on its upcoming general elections in a few months’ time, the world over has celebrated the International Women’s’ Day last week to give significance to the existing our womenfolk, motherhood, sisters, aunties, wives, daughters and female colleagues. Women have been somewhat regarded as second class race in the male dominated world although some significance contributions have made by women in many facets of life. In traditional PNG, women’s primary role is bearing children, looking after domestic animals, making food gardens and household chores. These responsibilities are tough especially when the mother is to feed a good number of domestic animals and many small children. In the midst of their daily struggles, they virtually constructed the concept and skillfully netted strings bags known as bilums which were used make their ease the loads in their chores. 

To date no-one knows and can confidently explain how and why those ropes were twisted and looped to obtain a robust string bag which was very handy even today in the contemporary society. Prominent British anthropologists and couple Marilyn strathern and Andrew Strathern whom spent years in the highlands of PNG have thought that bilum was made through ritual practices in spirit worships, and woman loop the ropes while singing ritual chants. Moreover, Marilyn in her book titled The Gender of Gift never denied that Melanesian women were strong and equal to men, a point she compared with the European perspective on gender and feminist issues and later attracted a new dimension of perception on Melanesian women. 

Many other articles written about bilum say PNG women first started to make bilum to relate to the womb, bilum is the ‘outer’ womb when a baby is born from the ‘inside’ womb. This conception is evident today in the Tok Pisin language when womb is described as “bilum blo pikinini”. Having said all these one would wonder where would be the origin of making a bilum in PNG. Who was the first woman to have the idea and started to teach other women the knowledge and skills of looping and making patterns and passed on? But that’s not the purpose of this article to investigate it’s originate. The origin of making the bilum remains mysterious and the first PNG woman to curve the knowledge into twisting the ropes is unknown.

Melanesian woman have been physically strong, jam-packed with courage to conquer and fearlessly contest in the male dominated world.

Weeks ago, we learn that 30 courage PNG women will contest the 2017 general elections. Politics in PNG has always been a men’s willing. All the best to these mamas. 

In some areas, they are unbeatable when it comes to label against menfolk. Such is the toughest job of caring and love giving in their homes. Not only they are hard at work but also unrecognizably acquired with special skills and knowledge. Sometimes, their creativity puts them in a special place within the society. Unarguably, this is where the creator placed and blessed them. 

Turning their imagination into creativity is what makes them uniquely special. This is so, when it comes to looping and twisting the wool ropes into a cultural material, connoting their attributes of care and love. The aesthetic qualities of their bilum and its uniqueness has transformed greatly finding its way into the cash economy. Undoubtedly, bilum resembles the courage and determination of PNG women. 

Pretentious and exceptional words to describe women are not easy to find on the Mothers’ Day or the International Women’s Day. But those are words they deserve every day. 

In Goroka and Karkar Island in Madang, every year round bilum festivals are held. These events hosted not only to recognize the cash-value of their creativity but also acknowledging and displaying their adorable self-taught looping skills.

In Madang, festival chairman Pholas Yongole says activities include a bilum show and the process of how Karkar bilums are made. In Goroka, festival chairlady Florence Jaukae said the festival is staged to celebrate ancient skills and designs of bilums and also about preserving, protecting the skills and designs.

These annual events held respectively in Madang and Goroka not only to display the colorful woven bilums that attracts tourists and by passers but they hold the events hold the meaning of bilum making and creativity from womenfolk. 

Changes can inevitably occurred in any given society and in PNG society development took place since the island was first discovered in 1526-27. Bilum is believed to be centuries old from then on until it was formerly first recorded by G. Landtmann in 1933, a record found in the Museum of Finland. From traditional to contemporary, the patterns, designs and selection of colours to make bilum by women have changed. Today it is a souvenir serving as a national identify to the international community. In 2005, supported by the Australian government, an association known as PNG Bilum Export and Promotion was created to help PNG women export the bilum product. This organization is helping PNG women to export bilum products to Australia and other parts of the world. The bilum has also find its way into the fashion world. 

Today the weaving of a bilum is a skill that is commonly shared by women across the country; a skill or traditional knowledge that is passed from one generation to the next generation. It is knowledge that is learnt from Grandmothers, Aunts, Mothers and friends. 

Bilum designs vary from one to the next – no two bilums are identical. They can be seen on the streets of Sydney, New York, London, Suva, Apia or anywhere in the world – just a simple indication of how far this unique product travels.

In all these places, they still remain as a PNG souvenir and a national identify. To the PNG Government, this is only a cultural material but it plays a greater role in the arena of tourism promotion with its aesthetic qualities and uniqueness to the outside world that needed to be emphasized.

Photo captions: Different bilum patterns and designs sold in Tambul, WHP. Photos by Bianca Barry / March 2017.

PNG Bilum a cultural material in the traditional setting and now a commodity in the cash economy

A survey is pending on PNG bilums as souvenirs being exported overseas. I wish to hear from interested women who make bilums for sale, women entrepreneurers in bilum trading, souvenir shops trading bilums, stakeholders in the business of trading bilum as a commodity, and other interested persons/organizations. 

The purpose of the survey is to find out how far and wide bilum trade, from its humble beginning in the villages as a cultural material for personal use to the international scene as a tradiable commodity and souvenir for tourist consumption has been to. 

Your help towards this is greatly appreciated. All participants will be acknowledged in this survey. (email: howarigc[at]gmail.com) Thanks.