Lila has painted very rare painting designs. These traditional designs were taught to her by one of her ‘mothers’ (her aunt), Joyce-Bella Mujorumo, former Duvahe (Chief ) of Dahorurajé clan women.

The border and the irregular square frames are known as orriseegé or ‘pathways’ and provide a compositional framework for the designs. Passed down from the ancestors and present in almost all Ömie barkcloth art, these pathways relate to the ways through the forest to food gardens.

The conjoined concentric circles are viojoje dehe, the wings of the butterfly.

The vertical lines of diamonds are the men’s tattoo design of the bellybutton, vinohu’e, representing siha’u’e, the fruit of the sihe tree. Lila explains how in the time of the ancestors during times of tribal warfare, the Ömie male warriors had no food while they were defending their borders in the forest far from their villages so they survived by chewing the sihe fruit, swallowing the juice and then they would spit out the pulp.

The sawtooth lines of triangles represent vison’e, jewellery for the nasal septum made from a small eel bone in the time of the ancestors. In more recent times the vison’e is fashioned from the chest-bone of a tubor’e (Dwarf Cassowary). This piercing was a very important part of the Ömie Ujawé initiation rite for boys and girls. The Ujawé initiation rites of piercing and tattooing were performed in underground chambers known as guai, which were situated outside of the village in remote locations in the rainforest.

The spots within the orriseegé is a design called sabu ahe representing the spots which can be seen on the sides of a wood-boring grub. This grub is sacred to Ömie people as it plays an important part within the creation story of how Huvaimo (Mt. Lamington) came to be volcanic. It is a traditional soru’e (tattoo design) which was most commonly tattooed as a band of spots under each eye. Today it is applied to Ömie people’s faces for dance performances with natural pigments.