Oceania > Fiji > Fiji's Diverse Cultures

Fiji: Fiji's Diverse Cultures

2011/01/17

Cuisine

The cuisine of Fiji in pre-colonial times consisted of root crops, vegetables, and fruits, inclunding various land animals such as wild pig and various birds. The coastal tribes would have had the same, but as well had a large amount of local seafood. These would have been prepared with local herbs and spices on wood fire rock ovens.

Most cooking areas were located in the center of home so the smoke would repel insects and strengthen the roof thatching. An extra popular method of cooking, which is still used today, is the lovo which is an earth oven —a fire made on in a pit in the ground lined with heat-resistant stones. It closely resembles the hangi of the New Zealand Māori. At the same time as the stones are hot, food, wrapped in (banana) leaves, is placed in the pit, covered with soil and left to cook formerly being exhumed and eaten. Dishes cooked this way include palusami, parcels of taro leaves saturated with coconut milk, onions, and sometimes tinned meat.

As well ceremonial cannibalism was performed not so much for sustenance but additional as a means to humiliate your enemy by consuming him. This practice is presently extinct.

Modern Fiji Cuisine is rather diverse with great influence from Indian cuisine and spices. At the same time as these are applied to local traditional dishes, it makes for interesting eating. European, Indian, and Chinese variants of cuisine, along with traditional foods, are common place in most, if not amount households in Fiji.

Architecture

In Old Fiji the architecture of villages was simple and practical to meet the physical and social need and to provide communal safety the houses were square in shape and with pyramid like shaped roofs and the walls and roof were thatched and various plants of practical use were planted nearby, each village comprised of a conference home and a Spirit home the spirit home was elevated on a pyramid like base built with large stones and earth, again a square building with an elongated pyramid like roof with various scented flora planted nearby. The houses of Chiefs were of similar design and would be set higher than his subjects houses but instead of an elongated roof would have similar roof to those of his subjects homes but of course on a larger scale.

With the introduction of communities from Asia aspects of their cultural architecture are presently evident in urban and rural areas of Fiji's major Islands Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. A village structure shares similarities today but built with modern materials and spirit houses (Bure Kalou) have been restored by churches of varying design.

The urban landscape of early Colonial Fiji was reminiscent of most British colonies of the 19th and 20th century in tropical regions of the world, while some of this architecture remains, the urban landscape is evolving in leaps and bonds with various modern aspects of architecture and design becoming additional and additional evident in the business, industrial and domestic sector, the rural areas are evolving at a much slower rate.

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