traditional bilum string bag

Description

Bilums are surprisingly strong and can stretch to carry all sorts of things.
Women carry everything from babies to firewood in bilums (though not at the same time!).
It is getting very hard to find bilums made in the traditional way anymore in PNG because of the ready availability of synthetic strings and  dyes.
These traditional bags are practical and collectors items.
This is a true traditional bilum.
The string is made by twisting fibers from the inner bark of a Gnetum tree.
Just making the string takes days, then woven by hand into the bilum.
The colors are from clays and plant dyes, particularly from the roots of an orchid for the purplish color.
These bags are carried by nearly everyone in the highlands of New Guinea, men and women.
This bag comes from Herowana Village in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea.