Fiji Islands Art

Fiji offers all kinds of art and craft to all kinds of people. The good pieces are made for use locally or for presentation in Fijian ceremonies: the bad are produced purely for sale as souvenirs to the tourist trade and leave both maker and buyer slightly confused having exchanged objects alien to the culture of either. Fijian mats and baskets belong to the first category, the crude wooden figures on sale at the wharves and handcraft markets to the second. The best of all are perhaps those artefacts made with the highest class of customer in mind - where tradition and quality are the main concern and commercial aspects secondary.

The craftware of Fiji may be created equally from wood or by weaving. Most Pacific countries favour strongly either one or the other; but here the two are balanced. For weaving, the material comes from two main sources - pandanus and coconut. To tame and soften the harsh growths of the pandanus and coconut takes much work, usually quite unappreciated by purchasers. The strong, thick and spiny leaves of the pandanus have to be gathered, de-thorned, boiled, dried, bleached, pounded, trimmed and stored in rolls before they can be put into service, usually to be slit into ribbons and then woven into handsome mats of the Pacific. The coconut palm and its considerable range of materials is put to many uses, among which lies weaving - in two widely diverse applications of its leaves, one course and the other particularly fine. In the first, a frond is taken, its leaves still attached, and its stem split to yields a row of leaves joined to a flexible strip. The unit is quickly woven on its own or with others to make every day baskets, hats, or strong rough mats. Taa, the other, is about the most delicate material of the Pacific, produced in tiny quantity after great labour. It emerges as a thin white membrane from the new, immature leaves tightly curled inside the spike at the top of each palm tree. It is used to eventually produce fine white hats and bags.

Another material used in both ceremony and for tourist souvenirs is the tapa cloth material. Again, a laborious task in preparation, tapa cloth originates from the bark of the Mulberry tree. Stripped, dried and beaten into fine cloth, tapa traditionally is worn as a clothing, decorated with stencils unique to a village or family. Its popularity as a material for contemporary art is growing and some fine wall pictures can be found along with hastily produced cards, wrappings and other dressings.



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Last Updated
04 March 2008
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