Feeling depressed? Behold happiness. Photo by an unnamed Evening Post photographer in New Zealand in 1957. Fijian rugby players overjoyed at having being sent taro from home.
I& #39;ve been spending a lot of time going through old photos and articles that the various museums and archives have put online. I& #39;ll post interesting ones as I find them. Fijian Brenn gunner with the NZ Expeditionary Force in Bougainville, WWII.
1875, NZ newspaper: Soso yaqona-ni-valagi. This kaivalagi was shook! that Fijians could get quite freaky. "Grog (alcohol) is handed around until not a sober individual exists. Then, oh night, in pity spread thy darkest mantle o& #39;er the scene. Then immodesty and debauchery ensue"
Fijian soldiers on parade wearing traditional dress and carrying firearms. Photographed by F H Dufty in Nasova, Levuka, Fiji, in the 1870s or 1880s
Huge bure. 1881: "View of the chief& #39;s house, Korovatu, on the lower Wainimala River, Viti Levu, Fiji."
Ovalau. Old man in his dalo patch. This is wetland taro planted in constantly flowing water along carefully constructed hill terraces, a method now virtually non-existent in Fiji [Photo by Arthur Hocart sometime between 1909 and 1914]
I wonder if this is the first instance of the commercialisation of Fijian culture to be recorded on film. In 1935, members of the British Medical Association went on a world tour. They made a short stop in Suva. [No audio]