Archaeological digs tell us, women potters had existed in Fiji over 3000 years ago, centuries before the arrival of the first European.
In fact, the very first people to settle in Fiji were called Lapita People, a unique race well known for the decorative motifs that featured on their pottery.
Today, Fiji’s pottery culture is a mere shadow of its former glory.
But despite this, persistent initiatives designed to revive it continue to make small yet sustainable inroads.
In the past, making clay earthenware was not only a tedious household chore but a labour-intensive traditional obligation that demonstrated the indelible importance of women in olden day Fiji.
In some parts of the islands, girls who reached puberty were required to design their first pot.
This pot was her passage of right. Her finished piece declared she was a woman ready to take up her special place in society.
Women made a range of ceramic pots called kuro ni Viti using a process called tulituli. Some served a decorative purpose. Others were for cooking and for storing water (saqa).
Each was uniquely fashioned and minutely detailed depending on the region in which they were made.
“A pot was a proud symbol of womanhood,” said Veniana Maraia Paulina, one of Fiji’s most respected potters and perhaps the only surviving student of a potter who lived in the 1800s.
The 70-year-old of Nasilai Village in Rewa is one of the few women who earns a living through pottery. She first learned the art from Aliti Adivukailagi, her 99-year-old grandmother.
The year was 1964 and the young Paulina was only 13.
“She sat me down one day saying, ‘come get your hands dirty,” Paulina reminisced.
“Learn how to make your own pot. In the future, the world will come to interview you. You can earn a living from it too.”
Forty-seven years after her grandmother first taught her, Paulina called her own granddaughter to pass on what many generations of Nasilai women before her had passed down to their own women folks.
This tutoring of sorts was the perfect moment for women to bond with young girls.
“Yesterday, my 8-year-old granddaughter made her first pot,” Paulina said.
“I told her what my bu (grandmother) told me, that many will come after her wanting to know about pottery.”
For centuries, pots were the mainstay art of the women of Nasilai.
The mua-i- rua, which ethnographer Rosa Rossitto, described as a half-moon in her 1995 research, was one of their speciality pieces.
It was a crescent-shaped pot with a small round opening and a circular flat base.
Nasilai women also made special decorative lamps called “ramarama”.
These lamps lit up those rustic nights using coconut oil and wicks made from plain white bark cloth called masi.
“Our female ancestors were professional potters,” Paulina said.
“Their pots were admired. We gave them as gifts and traded them for food, weapons and even land.”
To understand why Nasilai pots were esteemed artistic pieces, one has to fully grasp how it evolved from dirt.
“A potter’s creation is more than an artefact of clay,” Paulina said.
“It holds a spiritual meaning. It captures a woman’s journey in life, who she is and where she came from.”
Finding the ideal potter’s clay was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
To source it, a Nasilai woman was required to find the “seventh layer” of clay, sometimes this took her to Lokia, many kilometres away from home.
At the seventh layer, according to Paulina, the clay texture was malleable. It was also enriched with the right amount of sediments and salts to ensure its durability.
Clay was extracted (called qeti) from its natural pit in considerable amounts and stored in the home for up to a year. It was watered daily to retain its moisture.
To reach the best consistency, everything from twigs and leaves to root hairs and pebbles, was removed through a laborious gleaning process.
“If you don’t prepare your clay well your pot will later break up,” Paulina said.
Paulina placed on her lap an unfinished pot that she had worked on the previous day.
Using a smooth stone and a wooden paddle called tata, she gave the pot more volume and depth by slapping the clay between the stone and tata. Both tools had to be moistened with water regularly. Tulituli was done while the pot sat on its special woven stand called toqi.
She kneaded her clay to get the right texture before rolling it on the floor and adding a new layer to the ballooning pot until it reached the required height. At this point, the mouthpiece was shaped out and added.
“Clay pots were our iyau (item of value). They were exchanged between vanua and chiefdoms,” she said.
“They were also given as gifts to our high chiefs or women of status and special ceremonies were held to mark their production.”
During special occasions, the women of Nasilai visited their paramount chief, the Roko Tui Dreketi, by presenting hundreds of clay pots (tuva saqa). They also took special seafood like kabatia and kinikini.
In some parts of Fiji, pots that were required for special occasions were accompanied by age-old rituals.
During such events, which include temple worship honouring the guest of a chief of a village women made pots through the traditional group work called solesolevaki.
Women also had to observe various “tabu”. They had to stay away from their husbands or abstained from certain foods or activities. Pregnant women were not allowed to take part.
They were believed to bring bad omen.
“Potters used the kelukelu (exterior decorative designs) to tell stories, There were also motifs and designs that were specific to a particular region of the district,” Paulina added.
“Just by looking at the designs on the body of a saqa, you’d know where the pot was made and the story behind it.”
Paulina’s designs featured waves, lines and circles representing the journey of the ancestors, her family and the vanua and some sharp protruding parts signifying old village war fortresses that protected her people.
Following the influence of Christianity and western education in Fiji, the production and use of clay pots slowly disappeared and together with it, the unique knowledge and skills that took millennia to acquire and master.
After World War II the use of clay pots almost disappeared.
“As Fiji became part of new global economies and markets, the cultural value of pots and pot making changed markedly,” a Museum of New Zealand online text noted.
While the art died out in many villages, in a few, the birth of Fiji’s tourism industry resurrected their pottery culture.
Cultural excursions were organised and tourists were fed and entertained by villagers who also demonstrated pottery making and sold earthenware artefacts.
In 1964, the people of Nasilai operated a small village tour business. It was during this time that Paulina first tried out pottery making. She never looked back.
In 1992, she decided to join her older sister, Taraivini Wati, in taking her traditional art to the world stage.
By this time, Wati, who became Nasilai’s lead potter and had already made a name for herself.
She was featured in everything “pottery”, travelled the world and was the potter you’d meet at the Fiji Museum.
The sisterly first major collaboration was designing the saqamoli, a water vessel consisting of three conjoined spherical bulbs joined together by cylindrical stirrups coming together at the centre, which eventually inspired Fiji’s one-dollar coin design.
“My sister asked me to help her revive traditional Nasilai pottery but I had forgotten it,” Paulina said.
“She made me learn pottery making all over again. She said when I die, I would pass the knowledge on to the future women of Nasilai who would be interested in earning a living through pottery.”
Paulina said her grandmother walked for kilometres right up to Suva with a basket of ceramic pots on her back to sell. Because of ease of communication buyers can now travel right to the village or can order through their mobile phones.
When a Nasilai pot was thoroughly dried, which could take up to a year, it was heated in an open fire (tavu saqa) fuelled by coconut husks, shells and bamboo or mangrove twigs.
Once fired up thoroughly, a pot was glazed using a few coatings of a special resin obtained from the dried gum of the native tree, dakua makadre. The uneven colours on the pot reflected varied exposures during firing.
“During the firing stage men would perform special chants,” Paulina said.
People would know who broke her tabu when pots broke up during the firing processes.
After decades of reviving Nasilai’s pottery culture, Paulina and the few women of Nasilai who continued to produce quality pottery at a time when many viewed it as belonging to the past, now have the first potter’s house in the village.
The potter’s shed has storage space for dried and finished pieces. It also has a furnace when firing would be done from now on.
The shed was built through funding support under Phase 2 of the Organisation Of African Caribbean Pacific States-European Union (ACP-EU) development Minerals Program in Fiji, implemented by the United Nations Development Programme.
“Before we did not have a specialised place to store our finished pots and fire them for the finishing touches,” said Paulina.
“Now we could fire up the pots even during rainy weather.”
The support is part of UNDP’s broader efforts to address “business continuity and health and safety needs of entrepreneurs in the development minerals sector” following the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 impacts on small and medium enterprises in Fiji.
The grant helps three similar pottery-making villages of Nakabuta, Lawai and Nayawa and a salt-making project in Lomawai, all in the province of Nadroga.
Through such timely intervention women who engage in small businesses can continue to have a source of livelihood and earn income for their families and communities, even as the impacts of COVID-19 and climate change rage on.
The funding support will no doubt boost the quality of clay pottery being produced and increase income for women artisanal operators as well as ensuring health and safety of during their work.
Over the years, potters relied heavily on sunshine for drying.
Due to unpredictable weather patterns, the villagers have supported the idea of erecting fireplaces for indoor firing, which will give them the opportunity to meet the demand of supplies whenever required.
The UNDP, EU and Fiji Arts Council partnership will support Fiji’s artisanal craftspeople to continue to assist, utilise traditional knowledge and sustain livelihoods in the development of local minerals in this sector.
- History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.
