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Oct 18, 2019
2 min

Talking the talk: languages of Fiji

Three official languages Fiji has a population of about 900,000 spread over 300 islands, yet has three official languages: Fijian, Fijian Hindi and English. Most of the population speak two of these fairly fluently but only a minority have full command of all three languages. Today I'll tell you a bit about Fijian and plan to fill you in on Fijian Hindi and English in future. That's because I've studied linguistics so its a real challenge to be brief on this subject. Spoken F

B.M. Allsopp

Mar 1, 2019
1 min

Fiji faces: fashion or war-paint?

I want to share with you the engraving below by Rev. Thomas Williams in his 1858 landmark work of anthropology, Fiji and the Fijians. I'm sure you'll agree the designs are very sharp, even though the resolution is not. Williams wrote only a few words about face painting, in contrast to his detailed treatment of Fijian hairstyles, the subject of my blog post Cannibal Coiffure. He implies that face painting was purely decorative. Jet black was restricted to men, but both sexes

B.M. Allsopp

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