Kabara Atoll

Kabara, in the southern Lau islands of Fiji, was renowned for the vesi hardwood used by canoe builders and carvers. The timber drew craftsmen into a network connecting Fiji with Tonga and Samoa. An account of the canoe-building tradition places the Samoan carpenter Lemaki's arrival in Lau in the late eighteenth century, sent by the king of Tonga. His descendants became associated especially with Kabara and continued its specialist craft.

Woodworking also produced valued objects for chiefly exchange. Kabara's carvers made large, many-legged tanoa bowls for serving yaqona, or kava. From the late eighteenth century these bowls circulated as gifts through Fiji and Tonga; the largest were particularly associated with chiefly households and formal occasions. The same prized timber thus supported both seagoing vessels and ceremonial objects. Kabara's importance rested on skilled work and relationships between island communities as well as on its supply of trees.