[ SUNDAY TRAVEL ]
In a place of mostly mottled greens and bleached whites, a bright yellow shack with an open indigo door catches the eye from a block away. It is too hot, muggy and windless to be stopping on the side of the road on the eastern edge of this flat coral atoll, but I tell the cab driver to pull up at the shack. Renowned craft works
showcase the natural
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tryan@starbulletin.comAs we drive closer I see that the smiling Marshallese woman in the window is weaving long fibers.
The "Busy Hands Club" (001-692-625-7440) is on Majuro's main road. There is no name to mark the doorway, but it is next to the Assumption Church and Schools.
"Yokwe," says Jane Ritok, who invites me in then sits cross-legged on the pandanus floor mats.
The 10-by-10-foot shack is filled with Marshallese handicrafts, or amimono: woven baskets, fans, hats, coasters, stick charts, many from the outer atolls like Arno to the east or Kili to the west. But Ritok also makes some of her own prized goods: woven necklaces, bracelets, place mats and wall hangings with shells from atolls all over the country.
These are beautifully made, durable and distinctive.
"Beautiful," I say.
"Kommool tata," she says. Thank you very much.
Marshallese handicrafts are known throughout the Central Pacific region for their high-quality workmanship, originality and use of natural materials such as coconut, pandanus leaves and likajir shells.
"Pandanus is the best material for mats, and even our men make sails with it," she says.
Known locally as maan, the pandanus leaves are used dry or green. Both methods involve cutting the ends and removing the thorns.
Dry leaves are then straightened by hand, rolled and made pliant by pressing. They also may be pounded.
Green leaves are stripped, then dried by leaving them in the sun for several days. The leaves also can be suspended -- usually on a coconut frond -- over a fire, until they've lost most of their moisture and are soft. Drying is completed by exposing them to the sun to produce the lightest shade possible. Then the leaves are straightened, rolled and pounded. Maan is softened with a dekenin, or stone maul, made either from a giant clamshell or hard rock.Leaves are slit into strips, the narrowest making the best weaves. Mat weaving is best done on a flat surface to keep the piece straight.
Kimej is a delicate, fine but strong white membrane from which the best handbags are made. It comes from the unopened spike at the top of a coconut palm, which if left unharvested would become the plant's newest shoot.
The compressed and immature leaves inside the shoot are released and then split for the transparent skin, which is boiled in water until it turns white. It's hung to dry, straightened, then slit to narrower widths for weaving; the fiber may also be dyed.
The strips used as support in more rigid pieces come from the midrib of the coconut frond, known as malwe.
Handbags in Ritok's "store" are stacked on shelves along one wall. She hands me two gorgeous white ones finished entirely in kimej.
"Kili bags," she says, not looking up from her bracelet weaving. "They are made by the women of Bikini atoll who were relocated to Kili (in the 1950s) after the (atomic bomb) testing."
I pick the larger purse with its firm shell clasp, rigid, wrapped handles and some dark dyed detailing along the sides for $16; a set of four woven and shell coasters, $4; a foot-in-diameter work basket, another $16; and various simple woven and shell bracelets and pendants, $3 each. On my return to Honolulu, I regret not having purchased at least one of the beautiful pandanus mats, usually 6 by 10 feet, for $35.
Down a rutted dirt road is the Marshalls Handicraft Shop (001-692-625-3566) behind the Alele Museum. A group of local women sit inside on a wooden bench laughing.
Mary Lanwi has been here since 1966. The shop is filled with flat, round wall hangings -- about $12 -- measuring 15 to 18 inches wide; none is the same. The base is malwe wrapped with kimej. The artists have put in small contrasts in color, stitching and proportion. Some are ornate with a lacelike pattern created by variations in weave or material.
Lanwi also sells woven fans; the most refined are displayed for ceremonies.
Among the most unique creations are the Marshallese "navigation and stick charts," which were used to teach and record the swells of the sea. There are two basic kinds: mattang and rebbelib. The first is for instruction only in swell-patterns; the second shows the place of islands in the group or one of its chains, with cowrie shells signifying islands.
The maps are made of strips of coconut midrib or pandanus root on a frame; curved strips show the direction of swells deflected by an island. Island currents may be shown by short straight pieces.
The stick charts make beautiful wall hangings but even better conversation pieces; about $10.
"It will bring you great enjoyment to explain to people in Hawaii how Marshallese sailors used to navigate from atoll to atoll," Lanwi tells me. "I am sure they will be amazed."