This is not a grass skirt on fibre skirts (liku) and female tattooing (veiqia) in nineteenth century Fiji Karen Jacobs

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jacobs, Karen, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women's clothing--Social aspects--Fiji.

Women's clothing--Fiji--History.

Skirts--Fiji.

Skirts.

Women's clothing.

Fiji.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Leiden Sidestone Press 2019

Summary:

The Pacific 'grass skirt' has provoked debates about the demeaning and sexualised depiction of Pacific bodies. While these stereotypical portrayals associated with 'nakedness' are challenged in this book, the complex uses and meanings of the garments themselves are examined, including their link to other body adornments and modifications. In nineteenth-century Fiji, beautiful fibre skirts (liku) in a great variety of shapes and colours were lifetime companions for women. First fitted around puberty when she received her veiqia (tattooing), women's successive liku were adapted at marriage and during maternity, performing a multiplicity of social functions. This book is based on a systematic investigation of previously understudied liku in museum collections around the world. Through the prism of one garment, multiple ways of looking at dress are considered, including their classification in museums and archives. Also highlighted are associated tattooing (veiqia) practices, perceptions of modesty, the intricacies of intercultural encounters and the significance of collections and cultural heritage today. 0The book is intended for those interested in often neglected women's objects and practices in the Pacific, in dress and adornment more generally and in the use of museum collections and archives. It is richly illustrated with rare and previously unpublished paintings and drawings, as well as many examples of liku themselves

Contents:

Intro; Acknowledgements; Notes; Glossary; Fibre Skirts, Tattooing and the Museum; Liku and veiqia; This is not a grass skirt; Skirts, clothing and the body in the Pacific; The museum and the archive; Liku and veiqia: sources; Veiqia: 'collecting' tattooing; Limitations and aims; Liku, Veiqia and the Adorned Body; Gendering the body; Rite of passage; Wrapping in status; Assemblage; Collecting Liku and Veiqia; Difference: liku, veiqia and early visitors; Domesticity: clothing transformations, 1830s-1860s; Curiosity: colonial bodies, 1860-1880s; Classifying Liku and Veiqia

Liku: lost in translationVeiqia as museum objects; On Separations and Connections; Veiqia: not merely museum objects; Re-awakening: The Veiqia Project; Making visible, making heard, making sense; Beginnings; List of Illustrations and credit lines; Bibliography; Lege pagina

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO; viewed November 22, 2019)

Other Format:

Print version Jacobs, Karen. This is not a grass skirt

ISBN:

9789088908149

9088908141

OCLC:

1128180626

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license