Ah Fiji. Home to the king of rugby sevens, smiling locals, white, sandy beaches, and seasonal coups. It’s quick to get washed up in the hype that is living in today’s fast paced society, but one mustn’t forget one’s origins and what humble beginnings they had before Mcdonalds and company rolled in.
Sure you could visit the city library and catch up on your reading, but with today’s more visual-oriented society, who cares about stuffy old books and cramped up libraries when you can watch old videos of the Fiji of the past?
And what better to showcase Fiji’s past then this delightful video courtesy of James A. Fitzpatrick’s Traveltalks: The Voice of the Globe called Fiji and Samoa: The Cannibal Isles. Since this video isn’t time stamped, I’ll take a wild guess and place the making of the video around the 1940s, when stern, near patriotic voice overs where the common practice. Why the time stamp?
If you’ve ever wanted to see and find out what Fiji was like ‘back in the day’, this video has it all layed out for you. See the ‘savages’ in their natural surroundings of houses built from grass and topped with thatched roofs. Witness the spectacle of the natives indulging in what is ‘their only form of amusement, the mekimeki’. Marvel at the ‘bushy haired members of the Fijian Band’ as they play ‘the white man’s music’ on instruments that are ‘no longer strange to them’.
And that’s not all! Samoa is included in this accurate doco, and doesn’t miss much in way of detail. With Samoa’s fales being described as ‘mere cirlces of pillars, roofed by cones of thatch’, Samoa is certainly the picture of simple living, with ‘no gods swift to anger and strong to punish’ to disturb the tempo of life. Cute.
I have to admit, I do miss the old days. Thank God the gods for technology.
#1 by cieart on January 22, 2009 - 7:15 pm
Loved it! I was buying photos and postcards from this period more so for the palagi’s view of us savages but dammit the financial market came along and spoiled my plans!
Also, he mentions 59 years from when Fiji became a colony, which means the video was made in 1933.