Bilum - a cultural icon, knitted and looped into the social, economical and cultural fabric of the PNG society.

by MICHAEL KISOMBO

THE Asian and Pacific Arts Gallery acquired six colourful bilums from Bihute, extending its Pacific textile holdings and engaging with the cultural tradition. An NGO, Sisters of Mercy, a faith-based organization in Australia and Papua New Guinea teaches the disadvantaged and prisoners in Bihute, Eastern Highlands Province. The bilums were made by these prisoners.

The bilum is a cultural icon, intricately knitted into the social, economical and cultural fabric of Papua New Guinea. Bilum is the name given to the handmade string bag, made almost entirely by women, through a process known as looping. Bilum-making is a self-taught skill acquired by watching other women, then trial and error until the maker becomes professionally adept. Traditionally, women carried knowledge of which trees and plants would yield good fibres for twining into strings for their bilums.

A sea wave pattern or design bilum made by a women in Tambul, Western Highlands Province. Image: Elizabeth Bonshek / 2007.

        In the Highlands, and in particular Mendi in the Southern Highlands Province, special expeditions were made by mothers, accompanied by young girls, in search of these plants in the jungles. Songs could be heard echoing back from the mountains, and if the search lasted until night fell, the girls would hunt for frogs to take home for the family dinner. The collected plant barks would be dried for several days and later immersed in mud to soften them before extracting the fibres. 

The fibres were then twisted into fine strings with the aid of dry white clay, rubbed onto the makers’ thighs to create a gripping surface. From time to time, other women would assist the makers in looping the strings, as this is both tedious and time-consuming. However, not all women could assist, as some lacked the skill of twisting the fibres to the maker’s preference. Looping the bilum is considered the simplest task, according to most women, and if able to work day and night, a bilum can be completed in less than two weeks. Bilums are categorised according to their usage, from the everyday to special occasions and rituals.

As with language, or tok ples (the local language), bilums differ from place to place and region to region. Most Papua New Guinean people can tell the differences in the designs, colours and styles. For example, bilums from the coast, like the Madang or Sepik, are identified by their unique colouring and looping; while bilums from the Highlands region are knotted with other material features, such as cuscus (marsupial) furs. Eastern Highlands bilums can be easily distinguished from Enga, Simbu or Southern Highlands bilums. The looping technique for which a bilum is recognised is the signature trait of the maker. In the recent past, Highlanders travelling to the coast often took a bilum from there as a souvenir, and vice versa. Nowadays, the bilums of Papua New Guinea have reached not only every part of this country but also stretched out to the four corners of the planet. Even the name ‘bilum’ has been patented by a French shop, which claims that ‘at this time you can only nab bilum bags in Paris’.1

Today, many women in Papua New Guinea have realized the economic value of bilums and are upholding the tradition while innovating with shapes, designs, colours and forms, including a move into high-end fashion. Some women have created cooperative societies and designed websites to sell their products. Corporate and charitable organisations have also recognised the value of bilums and incorporated various groups promoting the skills of bilum-making to other women. The Sisters of Mercy, a not-for-profit, faith-based organisation in Australia and Papua New Guinea, teaches bilum-making skills and other textile techniques to disadvantaged men and women.

One of their projects is teaching embroidery to prisoners in Bihute, in the Eastern Highlands Province. The Gallery recently acquired a group of six of these bags, extending its collection of bilums and bilum wear to engage with this textile form. The five-kilogram rice bags, which are decorated with stitched designs, feature images of loved ones and slogans expressing the makers’ dreams of freedom. Often decorated in the same bright colours as traditional bilums, they would have been worn, like bilum, as a fashionable accessory and to carry personal belongings.

Endnote:
1. A French firm that makes bags and accessories using recycled advertising banners decided to poach and patent the PNG word ‘bilum’. For details, refer to garamut.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/french-firm-poaches-and-patents. 

• Michael Kisombo is a Curatorial Intern, Asian and Pacific Art. Article extracted from http://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au

Emily Andrias Aisa proudly in her bilum dress made by her aunty for Grade 12 graduation at Anglimb Secondary School in Jiwaka Province. Bilum wears are made and sold in PNG. Image Courtesy of Emily Andrias Aisa / March, 2017.

In any social setting, the use of bilum in any form is always present in PNG contemporary society. Marielisha's bilum hat on with her siblings walking home. Image courtesy of Marielisha Ilai / March, 2017.

A man gearing up for a traditional dance with his bilum next to him. Bilums are used as part of ornament and as holder of valuable items during traditional singsing. Image: Samuel Thomas Gaimz. FB / 2017.

Eastern Highlands Governor Hon. Julie Soso is a politician a parliamentarian in the PNG Government. She was gifted with a lot of bilum products before giving a speech at a political rally in Goroka. Image: Google.

In contemporary PNG society, bilum usage is evident everywhere you go. These youths in a social setting with their bilums. 

Image: Marielisha Ilai / March, 2017.

The people of Menyamya in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea in their traditional attire with bilum usage in the cultural setting. A Samson Peter image courtesy of Laben Sakale John /March, 2017. 

A bilum is a token of love, holder of magic, reminder of home, memories of lost childhood and a symbol of wealth and position.

by CAROLINE SHERMAN

A bilum bag is a cultural icon, inextricably woven into the social and cultural fabric of Papua New Guinea. People write songs and poems about their Bilums. They are tokens of love, reminders of home, holders of magic and symbols of wealth and position. For many, they are memories of lost childhoods.

If you are given a Bilum bag it is an expression of love and emotion. It is said that 'The happier the weaver, the more beautiful the Bilum'. The women tell traditional stories as they weave; stories of sorcerers, mothers, young girls, babies, mountains and marriage. When your daughter gets married you give her a diamond design Bilum bag, a mountain design on a Bilum indicates the landscape of where you are from. The history of Papua New Guinea is woven into every Bilum bag.

A diamond bilum design made in Tambul, Western Highlands Province. Image: Elizabeth Bonshek / 2007.

 I first saw a Bilum bag in 2014, I was so inspired by its beauty, colours and physical strength. I wanted to better understand the history and technique behind such an original piece of design work. Through my research and my journeys to Papua New Guinea I found a community of women; weaving, caring, story telling and living through the making of Bilum bags. I set up Among Equals to work with these talented women of Papua New Guinea, and to bring my skills and experience as a Fashion and Textile designer of 20 years in London, New York and Sydney, to create a bag of deep cultural significance with a contemporary twist. 

• "The money from Among Equals to the Goroka Bilum weavers has enabled the women to pay for all the little girls to attend school. Your support has meant that we can pay for our healthcare, our traditional obligations and the things we need for our home. It has made a huge difference to us." - Florence Jaukae Kamel

Among Equals is a social enterprise, aimed at empowering Bilum makers in three communities in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Their worlds are complex, often violent and insecure. Through an ongoing relationship with these women my aim is to provide them with sustainable incomes and to help ensure Bilum remains a viable art form for future generations. 

• Caroline Sherman is a Sydney-based fashion and textile designer and the founder 'Among Equals' operating in London, New York and Sydney.   
• Source: Article extracted from http://www.amongequals.com.au

Girls from Mt. Hagen with their preferred bilums on a Sunday for Church.
Image: JLois Paul Pawa Kurii, "Hagen Pride"/ April, 2017.

Girls from Wabag returning home from a nearby market with their bilums. Image: Kandepean Queenish / 2017.

Lazy around on a leisure time, these girls from Tari carrying their casual bilums. Image: Hela Wandarii Tunzup Nong / March, 2017.

Kina Shell and Bilum in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

IN the PNG highlands culture, the kina shell played a significant role as a valuable item. Although bilum was not as valuable as the kina shell, it played a part in the preservation and parcelling of the kina shell itself. Women made bilums that are specifically as parcels to wrap the kina shell.

In the photograph below is a a couple with a Kina Shell and the mother with a bilum in Mt. Hagen, Western Highlands Province, 1971. Photo Credit: Jurgen Trantow.

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.