Bilum - a special item so close to a mother's life.

by DANIEL KUMBON as told by his wife Julie.

Extracted from Keith Jackson's PNG Attitude blog

Bilum has been part of PNG women's life from generation to generation. It is a special item that they valued and treasured in their life apart from their children. Below is a told story of a daughter who lost her mum so early in her childhood life. The story is narrated by her husband Daniel, who happen to take her to Australia for a first time. 

The storyteller Julie was unaware of the significance of the PNG bilum as she was sharing her story but we decided to share it here to give our readers a perspective on how bilum has been an item so close to mothers and daughters from generation to generation. Julie has a great story and we hope there are many other daughters and mums who can share the similar sediments like Julie's. Julie is from Enga Province and now happily married to Daniel Kumbon. Below is her story.     

Little children know that special items are kept in their mother's bilum.
In the photograph, the little child was checking for some coins (money) while her mother was watching. Image Credit: Meri Madang / Facebook / 2017.

"My mother’s new bilum went missing a short while after she hung it inside our house to stretch into shape. She suspected my father’s third wife.

My mother was the type of woman who did not talk much or liked to point an accusing finger at people for nothing. She suspected the woman because she had been seen loitering in the neighborhood when all other occupants of our house had gone out to do their daily chores."

With no hesitation at all, the third wife stabbed mum in her tummy. My mum was about eight months pregnant. She had to be rushed to Laiagam Health Centre about 50 kilometers away where there was a resident doctor. I think he was from Israel. Luckily the knife had missed the fetus.

Later mum was discharged, came home and gave birth to my second sister. But a little while later she complained of a severe stomach ache. One night it became unbearable and she asked to drink some water. But all the water containers in the house were empty.

There was nobody who could go and fetch some water for her. The only other two people present were my father’s second wife who was pregnant and the third wife who had stabbed her. I was very young so there was really nobody who could help.

So mum decided to fetch the precious water herself despite the severe pain. She asked me to take care of my baby sister and prepared a bundle of 'kendole' (dried pipit to use as a torch).

I remember her lighting one end and walked out through the low door of our bush material house. She held the burning bundle in one hand and a water gourd in the other.

Before mum departed into the dark night she said: ‘There is a saying that in timongo andaka, the home of the dead, there is no water. The spirits find it hard to drink so they only place spittle on the sugarcane leaves unable to chew the stalk which is full of juice. Let me go and fetch the wretched water myself to drink it when I can.’

I was too young to understand what she meant.

In the night my mum did not sleep. The pain was unbearable and she kept drinking water. Early next morning we walked to the Kandep District Health Centre. It is very close but took us a long time, mum was in so much pain.

I carried my baby sister in a bilum. When my baby sister cried we stopped by the wayside and mum tried her best to feed the baby with breast milk.

On the way we saw my father playing cards with a group of men. He did not ask us where we were going. He just glanced at us, turned his head away and concentrated more on his gambling.

Finally we reached the health centre. Mum was immediately hospitalised and put on a drip. Next day they took her to Laiagam Health Centre for a second time. This was the last time I saw her alive. A few days later, her body was brought home never to respond to my needs again.

Those of us in the village did not hear of her passing. There was no mobile phone network at the time. Nor was there many vehicles travelling on the Kandep – Laiagam road.

It was a total shock to see mum’s stiff body wrapped in a single blanket on the ground in the middle of the village square. It had been suddenly brought to the village on a government vehicle.

I was preparing to cook some fish in our house when a boy came and told me my mother had died and people were now crying over the body in the village square. But I told him my mother was in Laiagam and that he was lying. I continued to cook my fish.

Later, the woman who had knifed my mum came and rebuked me for cooking fish in the house when my mother was dead.

I don’t know what would have happened to me if I had heard about mum’s death while I was catching fish in the river. I am sure I would have jumped in the water and allowed myself to drown. I loved my mother very much. Who would I turn to now?

Sure enough I saw my mum lying on the ground wrapped in a red and green blanket. I saw my baby sister in somebody else’s arms. When I touched the stiff cold body, I wondered whose body this was. It was not my mum’s warm pulsating skin. Her eyes were closed statue-like.

I sat in stunned silence. An aunty comforted me by saying: “From now on your mother will never come back, she is gone for good. But don’t worry, we are here to help you.” I realised what this meant and joined in the wailing. But yet I felt emotionally strong.

I don’t know why, but before my mum’s body arrived that fateful day I returned home with my catch and changed into my mum’s new blouse. The blouse had been sent to her from Arawa by one of my two aunties married to an accountant with Bougainville Copper Limited. I had searched in her bag and somehow decided to wear it before I prepared to cook the fish.

It seems to me now that I had unconsciously prepared for my mum’s funeral by wearing her black dress sent from Arawa where black people live. Was it a coincidence?

That night my uncle’s first wife tried to nurse my baby sister but it cried uncontrollably. We all tried in turn to comfort her but she kept on crying. Maybe there was not enough milk in her breasts.

Miraculously, as if by cue, my father’s second wife gave birth to a baby girl the very next day immediately after my mum was buried at Yokola village. From then on there was enough milk for both my baby sisters. They grew up like twins and we named them Sandy and Yangi. At the time I was about six or seven years of age.

One night in the first week immediately after she was buried, I saw mum in a dream.

She held two bilums in one hand. In the other she held the cutting of a wild sugarcane plant or kol. She gave me the two bags, then turned and walked down a path towards her grave with the kol plant in her hands.

People interpreted the dream to mean that my baby sisters would be okay and that my mother had done wrong by dying young unable to look after me and my two sisters. But we would all grow up and prosper. Now, both Sandy and Yangi are married with children. Sandy is a primary school teacher.

During the funeral my bubu, Bishop Philipo Paiakae, and all my mother’s people demanded an autopsy be done before mum was buried to determine if the cause of her death was as a result of the stabbing. But I can’t remember what the outcome was.

At the time my uncle who worked as a mechanic at Kaiwei Motors in Mt Hagen took me and my second born sister to his house where we grew up. We stayed there until 1990 when my uncle resigned to contest the Lai Constituency Seat during the third Enga Provincial Government elections.

Before he nominated, he enrolled me at the Kandep Primary School. I did not complete my education because I ran away to my grandmother’s house while doing Grade 4.

Very early, one Monday morning, I took the family pigs to the Patuli marshes to feed on grass, worms and insects. It was the rainy season then and the Lai River was flooded and covered the grasslands for miles around. It even covered sweet potato gardens and the marshes looked like an extension of our big lake – Lake Patuli.

Schools of fish had come inland and were everywhere. I started catching them with other children and forgot about school.

That Monday morning my father had gone to do some maintenance work at the school. In the evening he came home a furious man. He beat me hard with a stick until blisters appeared on my skin. He then used some nettle leaves which stung me horribly. He did not stop even when I begged for mercy.

I was really hurt. I had never missed a single day of school before but why was my father so cruel to punish me so harshly? Did he know that my mum was dead?

I recalled how he continued to play cards when we were on our way to hospital. It was too much for me to bear so I ran away from him. My grandmother cried when she saw me in the condition I was in – swollen all over. She vowed never to let me go to live with his other wives in his harem.

My mother’s people must have been upset when nothing was said or done to the third wife who had knifed mum. He did nothing when the wretched bilum was found buried in a new sweet potato mound prepared by the third wife in her sweet potato patch. Why didn’t my father punish her?

I ignored my father when he sent word for me to return to school. My grandmother ignored him too. I enjoyed very much her love and close attention, something I missed so much after mum’s departure. I stayed with grandmother until she died three years later.

Then you (Daniel) found me in the village. If I had gone to school, do not think I would be your wife! Julie said, teasing me as she ended her sad tale in a fun sort of way.

Julie in Cairns.

Julie (left) with her husband Daniel (writer).

Made from possum fur, this bilum is a specially kept and treasured item by a young girl from Mt. Hagen , WHP. Image credit: Meri Hagen /March, 2017.

This bilum is a souvenir and a very special gift from a PNG mother to an Australian missionary. The current owner of the bilum, Roberta Neimann, an Australian kept this item in her corner of special collection of items closer to her life in Cairns, Australia. 
It was presented to her by her sister who was a missionary to Papua New Guinea. 
Image Credit: Roberta Niemann / March, 2017.