During the eighteenth century, this type of tool was used for boring holes and for fine engraving before nails and sharp metal tools were introduced from outside the region.

End-blown shell trumpets were used for a wide variety of important occasions. Examples like this, with an elaborate coir handle and central finger hole, could also be hung in bure kalou temples as shrines for gods.

Water containers crafted from a section of bamboo served as personal flasks. After the container was filled, the end would be stuffed with leaves to prevent spillage.

Stone-bladed choppers like this were commonly used in the nineteenth century by women to break open the seedpods of the Tahitian chestnut. Ivi nuts, when cooked, provided a significant food source, and were included in exchange gifts presented by a bride’s family at high-status marriage ceremonies, along with headrests, barkcloth beaters, and other items symbolic of establishing a new household.

In 1881, Gerrard Ansdell and his two brothers traveled through Fiji with a cumbersome large-format camera, photographing views of inland Viti Levu, as well as several local collections.

Constance Gordon Cumming captured many images of 1870s colonial life in Fiji and collected traditional Fijian objects.

The Fiji Times and The Polynesian Gazette were occasionally printed on very fine white barkcloth (masi seavu). The text shown here reports local news, ship movements, and announcements, but does not seem to be connected to a significant event.

The first Christian missionaries arrived in Fiji in 1835, and although the progress of conversion was slow and the missionaries’ position was sometimes precarious, the great majority of Fijians had become devout Christians by the late 1870s. Methodist missionaries documented the Fijian language with grammar and dictionaries, and publications such as this New Testament were translated into Fijian.