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Woven Artistry: Exploring the Pacific's Finest Handicrafts in Majuro

A coral atoll seems an unlikely place to showcase the power of using local resources. At first glance, the low-lying islets that make up an atoll, none rising more than five or six feet above sea level, have few natural resources beyond sand, coconut and breadfruit trees, and the bounty of the sea.

But in the Marshall Islands, a watery nation in the Central Pacific made up of 34 atolls and islands with 1 million square miles of ocean, women have developed a tradition of producing the finest handicrafts in the Pacific using local resources. The claim is not an exaggeration. The Marshall Islands is about 1,850 miles east of Guam. Continental offers daily flights to Majuro, the capitol city.

In American Samoa in 2008, more than 2,000 islanders from 23 Pacific Island nations and territories sent their best artisans and dancers to the 10th Festival of Pacific Arts. The festival, held every four years, is the Olympics of Pacific culture and crafts. The Marshall Islands had a small booth showcasing and selling its traditional handicrafts -- exquisitely made purses, mats, wall hangings and jewelry fashioned from tightly woven pandanus and indigenous shells.

The audience of some of the best Oceanic artists cleaned out the booth in less than two days, and the Marshallese organizer said she could have sold another shipping container's worth of handicrafts. A member of the Samoan delegation, no slouches when it comes to traditional crafts, told me the Marshallese handicraft was the finest she'd ever seen.

On Majuro atoll, capital of the Marshall Islands, Patsy Herman is recognized as one of the young nation's finest weavers. Her specialty is jaki, woven mats that have served many purposes over the centuries. When Western explorers first stumbled across the Marshall Islands, mats were worn as clothing and also used for sleeping. Some of the best examples of those magnificent jaki can be found in the collection of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

The Jaki
Today, jaki are primarily decorative or used as hangings. I have a 3-foot by 3-foot "baby mat" that was given to my parents when I was born on Majuro in the early 1950s. It is a lovely piece -- seven distinct patterns using two colors in a mat made of tightly woven pandanus leaves stripped to no more than one quarter inch wide. The weave is so fine that the mat feels like starched cloth rather than something made from the leaves of a hardy plant that thrives in the harsh climate along beaches.

But rather than have the mat left unprotected, I've had it framed in archival materials. It's a shame to not be able to touch the mat, but the thought of such an important piece of family history being exposed to the elements or insects is too scary to consider.

As is often the case with weavers in the Marshall Islands, Patsy learned the art by watching her mother. She started to work with the pandanus leaves when she was in the fourth grade. Today, at 44, she's teaching her two daughters how to weave.

"She thinks they'll become weavers, too," says Maria Kabua Fowler, a Marshallese of high traditional rank who is a recognized cultural authority and has been a driving force to train more young women to become weavers, particularly of jaki.

Most Marshallese handicrafts are made from the pandanus leaf. The leaves, which have serrated edges, are dried and then pounded to soften them. The leaves are then rolled into wheel shapes, from which weavers cut the leaves into thin strips. The finest weavers are able to work with strips that are about one-quarter-inch wide and, using just their hands, weave mats, hats and purses with incredibly fine weaves.

Patsy shows us a hat that she's making for an official at the U.S. Embassy on Majuro. She had taken his head measurement the day before. Today, the hat is nearly done, the weave as fine as any fancy hat produced in Central or South America.

One of the most popular handicraft items is what the Marshallese call a wut, a woven head lei that depicts intricate flowers and other plant life. Some flowers are colored; others are the brilliant white that characterizes so much of the finest Marshallese woven handicrafts.

A few years ago, few women were seen in Majuro wearing the woven wut. Today, it is a commonplace fashion accessory, just as stunning as shell necklaces, sometimes with matching shell earrings, and bracelets. Fans are also a popular and useful handicraft item.

But perhaps the best-known, and most prized fashion piece is the so-called Kili Bag. It is to the Pacific what the Hermes Kelly bag is to French couture. No exaggeration -- a few years back, I saw a Kili Bag in a special display at one of the toniest department stores in Honolulu. I recognized its distinctive shape, and when I went closer to look at the bag, I saw its price tag: $1,500. An extremely fine, large Kili Bag on Majuro will go for much less, usually around $45 in most stores.

The Kili Bag
Like so much in the Marshall Islands, the Kili Bag is a product of beauty that arose out of necessity. The people who live on Kili Island are originally from Bikini Atoll, site of U.S. atomic tests during the 1940s and 1950s. Unlike Bikini, which has a large lagoon and many islets that can grow food, Kili is a barren island with no natural harbor. In the 1950s, women decided they needed to do something to bring more money to their then struggling community. So they organized themselves around something they were skilled at -- weaving handicraft -- and developed a woman's purse of exquisite simplicity and beauty. The Kili Bag is woven of brilliant white pandanus leaves and has a single rectangular compartment with an attached form-fitting flip-top lid. The two handles form a graceful U.

Today, most Kili Bags are woven on Arno Atoll, which is near Majuro. No matter. The bags are still stunning.

But in the same spirit that led the women of Kili, 50-some years ago, to develop their distinctive purse, today's Marshallese weavers are in the midst of a creative bloom. The number of new designs, both of handicraft products and of existing bags and implements, is stunning.

Marshallese weavers are particularly good at drawing creative inspiration from new forms and fashions, as well as from the past. Recent exhibits that brought old jaki, some dating to the 1800s, to Majuro from the Bishop Museum collection, stunned many weavers, who had never seen the old designs. Soon, they were incorporating some of the patterns into contemporary handicrafts.

A visitor to Majuro has a number of fine handicraft shops from which to choose excellent work. There are five main shops on the island, as well as handicraft centers in other stores, and each carries variations of hats, women's purses, intricate wall hangings, trivets and coasters, and jewelry. A new item that's become extremely popular is single woven flowers. The smaller ones, some of which are colored with dye, are worn over the ears of women; the larger ones are used in arrangements.

And it is possible to order a jaki, the traditional woven mat. It is an individual work of art, and it takes most weavers around two months to make a mat that one might have worn in traditional times. Prices for a mat that size run about $200. Given how much work goes into weaving a jaki, these stunning mats are among the best value handicraft that a visitor can buy in the Marshall Islands.

Photo courtesy of Olivier Koning/For Pacific Sunda

Photo courtesy of Olivier Koning/For Pacific Sunda

Excellent weave: Marshall Islands weavers find inspiration for new designs from many sources and quickly include those elements in the latest fashion handicraft.

Photo courtesy of Olivier Koning/For Pacific Sunda

Fans: Woven fans and wut, or woven head leis, are best-sellers in the Marshall Islands.

Photo courtesy of Olivier Koning/For Pacific Sunda

Decorations: Woven wall hangings, with intricate, lace-like weavings, are among the most popular handicrafts purchased by visitors to the Marshall Islands.

Photo courtesy of Olivier Koning/For Pacific Sunda

Guam PDN

Thanks for the article!
Free counters!

Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 4:33 pm Post subject:

The story is true about how they made the bags for fundraising but the person who actually taught the women in kili how to make the bags never got recognition. She went to kili to help the people of bikini.

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:27 am Post subject:

Elap ao tomak ilo recognize i Kora ro Jined ilo entaan im kijejeto ko aer nan wonmanlok ko an armij in majol im RMI. Im elane jibum eo juon ear entaan im jiban armij rein, innem, aikwij recognized. Ewor k kol kwemaron "JUTAK" kin "MARON" ne adjel jibwid bwen recognized??? Elukun jerbal bwod ne eh eo ak ejelok s kile elaptata armij rane ao, ribikini. Elane enaj eh eo, inaj lukun jook kin aer kabwil im jab kile armij jet kein. Im jouj, ewor k?
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Lewaj kein jinibin ak maat in ko BUuUM!!!!!!!!

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:43 pm Post subject:

Aet, lelap eo ke jibu im elap kar kwonan nan armij ro ilo kili. Ejab e rikili ak ekar volunteer in jiban. I really don't know how she will ever get recognized for it but it doesn't matter anymore, as long as we know the story behind the bag and I will pass that along to my kids and their kids and so on. All I know is I am proud that my grandmother contributed a lot to help out the people in need at that time.

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:26 pm Post subject:

LiBubu in bakake Ri Jaluit ke?
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Ij Iakwelok Aelon eo Ao

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:51 pm Post subject:

Enej, bubu ej ri-jaluit im re-ebon.

Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 1:05 am Post subject:

Ekakwikwi-jinen-emaan!
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Ij Iakwelok Aelon eo Ao