Description
All the sisters from Langarra Outstation at Howard Island are Master Weavers. They make beautiful mats, dilly bags and baskets from pandanus and bush string and natural dyes. As young girls they learned to weave from their mothers and their grandmothers. The weaving process is labour intensive. The new shoots from the centre of the pandanus palm are gathered with careful selection. The fine serrated edges must be removed, This is done by running the fingernail down each side of the frond. It is then split into two lengths by peeling the frond several times. The process is repeated until the fibres are thin. These strips of fibre will be dried in the sun and then dyed by boiling in a natural colour. Roots, shrubs, leaves and seeds can be used to make the coloured dye. The weaving of the basket to a desired shape requires great skill. The wrapping and knots must be uniform and the joining colours must blend. A variety of plants provide fibre to make the string but the plant mostly used is the Stringy Bark tree and the air roots of the Banyan tree. The bark is pulled off in strips and dried, then dyed. Spinning of the plant fibre is done by hand. Two or three strips are stretched over the thigh, the ends are held with one hand and the threads are kept apart between the fingers. With the palm of the first hand fibres are rolled back and forth across the thigh, spinning them together into two or three ply string.
