BOY SCOUTS FROM FIJI

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19886, 14 March 1939, Page 16

BOY SCOUTS FROM FIJI

CENTENNIAL JAMBOREE 7 CONTINGENT OF FIFTY :. COLOURFUL GROUP • • (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Fijian Boy Scout contingent to the centennial jamboree will be one of the most colourful groups in the camp at Heretaunga, Hutt Valley, according to Mr. A. H. Marlow, the assistant commissioner at Suva, who is at present visiting Wellington. He said that the Fijian boys would erect their own bure, or thatched house,' would dance the traditional dances cf the islands, demonstrate the famous kava ceremony, and entertain their guests with yams, taro and Indian chupatty cakes. • The' contingent would consist of 50 boys under Mr. C. H. Ahrens, the district commissioner at Revva. They would be about 10 per cent. European and the rest half Indians and half native Fijians. The Indians would be dressed after the European Boy Scout fashion, but with turbans. The Fijians would wear their picturesque sulus or kilts and fuzzy masses of hair, which are the distinctive characteristic of their race. They would erect a native thatched hut of traditional pattern, very likely shipping coconut poles and leaves from Suva for the purpose. The contingent w:uld also bring much of its own food—the Indians the peculiar condiments of their native cookery and the Fijians tropical vegetables such as yams, ndalo, coconuts and tapioca, which make up their normal diet. These would be offered to visitors to taste as something which the average New Zealander would find novel and interesting., They would carry out also the traditional native dances of Fiji and the- Indian section would stage historic dramas and flrestick swinging. Another item which would interest New Zealanders would be the ceremonial drinking of the kava beverage. ,