Like the Wahgi, the Abelam also use netbags, which they often call string bags, and only women make them. Women use them for the same purposes as in the Wahgi culture, for both work and decoration. Like the Wahgi men’s house, called the bolyim house, in the Abelam’s male ceremonial house, the tambaran house, fertility and women are depicted and referred to through the architecture and designs of the house. In the tambaran house, pieces of bark, called spathes, are sewn together to make the panels of the house. These panels are called wut, and are used to line the initiation chamber inside the ceremonial house. The word ‘wut’ not only refers to decorated string bags, the only female artistic activity, but also to nyan wut, which means womb" (Forge, 180). The interior chamber of the tambaran house is the place where male initiation, or the socialization and education of a boy, takes place. The presence of symbols of women’s art and childbirth is associated with the Abelam belief that during initiation a boy experiences a re-birth into manhood. However, the actual training for a boy’s birth into manhood is taken over by the men in the community (Forge, 174). Since the men play a subordinate role in biological reproduction, they try to control the social one (Kan, 161). Therefore, the inside of a closed container, the spirit of the body, which in this case is the male initiation chamber, is dominated by men.

Anthony Forge’s argument that women are "natural" creators and men are "cultural" creators has to do with the differences between women’s and men’s biological capabilities and gender roles. Biologically, women are the bearers of children and their wombs "contain" the child during pregnancy. In this manner, women are natural "containers" and their prime creativity is childbirth. Due to "men’s subordinate role in biological reproduction, they try to control the social one" (Kan, 161). Men are typically involved in public activities and thus, are considered "cultural" creators because their primary creativity is in art and ritual (Forge, 189). As "natural" creators, women are believed to have more power because they have a greater access to supernatural power through childbirth. Men, on the other hand, have access to the supernatural through rituals and religion, from which women are excluded. This idea exemplifies the meaning of art to the Abelam, which is to show the relationship between things, in this case, the relationship between women and men.