Echoes of a mutiny

Autumn has set in today and it is perishingly cold. A day for another  reminiscence about life in the South Seas.

This little painting of a Fijian islet and an outrigger canoe was painted on tapa cloth made from the bark of the paper-mulberry tree. Tapa is made on the islands of the South Pacific, particularly in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji where it is usually called masi. It was more usually used for clothing and for wall hangings. 

The artist is one Albert E. Ward who was living in Fiji in the 1940s.

The outrigger in the painting is only a small vessel. The Fijians used to make much bigger versions which were used on oceanic journeys. They were fast, sophisticated vessels as Captain Bligh discovered when he was chased by one during his passage through the Fijian archipelago in the aftermath of the 1798 Mutiny on HMS Bounty..