Traditional Crafts: A Way Forward For Sustainable Livelihood Programmes
■Setareki Valenitabua, coordinator, Department of Community Based NonFormal Education, National Training and Productivity Centre, Fiji National University
The Republic of the Fiji Islands is a multi-cultural island nation with cultural traditions of Oceanic, European, South Asian, and East Asian origins.
The multi-cultural composition of the island somewhat affects the cultural identity of the people.
It is vital to note that the indigenous Fijians did continue to teach and practice some components of their traditional crafts and culture.
Almost every indigenous Fijian girl learns the art of weaving baskets and mats for home and ceremonial use.
The production of bark cloth is another traditional female skill; the cloth, which is used as traditional clothing and is still important in Fijian ceremonies, is now also sold to tourists in the form of wall hangings and handbags.
War clubs, spears, decorated hooks, kava bowls, and “cannibal forks” are carved by men almost entirely for tourist consumption. Pottery is made by women.
The traditional dance theatre (meke) combines singing, chanting, drumming, and stylized movements of the upper body to recreate stories, myths, and legends.
In villages, it is performed on special occasions such as the visit of a chief, a life-cycle event, or a ceremonial gift exchange.
Ethnic Fijian choral singing is performed both during religious services and for secular entertainment; almost every village church has a choir. Western popular music is played live and on the radio.
Among Indo-Fijians too, both secular and sacred music has maintained its popularity.
Development of Traditional Crafts
While other countries such as Tahiti and Hawaii are experiencing a revival in traditional arts, Fiji has no such contemporary movement – the reason being, for the most part, that Fijians never lost their cultural heritage.
That’s not to say, that traditional art, such as mat weaving and masi making are as prolific as in former times.
As the population increasingly moves from rural to urban areas and social media engages usages also increases, young people simply are not taking time and effort to learn the old art forms.
Most of the folkloric crafts are practised in the villages, and village life is still the foundation of Fijian society.
That is not to say that modern life and the drift to urban areas has not impacted Fiji’s traditional arts and handicrafts.
It certainly has taken a toll.
The good news is that the government with some agencies like the Arts Council of Fiji, a mostly government-funded agency, is encouraging village artisans to practice their age-old skills and sell their works to visitors via handicrafts fairs that are held throughout Fiji during the year.
Critics do point to the decreasing quality (primarily due to the commercialisation of crafts caused by the tourist trade) of woodcarving and pottery, but there are still people around who know about carving and making of potteries which have been passed from one generation to another.
However, except for a few skills like traditional house-building, which may disappear within 15 years soon because village homes are not built with traditional materials anymore, the art remains part of contemporary culture.
The Main Challenges to Traditional Crafts Urbanisation
Post-colonial era after 1970, there was an influx of the rural and maritime population movement to Fiji’s urban centres looking for better living standards and education.
Majority of the migrated population were children and youths.
This population was engaged to new ideas, values and western ways of doing things losing focus on traditional values and ideas.
Urban to periphery development
New developments in rural areas such as roads, shipping, airport, business, has increased the movement of goods and services including the movement of people and the birth rate.
The substitution of traditional ideas, goods and services even artifacts affect the use of traditional ideas, values, and crafts.
The value added to these modern goods and services is viewed as superior while the inferior traditional goods and services are neglected.
Modern technologies
People are opting to use substitute products rather than using the traditional artifacts and crafts- for example, people are seen using cheap bowls and not the wooden bowls.
People resort to modern technologies because it is convenient, uses less effort in the production.
Education
What is valued as important is determined by the curriculum.
In most developing and underdeveloped countries, the imposed curriculum has a major influence on the culture and traditions.
In Fiji, the curriculum is more westernised thus re-shaped the way of life of the pre-colonial generation.
Substitute products
A substitute good is a good that can be used in place of another.
In consumer theory, substitute goods or substitutes are goods that a consumer perceives as similar or comparable so that having more of one good cause the consumer to desire less of the other good.
For example, buying a plastic bowl would be cheaper, less time usage, cheap and accessible than carving a wooden bowl from wood.
Change in roles of men and women
Urbanisation has impacted the role of men and women.
Men and women migrating to urban areas change their roles from their traditional rural environment to a more advanced urban environment.
The way forward for Rural, Maritime and Urban Informal Communities SLP Strategies for Improvements
New strategies have been put in place from 2017-2018 to revitalise productivity in rural communities.
One specific strategy is the introduction of courses that are sustainable, environmentally friendly and with appropriate and readily available technology and also adaptive to climate change.
For SLP, the primary objective of the project is to train and empower rural communities and villages with basic practical skills and knowledge that are relevant and necessary to their immediate and future needs.
In doing so, it hopes to impart and address the productive use of local natural resources as a means to alleviate rural poverty situations.
It would be interesting to blend the SLP courses to Fijian traditional crafts as a way forward for sustainable development and alleviate the challenges encountered by traditional crafts in Fiji.
The Blended Courses
Currently, SLP has seventeen on-going courses which focus on hands-on practical skills.
These courses even though utilise new tools and equipment with globalised ideas and innovations, require some practical traditional known skills to be adaptive to sustainable changes.
It is vital to incorporate traditional crafts skills with the new technical and vocational skills to bring sustainable changes in terms of:
■ Improve contents with the emphasis on competency-based assessment
■ Acquiring new innovative ideas which are more relevant globally and to the modern-day business requirements and expectations
■ Introduction of on-line training, internet skills, multimedia skills, advanced communication skills, new training techniques with the use of new technologies.
These innovative technologies will improve the quality and marketability of the final product.
Hence, in the global market, we can be more competitive and at the same time sustain our skills in utilising local resources.
Some training that can be blended with the current SLP courses:
■ Weaving – not only for mat but also bamboo to make chairs and other furniture as in cabinet making and joinery
■ Masi making blended with the current course of screen printing
■ Pottery making
■ Carving with Cabinet making and joinery
■ Sustainable land use management with some traditional methods of land management
■ Contemporary cooking and patisserie with traditional food preparations and preservations
■ Modern house construction with traditional house making
■ Modern fibreglass boat construction blended with canoe making
■ Tailoring not only the use fabric but tapa can be utilized to make the garment.
■ Traditional dances as a form of callisthenic activities for health and fitness
■ The use of available resources for decorations which may not entirely focus on flowers.
To be more competitive in this era of globalisation, people cannot rely on common global products to have a sustainable livelihood.
We have to be more innovative and creative in the utilisation of available local resources and knowledge.
For a way forward, the sustainable livelihood and community alternative learning programmes should be oriented and blended with our Fijian traditional crafts to revitalise the skills and make our crafts more competitive the crafts market nationally and internationally.