- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Wooden headrest (kali). The headrest has a cylindrical wooden crossbar U shaped legs round in section with flat rounded feet. [FB 28/11/2012]
- Long description
- Wooden headrest (kali). The headrest has a cylindrical wooden crossbar U shaped legs round in section with flat rounded feet. The legs have been attached to the crossbar with sennit fibre secured in a knot. One end of the cylindrical crossbar has been inlaid with a sixteen point star shaped piece of whale bone, there is a space at the other end of the crossbar where the same shaped ornament is missing. [FB 28/11/2012]
- Date / Period
- Date made: Before 07/1909
- Date collected
- By July 1909
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1909
- Materials and processes
- Material Wood Plant, Material Whale Bone Animal, Material Sennit Coconut Seed Fibre Plant, Process Carved, Process Tied, Process Knotted, Process Inlaid
- Dimensions
- Length: max 640 mm, Width: max 172 mm, Height: max 140 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1909.34.27
- Research and responses
See R. Ewins, Fijian Artefacts: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery collection' Australia 1982: p.63: "Virtually every early visitor who wrote of thier experiences in Fiji mentions the curious headrest (Kali) of wood and/or bamboo. The general comment is that these were employed to preserve the often incredibly complicated hairstyles which were affected, and and this may well be true. Certainly without kali the hours spent preparing such coiffures would have been futile, and in this sense they could be considered to have engendered the mode. However, they were used in other parts of the pacific where such a 'hair fetish' does not seem to have been in vogue, and to this day in many vale levu (meeting houses) one will find improvised forms of the kali. I have very recently seen not only old people but quite young men in remote villages choose these wooden forms in preference to pillows, and pass the night on them. They were fairly standard in design - a cross bar of wood (either flat, curved or cylindrical) or of bamboo with either two flat (triangulate, or curved sided) legs, one at each end, or more commonly four short legs, square or cylindrical, generally tapered and often with small square or circular 'feet'. These feet were basically an inverted U-shaped piece of timber, recessed or flattened on the curve to accommodate the cross-piece (which was bound to it with sennit), and often presenting, in the end result, a very comical 'bow-legged' appearance. The kali were sometimes delicately inlaid with whale ivory (probably by Tongan craftsmen) and a chief's kali, like his hair or any other part of his head, might not be touched other than with special dispensation. If legs were omitted, the low form was called i lokoloko, and used by sick people - this word has been used for European stuffed pillows.
Roth indicates that the kali was reserved for chiefly use, and this could relate to more ornate coiffure affected by chiefs, or it could relate to the mana (spiritual power) which I have been told was believed by Polynesians to surround the head of chiefly people like an 'aura'. This was given as the reason the head was tabu, and if it is true could be a deeper reason for keeping the head of the ground.
The kali is placed under the neck, rather than the head, at the base of the skull or, if sleeping on the side, just above the angle of the jaw. Today a node of bamboo or block of wood (as high as 20cm, on occasion!) is generally all that is used (even Sunshine milk tins have enjoyed a recent vogue!), though I saw one in Nadroumai, Nadroga Province, made of packing-case wood and with large nails under it. The beautifully carved vesi items are apparently not made except as replicas for sale." [FB 27/11/2012]
Search terms: Furniture Dwelling, Headrest