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Introduction

This exhibition reveals the enormous range and quality of artworks made in Fiji over the last two centuries, especially the nineteenth century, and highlights the skills and creative adaptability of the artists and craftspeople who made these remarkable objects. Compared with other Pacific Island groups, Indigenous Fijians produced the greatest variety of artworks—including sculpture in wood and ivory, textiles, pottery, and basketry—distinguished by skillful execution and imaginative design. All were made in the context of Fijian daily or spiritual life, centering on honor and respect and observing the highest standards of craftsmanship.

The Republic of Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than three hundred islands; around one-third are permanently inhabited. South of the equator and more than one thousand miles north of New Zealand, Fiji’s environment is rich, with heavy rainfall in the southeast of the largest island, Viti Levu, and drier weather in the west and north. Fertile soils on most islands provide ample food crops, while the lagoons of extensive reef systems supply fish and shellfish.

It is a bountiful environment, which, as in most places in the world, is under pressure from human and natural causes, such as deforestation, mangrove clearance, and overfishing in Fijian and adjacent waters by overseas fishing boats. Global warming, sea level rise and erosion, and natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, pose challenges to present and future generations.

The local environment produced the majority of materials represented in the exhibition, including a wide variety of hard and soft timber for housing, canoes, and weapons; plant materials for textiles, mats, roofing, ropes, and bindings; clay, bamboo, and coconuts for containers; and shells and other marine materials for adornments. In the nineteenth century, highly valued sperm whale teeth were obtained from carcasses stranded on reefs or by exchange with Tongans and Europeans. Fiji is notable in the Pacific as a country that has maintained many of its cultural traditions.

Credit Line

The exhibition is organized by the Sainsbury Centre and Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, in association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Presented by

Generous support is provided by

Additional support is provided by the Ethnic Arts Council and the ATADA Foundation.

All exhibitions at LACMA are underwritten by the LACMA Exhibition Fund. Major annual support is provided by Kitzia and Richard Goodman, Meredith and David Kaplan, and Jeffrey Saikhon, with generous annual funding from Terry and Lionel Bell, the Judy and Bernard Briskin Family Foundation, Kevin J. Chen, Louise and Brad Edgerton, Edgerton Foundation, Emily and Teddy Greenspan, Earl and Shirley Greif Foundation, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross, Mary and Daniel James, David Lloyd and Kimberly Steward, Kelsey Lee Offield, David Schwartz Foundation, Inc., Mr. and Mrs. Anthony and Lee Shaw, Lenore and Richard Wayne, Marietta Wu and Thomas Yamamoto, and The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation.

New Relationships and Arrivals

In the nineteenth century, Fiji established relationships with new visitors and settlers through trade and exchange. Initially, traders seeking sandalwood and then sea cucumbers (bêche-de-mer) for trade with China called in at places such as Bua Bay on Vanua Levu. Following those travelers, Russian, French, American, and British naval expeditions made scientific and diplomatic visits. Leading Fijian chiefs, in a ploy to create an alliance with the most powerful chief at that time, offered in 1858 and later in 1873 to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria. The Deed of Cession was signed in 1874, and Fiji became a British Crown colony until independence almost a century later, in 1970.

Meanwhile Christian missionaries, initially Methodists and later Catholics, established missions at chiefly centers in Fiji, the first in 1835 at Tubou on Lakeba in the eastern Lau islands. By the late 1870s, most Fijians had converted to Christianity, but still retained respect for their ancestors, who were embodied in their elders and chiefs. Relationships with outsiders were often managed and maintained via reciprocal gift-giving and exchange. European visitors and residents became keen collectors for scientific and souvenir purposes.

Voyaging

About three thousand years ago, adventurous explorers undertaking a five-hundred-mile open-ocean voyage (originally coming from the west, probably from the current region of Vanuatu) first settled the Fijian archipelago. Numerous subsequent migrations and settlements took place, from west and east, to form the Fijian population as Europeans encountered it in the nineteenth century.

Many voyagers eventually settled on the two main islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, while others inhabited outer islands, where canoe transport was essential. The arrival in eastern Fiji in the eighteenth century of Samoan-Tongan canoe builders, who employed a new Micronesian-style rigging, led to the development of massive double-hulled canoes more than one hundred feet long. These specialist craftsmen, working in the service of Fijian chiefs, also made beautiful items of regalia, such as ivory breastplates, which they assembled using canoe-building techniques. Canoes were originally built with stone-bladed tools, but metal acquired from Europeans accelerated the work.

Fast-moving canoes were used for fishing (see the elaborate trolling lure on view nearby), while spears, used by men, and nets, mostly used by women, were the main fishing methods in Fiji in the nineteenth century. The first settlements in Fiji are associated with the remains of a distinctive type of pottery known as Lapita. Named after the site in New Caledonia where it was first identified, Lapita pottery is the primary diagnostic material used to identify the presence of populations that migrated from Southeast Asia through Melanesia to Fiji around 1500 to 1000 BCE. The pottery is dentate-stamped (impressed with a toothed tool), which creates intricate repeating patterns, occasionally including faces and figures.

Fiber and Textile Arts

Masi is the Fijian word for the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) as well as for the cloth made from its inner bark. To produce masi, the bark is stripped from saplings and then the white inner bark is separated and soaked in water. Next, the inner bark is beaten into thin sheets with wooden beaters called ike ni masi. Sheets are progressively layered and folded to make the cloth strong, and then left to dry. Individual lengths can then be felted together or gummed, using a natural paste, to form cloths of any size and length.

Sometimes masi is decorated with local vegetable and mineral dyes, applied by stenciling, rubbing on a pattern board, or freehand painting. Stenciling is the most frequent form of decoration and, in the Pacific, is unique to Fiji, where masi is made almost exclusively by women (although men help harvest the bark). Fine white masi without decoration, thin as muslin, is the most highly valued. The quality of Fijian barkcloth is well-recognized across the Pacific and, unlike in many other places, barkcloth-making has continued to the present. Enormous presentation cloths have been made for investitures, weddings, or as state gifts; one measured in 1845 was 540 feet long. A widespread tradition, exhibited nearby, is the three-piece barkcloth attire worn by both men and women on important ceremonial occasions. The wearing of masi, including wrapping the body with substantial amounts of the material, remains significant in Fijian culture; the absorptive and protective qualities of the cloth are linked to the containment of a person’s power (mana).

Garland (salusalu), 2019

Viniana Lewamoqe
Fiji, n.d., active Maqara, Naitasiri, Fiji

Hibiscus fiber and barkcloth
Private collection

TR.18249

Embodying the Ancestors

While it seems that figures were not worshiped as deities, they were kept in temples and shrines as embodiments of deified deceased individuals, usually ancestors. There appear to be two basic types:standing figures with bases or pegs, and those incorporated into hooks used for suspending offerings. Of the extant corpus, female images considerably outnumber male examples. Some representational elements recur, such as the posture with arms held free from the body, tattoos, and remnants of hair or adhesive substances on the heads of figures, presumably to secure wigs.

Examples of ivory double-figure hooks or single-figure pendants are even more uncommon. One of the three known surviving double-figure hooks is shown here, collected by the first resident British governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordon, in 1876. Field reports refer to such hooks as “the most revered of all objects. . . small twinned images, most skillfully carved from a single sperm whale’s tooth.” They were further described as being hung within a small temple of coconut fiber cordage and placed within an actual temple (portable temples are included in the Respecting the Ancestors section of this exhibition). Much of the ivory sculpture from Fiji has been associated with Tonga, the source of initial collections made on Captain James Cook’s voyages in 1773 and 1774. Figures from the nineteenth century are rare from Fiji, with just a few dozen examples, some preserved in the Fiji Museum, Suva, and elsewhere in collections. A number of styles are identifiable though it may never be possible to locate the centers of production with any precision.

Warfare

Warfare was frequent in Fiji until the mid-nineteenth century; the country continues to maintain a proud martial tradition. Fijian troops currently serve in Sinai and with United Nations Peacekeeping forces elsewhere. More than weapons, Fijian clubs and spears were important ritual objects and expressions of supreme carving and military skill. The clubs included in this exhibition demonstrate the great variety of forms made in Fiji.

Although most were effective weapons for hand-to-hand combat, some are relatively unwieldy, even for powerful Fijian warriors; their appearance and form was often considered more important than their technical efficiency. Very little is known about the specific makers of these clubs and what the different forms represent or signify, but large numbers have survived in collections, partly because of their durability and partly because of nineteenth-century European interest in collecting weapons. A club or two was the expected accoutrement for active Fijian men, and, as in other regions, pomp and display were important aspects of military action. Combat was traditionally preceded by vigorous parading, performance, and boasting. It is difficult to assign particular club forms to regions of Fiji because clubs, like many other objects, were exchange valuables that circulated widely within Fiji and beyond, including to Tonga and eventually to Europe and America.

Fiji Life

As seen throughout this exhibition, barkcloth (masi) provides a strong visual anchor for the presentation of Fijian traditional materials. Tools for the production of barkcloth, including pattern boards, rubbing forms, and wooden beaters, often bear evidence of considerable use. Other implements nearby include a special adze for cracking ivi nuts, a bamboo tube for the transportation of water, and an end-blown trumpet for various types of communication. The bar headrest, made from a single or multiple pieces of wood, was a key domestic object; it protected and provided air circulation for hairdos while people slept on woven mats. In the nineteenth century, they were produced in a variety of styles, some imported from Tonga or adapted from Tongan forms. They were often presented to a couple as marriage gifts by the woman’s family, who were expected to provide a range of domestic goods to symbolize their clan’s ability to establish a successful household.

Other works in this gallery, including elaborate multichambered water jars (saqa), provide a broader view of Fijian life during the nineteenth century. Saqa were often rubbed with hot resin from the dakua tree (Agathis vitiensis) to produce a glossy varnish, and given shapes from the natural world, like turtles, plantains, and citrus fruit.

Respecting the Ancestors

Spiritual observance in the early nineteenth century focused mainly on divine ancestors, to whom temples were dedicated rather than a lineage of creator gods, as found in many other areas of the world. In Fiji there was a direct correlation between divine power and the phenomena that affected human life, such as rain, drought, crop fertility, and, especially, illness. Accordingly, there was a very practical aspect to Fijian ritual, which involved prayers, chants, sacrificial offerings, obeisance, and other forms of worship in order to please the gods and elicit desired outcomes.

Model or portable temples, such as those seen in this gallery, duplicate the architecture of full-scale temples, and were probably kept in the main bure kalou, and possibly taken as portable shrines on canoe voyages. They are made of great lengths of handmade coconut husk cordage and their elaborate construction was a form of sacrifice and skilled sacred work.

In pre-Christian ritual, yaqona was made in concentrated form for consumption by priests, who sucked it through reed tubes from shallow dishes, some with elaborately carved pedestals. A wide range of types of these shallow, priestly yaqona dishes can be found in this gallery. These bowls were used for the burau priestly rite, which took place in a temple, where the priest drank yaqona offered by supplicants. Rare forms of anthropomorphic yaqona bowls present an expressive image, but it is not known whether they represent a named ancestral figure or why they were made in this human form. Other bowls were carved in the form of an animated flying duck or a naturalistic turtle. Some examples, such as a double bowl in the form of leba fruit (used for scenting cosmetic coconut oil) may have been used for yaqona or the preparation of fragrant oil.

Chiefly Objects – Tabua

The presentation whale tooth, or tabua, is the most important Fijian valuable, made from a sperm whale tooth that has been oiled, smoked, polished, and fitted with a coconut-husk fiber cord. A tabua is presented as a gift on important occasions, like weddings and funerals, or as an apology for a misdeed. It is also used to welcome honored guests, pledge allegiance, request assistance, and express thanks. On all these occasions, the donors and recipients hold the tabua in their hands and make formal speeches to acknowledge the participants and explain the purpose of the offering.

Fijians did not hunt whales; they obtained teeth from sperm whales stranded on local reefs and beaches. Increasing numbers of teeth were obtained in the early nineteenth century from European traders, who exchanged them for sandalwood and bêche-de-mer (sea cucumbers) destined for trade with China. For Fijians, whale teeth were symbolically associated with the cosmological power of the sea and of chiefs. In addition to being used as valuable gifts, teeth were transformed into chiefly adornments such as breastplates and necklaces; segments of ivory were also inlaid in objects for use by chiefs, such as clubs and headrests. The finest examples incorporating sperm whale teeth were acquired and used as gifts by high-status chiefs.

Chiefly Objects – Tanoa and Other Valuables

Yaqona is a species of pepperbush (Piper methysticum) whose roots are used to make an important drink known generally in the Pacific as kava. The pounded or powdered root is mixed with fresh water in a large wooden bowl, then served with respectful formality to guests in coconut-shell cups. It is nonalcoholic, but has relaxing properties and is now consumed socially at gatherings of relatives and friends. Tanoa, circular multilegged bowls for yaqona, are made on Kabara Island in eastern Fiji from prized vesi hardwood trees (Intsia bijuga). Since the late eighteenth century, bowls circulated via gift exchange throughout Fiji and Tonga, the largest ones usually ended up in chiefly households where they were used on major formal occasions. Prior to that, pottery bowls or large leaves were used. The presentation of fresh, dried, or powdered roots to hosts is regarded as an appropriate gift and act of respect, called sevusevu. In the past, yaqona was only consumed to honor or entertain chiefs and guests on formal occasions.

Other forms of chiefly regalia include finely carved clubs, often with multiple ivory inlays, elaborate headrests, and implements known as “flesh forks.” These tools, named icula ni bokola (“fork for human victim”), have achieved a certain notoriety because of their assumed reputation as utensils for human flesh. Although human sacrifice and cannibalism did take place as part of pre-Christian ritual practice,these forks were used by chiefs and priests for any kind of cooked meat, especially pork, when they were in a consecrated tabu state, and needed to be protected from the polluting effects of handling cooked food. Sensational stories of cannibalism were abundant in Fiji in the nineteenth century, and led to the production of rough copies of these forks to supply an eager curio trade.