British colonial officer Arthur J. L. Gordon made several drawings that included depictions of incidents in the highlands of Viti Levu during the Little War of 1876, an uprising against the colonial administration.

The kaka form of spear is thought to be named for the similarity between the barbs and the beak of the kaka parrot. 

This sokilaki spear has very fine coir binding and extraordinarily precise barb carving in twenty-nine tiers, unnecessary in terms of technical efficiency, but significant in terms of status and divine favor.

Saisai were reserved for chiefly use.

American-made muskets were traded to Fiji by the thousands from the period of the sandalwood trade (1804–14) to the mid-nineteenth century. A few surviving examples exhibit intricately inlaid whale ivory and white glass seed beads added by Fijians.

Documentation from the collector indicates that this ivory hook was considered a powerful image, representing the “double wife of the chief god of Nadi district (western Viti Levu).” With the introduction of Christianity, such images were given up to missionaries and colonial officers.

In the nineteenth century, high-status married women wore elaborate fiber skirts, or liku, such as the two examples shown here. Young girls reaching puberty wore small liku after the genital area, and sometimes hips and upper thighs, was tattooed. Tattoos (qia) were applied by female specialists using small adzes with blades of thorns, turtle shell, or bone dipped into a black pigment.