Written piece
My papa was an artisan of the grove
Marlene Dee Gray Potoura
Papua New Guinea
About this piece
The walls of houses in many parts of Papua New Guinea are woven with split bamboo. The patterns are unique and differ in clans, tribes and families.
My Papa was an artisan of the grove. He wove split bamboo into the loves of his life. The patterns he wove were astounding. The walls in our houses showed the beginnings of our names. M for Marlene, T for Trevor, J for Jacob, L for Linda, MA for Mama.
When I visited the old house that my great, grandfather built, the patterns on the walls, were different. I saw beaks of birds, spiky ears, flat hoofs, square noses, bulgy clouds, various shaped leaves. “Why?” I asked my father. “What he saw and love, he wove. He did not know how to write,” my father explained.
My father is gone, just like my grandfather. The bamboos still speak. The walls are lined with letters of my brothers, my sister and my mama.
“What are those?” my son asked when he visited our old family home. “Those are letters of the beginning of our names. Grandfather wove them,” I told him.
Memories are woven through time. Just look somewhere and find that someone you love had left something for you. I see it in the walls of my old home, which still stands.