Picturesque Fijian

Conomic Changes

Picturesque Fijian Houses May Go

T could be that, in the years to come, the best samples of ijian traditional building will be und only at resorts where the urist is lodged in a bure—with all odern conveniencies attached, of iurse.

From the annual report of the jian Development Fund Board: Jonsiderable sums have been ex uded in erecting, or assisting in ,e erection of, wood and iron ►uses in Fijian villages. Houses so ected have been built to various ans, mostly prepared by Fijians.”

To all lovers of the traditional jian (or Samoan or Tongan for at matter) style of housebuilding, is statement will have an ominous ►te. It suggests a development at is economically commendable 3 a point) and aesthetically out geous.

When the Governor of Fiji (Sir maid Garvey) told the Legislative ►uncil in 1953 that the big copra oducing province of Cakaudrove is contemplating a programme of lusebuilding with permanent aterials, a good many people saw as a drastic new step in the ssing of the old-time Fijian ,ttern. But it has been made clear ain and again that if the Fijians e to win their battle for economic rvival, changes will have to come, d the picturesque individuality of jian housebuilding may be one of e casualties.

A well-built Fijian house will md anything short of a hurricane, it the materials are not “per ment,” and in many regions the iditional materials (mainly forest nber and reeds for thatching) ve to be carried long distances be use of the destruction of the itural growth near areas where Element and cultivation have read.

Housebuilding and repairing are long the major communal tasks at occupy a sizeable part of the ne in any village community, irther, in many villages the work s been made more onerous by the thdrawal of young men for the my and for industries. (In some ses this became very marked ter the call-up of Fijian recruits fight in Malaya), rhe true Fijian house is cool, airy d comfortable. What is more, it beautiful and as much a part of e tropical island landscape as the cient timber-and-thatch cottages e of the English countryside, idernity has disfigured many ands with huts built of imported nber and corrugated iron—which come ovens in the heat of the day

—and a general extension of this kind of ugliness would be something of a tragedy.

In Fiji it is being justified as a result of the economic squeeze on the Fijians. On the other hand, in Western Samoa the retention of the traditional style of building has long been officially encouraged, and the Samoan village remains the loveliest thing of its kind in the South Seas.

It is interesting to note with re gard to the above, that the owners of the Korolevu Beach Hotel are planning more and more bures.

These all have modem showers and toilet arrangements attached, and the bures themselves have wooden

floors and modern furnishing, but apart from that, they are beautifully made and finished in the best traditions of the Fijian house builders’ art. t Though there were recent sugges tions that a whaling industry might be revived at Norfolk Island, a traveller from the Island said in April that the project is still very much in doubt due to an insuffiicent number of whale-kills per season having been so far approved by the International Whaling Commission which limits the indiscriminate kill ing of whales.