Bamboo And The South Pacific

In thinking about Bob Mesibov's  observation that “there aren't South Pacific plants that can be made into the strong split-bamboo work of Japanese basketmakers, and Japan doesn't have the "flax" that the Maori use for their mats, clothes, bags etc. Native Americans and Africans in desert places make tightly coiled grass and sedge baskets. Marsh dwellers everywhere use rushes.” It raised a couple of issues for me as if you take it along a bit as bamboo, perhaps the planets most useful plant, does exist in the South Pacific yet as you say baskets are not as evident as you(?)/I might expect.

As is implied, bamboo is strong and very durable and as noted in Japan, China, The Philippines etc. this is clearly valued given the ‘wickery’ produced using it. A long time ago I visited family in Fiji and later I visited New Caledonia where I bore witness to there being a great deal of bamboo about and seeing it in use. In particular I witnessed bamboo being used in Fiji in the construction of a traditional house, ephemeral cooking utensils for prawns and various odds and ends but no baskets comes to mind now – but I wasn’t paying close attention.

Rod Ewins – Fijian born and living in Tasmania and an anthropologist specialising in Fijian material cultural production – tells us that Fijians do indeed make bamboo basketry. It seems that it is an activity largely carried out away from the coast where there is bamboo but very few, or no, coconut palms or pandanas –  the preferred wickery materials being near the coast. In New Caledonia, I saw few baskets but I wasn’t looking all that closely back then yet the products of ‘Mother France’ seemed to abound – and quite often front of mind. Also, looking online at the collections at Te Papa and the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre bamboo is not particularly evident in South Pacific basketry.  

In New Caledonia, bamboo turns up engraved in a ritual object depicting aspects of Kanak life and the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre has a fish trap where strength and durability might understandably be an imperative. However, in both New Caledonia and Fiji cordage (coconut, hibiscus, etc.) is more prized apparently and in Fiji in a ritual context as well. Nonetheless, Rod Ewins reports that in Fiji bamboo finds a place in the scheme of things – cutting instruments, rafts, etc.

So, it seems that the ‘South Pacific paradigm’ might be more often to do with convenience and expediency than it might be to do with strength and durability. Given cultural imperatives to do with obligation that places less importance upon ownership and possession than in Western contexts, this cultural imperative may also play a part. 

I clearly remember a man in a market weaving a coconut leaf basket around a chicken and it seems now about as quickly as I witnessed parcels being wrapped at the local grocer’s shop as a child. Likewise, such baskets were made on the spot in markets for wrapping largish quantities of vegetables, shell fish etc. On the other hand, I am being alerted to the fact coconut cordage is/was something of a ‘treasure’ and made by men. 

That this ‘cordage’ might be considered currency outside the cultural context in which it is made is understandable yet given its cultural context that may or may not be relevant. See http://maa.cam.ac.uk/coir-cord-roll-z-2946/ … AND .., https://willowweaverstasmania.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/fiji-wickery-as-treasure.html

After all that I wonder why it seems that banana is not used as a fibre source in the Pacific given that it can produce relatively large amounts of ‘wickery material’. My understanding is that banana is a staple fibre source in many African contexts but there we go.