Artifacts of the early Fijians
AVERY long time ago, before the first Europeans settled in Fiji, indigenous Fijians used their knowledge and the abundance of nature to design artefacts for war, food gathering, cultural rituals and for personal use.
While modern art and craft may intrigue us with its aesthetics and, those created in the hands of those who lived before us were equally awe-inspiring. This week we will look at a few important artefacts that men and women used in their quest to survive and conquer during pre-contact Fiji.
I cula ni bokola
These wooden forks were sacred implements used during special tribal feasts following a cannibalistic killing.
Unlike modern-day silver table forks which possess a number of prongs arranged in a neat line, the
cula ni bokola had four prongs with sharpened ends. Commonly called cannibal forks, they conjure up the savage treatment that warriors gave their defeated enemies during the days of tribal wars. Native Fijians were great hunters and gatherers.
They were great farmers too. To them, cannibalism was not done out of hunger but rather as a ritual to humiliate a fallen tribe and drive fear in others.
Some accounts suggest that during these brutal rituals, cannibal forks were made to feed human flesh to the conquering chief.
Records show the taboo nature of cannibal forks made them highly treasured and, therefore, they were sometimes kept in the temple called bure kalou.
Saqa ni Wai
These rounded clay pots were used to store fresh water for everyday use or during long sea journeys that required sailing for days on end.
Fijian pots were earthenware pottery, the making of which dates back to Fiji’s original settlers, known as the Lapita people. Pot making was the work of women.
They would gather slabs of a fine clay soil from the wild and paddle them into shapes, embellished them with Lapita designs and put heat them in the open fire.
While they were still hot from the fire, they were glazed using the resin of the native hardwood, dakua.
Saqa ni wai comes in a number of designs. One of them is the earthenware that looks like conjoined spherical bulbs pictured in our one-dollar coin called saqa moli.
Wasekaseka
The wasekaseka was one of the finest items of jewellery worn around the neck in the olden days to signify wealth, power and status.
They became significant after the commercial whaling period between the early and mid-1800s.
Those who made this neck jewellery had to wait until a whale beached on the shore before they could source the ivory and fashion it into a wearable piece of adornment”.
Each wasekaseka was made up of whale teeth strung together using a sinnet made from beaten and woven coconut fibre.
Similar necklaces, called vuasagale, were made from the stubby teeth of the sperm whale.
Tabua
A tabua is a polished tooth of a sperm whale regarded as the most important cultural item in Fijian society.
In the olden days, tabua were presented as gifts, gestures of respect and solidarity and as negotiation tools during times of war.
Deceased chiefs were often buried with a tabua, along with their favourite war clubs and their strangled wives. This was to help them in their journey through the afterlife.
Tabua were valued as symbols of wealth and power and were sometimes exchanged for canoes during early trade between early Fijians and their Tongan neighbours. Originally, they were very rare items.
Today, whale teeth are used during important traditional Fijian ceremonies such as weddings, funerals and the welcoming of esteemed guests, among others.
Noke
In old Fiji, women used baskets of various sizes to help them with their daily chores.
These were woven from coconut fronds and worn using back straps like a satchel.
Small fishing baskets called noke had small openings to slide through fish and shellfish during an outing on the reef.
This indicates that women had an important role to play in subsistence food gathering, specifically in providing seafood as a meat protein source for the family.
Women used large baskets or ketekete to carry firewood or food from the plantation.
Kali
Kali were wooden ‘pillows’ or headrests. They were used by placing the base of the skull on their horizontal bars for sleeping and resting.
Some speculation suggest that the kali were first designed to maintain the elaborate buiniga or traditional Fijian Afro hairdos, during sleep.
High-ranking chiefs had their special kali made and were sometimes adorned with carvings or shells. Because the head was regarded as the most sacred
part of the human body, kali had some significance.
They were highly polished and made from a single piece of sacred wood, vesi.
Sedre ni waiwai
These were shallow wooden dishes, primarily used as sacred vessels inside temples to store oil
(waiwai) or to serve yaqona.
They were cut from hardwood using one block of felled timber and designed by traditional craftsmen. Most were circular in shape with two legs and pointed ends that acted as snouts.
Sedre ni waiwai had handlebars of sorts and rested on legs, often three. Some were decorated with intricate carvings or inlaid with polished shells.
The sedre ni waiwai were closely associated with the spirit world and ancestral worship. They were handled by priests called bete who were the intermediary between humans and deities before the arrival and influence of Christianity.
Iri
Iri or traditional hand-held fans were made from either coconut fronds or dried and sun-bleached pandanus leaves and different parts of Fiji had their own designs.
For example, the iri ni Daku and the iri ni Natewa called Sovatabua are uniquely different in material and design.
Because fans were items of elegance, they were largely made for women, although some chiefs were known to fans for personal use and for traditional dances or meke, which were different.
Kuro ni Viti
Kuro ni Viti were large earthenware pots used by
women to cook on the open fire. It had a slightly larger mouth when compared to the saqa ni wai. This was to allow the easy transfer of food into and from the pot.
Kuro ni Viti were produced in the same way saqa ni wai were made, by beating clay into desired shapes, putting them into the fire to harden and then glazing them with tree resin.
Kuro ni Viti had rounded bodies.
I roi
While fans were largely used by women because of their elegance, the I roi perhaps were used mostly by men.
They were prepared from finely separated strands of coconut fibre and looked like the tail of horses. Like hand-held fans, they had slender handles.
The I roi were used to chase away flies and mosquitoes and came in handy during mealtimes.
Rubugugu
These are equivalent to modern-day bags. They were special rectangular baskets woven by women using dried pandanus leaves and coconut fronds.
The inside of the rubugugu were spacious and could accommodate a wide range of items, such as food and fruits, as well as the very few personal belongings that women in those days had in their possession.
Handle straps were fitted to the rubugugu to allow women to move them easily and carry them around.
While those in the olden days were plain, the ones used today emphasise visual attraction and therefore have added decorative features.
Tanoa
The tanoa are large wooden bowls carved from a single piece of native hardwood called vesi.
They are used to prepare yaqona made from the root of a pepper tree.
In times long gone, the Yaqona was prepared by the young girls of a village who chewed the pieces of the root into a soft pulpy mass before the water was added.
Today the roots are pounded in a pestle and mortar called tuki and tabili or by machine.
To make a tanoa, a tree is felled and cut into slabs from which tanoa is formed.
In the olden days, a stone adze is used to shape, hollow out and carve legs. Fijian tanoa is distinctive because it is wide than deep.
Matau vatu
No quarry for stone adzes has ever been identified in Fiji.
However, experts believe the first adzes were around over 1000 years ago and were used by traditional woodsman at least until the late 1700s.
They featured intricate lashings that were strongly bound together with a stone blade to the wooden body and were used to shape and hollow out wood used in making wooden crafts like canoes, tanoa,
takona and lali.
Without these stone and wood tools, many canoes would not have seen the light of day and many wars in olden days Fiji would not have been won.
Or perhaps, the course of Fiji’s history would have been very different.
■ History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.