Photographer: Leonie Gärtner | Rights management: Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International
The first settlers of the Fijian islands, the "Lapita people", already had pottery and the knowledge to make pottery when they arrived around 3000 years ago. This vessel dates from the 19th century. At that time, women from the seafaring clans made the pottery. The water vessel consists of three interconnected hollow bodies. In the literature, the shape of the hollow bodies is compared to the pottery fork (tabua), the hull of a boat (cama) or a banana (vudi). Bananas are highly respected foods and gifts in Fiji. To drink from the vessels, they were held up in the air and the stream of water was channelled directly into the mouth.
