Lapita pottery making has been carried from generation to generation in Akesa Vaka Kunabuli's village in Fiji.(Supplied)
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
We still maintain our traditional way of making pottery by using a round stone and a piece of timber to tap the clay.
Salamasina von Reiche
This is Akesa Vaka Kunabuli, a potter from the village of Nayawa in the Sigatoka district of Fiji's coastal Nadroga, Navosa province.
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Pottery making in Nayawa village has been carried from generation to generation till today.
Salamasina von Reiche
In her hands, ancient knowledge lives on. She's been shaping her clay using techniques passed down for over a hundred generations and now she's one of the only people continuing this craft.
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
I have to protect it, otherwise this is what I'm known as. It's my identity.
Salamasina von Reiche
But the story of the pottery she makes stretches far beyond just her village. Over 3,000 years ago, the Lapita people set sail from what is now modern-day Taiwan, launching one of the greatest migrations in human history. Using only the stars, the sea and this skill, they travelled across vast stretches of ocean on their advanced double-hulled canoes. And it seems their expansion was far greater than we originally understood. More recently, their routes have also been tied to Papua New Guinea and even North Queensland in Australia. Their knowledge was advanced and they moved fast. They hopped from island to island, interacting with those who were already there and transporting animals and plants for cultivation. In their wake, they left a trail of thousands of fragments of intricately decorated pottery buried deep in the earth. Each time we uncover a new piece of this distinctive pottery, we grow our understanding of our people, our collective history. I'm Afamasaga Seiluli Salamasina von Reiche and this is Culture Compass, an exploration of survival, revival and connection throughout the Pacific.
Salamasina von Reiche
The designs carved into Lapita pottery are more than just decoration. They're markers of connection, migration and story. And each piece tells a different one. Messages to be passed down through the generations. This is what Akesa Vaka Kunabuli's mother taught her at an early age.
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
I was brought up in this village from birth till now. I learned pottery making from my mum. She was also a potter. Most of the time she normally do pottery making in our home, at home. So I was really interested in pottery making. That's why I also make pottery making in Nayawa Village.
Salamasina von Reiche
Wow, how old were you when you started making pottery?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Normally in our early age, we used to play with clay next to our grandma. Like five years old to primary school, five to thirteen. And when we grow up, when I went to Tashiri, so I was not able to do pottery. After Tashiri, I was working as a province administration. So when I have a family and I come back home to Nayawa Village, when I was on my mid-thirties.
Salamasina von Reiche
And you're still making pottery today?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Yeah, I still make pottery today.
Salamasina von Reiche
Do many people in your village have the skill to do this kind of pottery as well?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Yeah, like we have a club which is run by our women's club and 20 members.
Salamasina von Reiche
Are you the only club in Fiji that does pottery like this? Or are there many other clubs around the country?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Some villages, they do also make pottery making. But it's different from one village to another village.
Salamasina von Reiche
Because the Lapita style is known for its beautifully intricate designs. Do the details on the pots tell different stories?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Yeah, we have different stories altogether. Like in Nayawa Village, our traditional pot is a kava bowl, a water vessel and a cooking pot. Those are three traditional pots. Since contemporary occur, other women from other parts of Fiji, they come and marry in Nayawa Village, we normally teach them how to make pottery.
Salamasina von Reiche
So Aunty Akesa, with the Lapita style of pottery, is it very different from the Fijian styles?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
It's the same Lapita clay we use in our home for making our traditional pots and contemporary, the same clay. And we still maintain it today.
Salamasina von Reiche
So you make it how it was made a very long time ago?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Yeah, pottery making in Nayawa Village has been carried from generation to generation till today. Since when our ancestors arrived here, they notified that it also has a Lapita clay situated about two kilometers away from Nayawa Village. They come from different places in the island of Fiji to come and settle down in Nayawa Village, notifying that it has a Lapita clay. As they come along, they didn't come with their cooking pots or eating utensils. That's why they use the Lapita clay to make their cooking pots and their eating utensils like clay bowls or even cover bowls or even water vessels.
Salamasina von Reiche
Are you able to walk me through the process of how you make your each piece?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
When we take the clay out from the clay pit, we come and dip it inside containers near to our clay house. Dip it inside the container for about three solid weeks until air particles come out of the clay. And the first process is mending the clay. We normally use our ten feet to mend the clay. A mixture of clay and fine sand from the nearby river. Remember, we are near the Sigatoka River mouth. We have to collect the sand from the sand dunes. We're near Sigatoka sand dunes. Then the second process is cleaning the clay. We have to give a time to clean the clay because the clay comes under the earth and it comes along with different types of dirty articles like stones and pieces of wood. After cleaning the clay, it has to be placed inside the plastic bag so that air particles don't get back to the clay. And the third process is shaping up of the pottery. In our community, we don't use wheels. We still maintain our traditional way of making pottery by using a round stone and a piece of timber with the shape of the paddle to tap the clay. Outside, we have to tap the clay by using different types of timber to maintain its shape. And after shaping the pottery, when they are nice and good, it has to be air dried inside the house for a couple of days until when they are dried enough. And we normally bake them outside in an open fire by using coconut dried leaves and coconut husk for firing. When they are from the open fire, we normally glaze it with a special type of raisin which comes from a sap of a kori gum tree. We don't have the trees along the coast. We have them out in the interior. So we have a family living in the interior. They do bring the wax down to us in the coast. In the olden days, they normally do buy the system. But today, when the wax arrives in Niagara Village, we have to buy it cash. You can only move the raisin to the hot pot when it's hot out from the open fire. Otherwise, when it cools down, you hardly can glaze your pot. For the bigger pots, it takes about two to three hours to cool down. When they are cooled down, they're ready for use, and they're also water-proof.
Salamasina von Reiche
That is an amazing labor of love. So it does take a long time for one pot to be made.
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
For the kava bowl, it takes two to three weeks. According to the weather, if we have good weather, when we have a lot of sunshine, that is a good time for us to make our pottery. If it's rainy weather, the clay is normally cold and we hardly can move the clay. The firewood we use for baking our pot is a coconut husk and coconut dried leaves. Those are the only things we use for baking our pot. We have to look for coconut leaves and coconut husk in good weather.
Salamasina von Reiche
As the years have gone by, climate change has had an effect on a lot of our natural resources. Is it affecting how you're able to source clay and make your pots?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Climate change does affect our pots because in the olden days, we normally had nice weather. But nowadays, the rain normally spoils everything because we have a lot of rain during the month of December. It should be good weather in Fiji, but from December till now, we have a lot of rain. So that is why we have to protect our art in such a way that it doesn't spoil by the climate change.
Salamasina von Reiche
Do you teach the younger generations to make pottery with you? Yeah,
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
I normally do that at home. Whenever my grandchildren come next to me when I'm busy working with my clay, they normally ask me for a piece of clay so that they can play it like a play-doh to them. That's how I teach them how to make pottery. I do pass the clay over to them. The first job normally done from pottery making is mending the clay. That's the right thing for me to teach them because they mend the clay using their ten feet to mend the clay. That's a job for teenagers.
Salamasina von Reiche
Why do you feel it's so important to preserve this aspect of your cultural heritage?
Akesa Vaka Kunabuli
Because when I don't preserve this as my cultural heritage, it will run out from my culture, from my family, from my village and the whole of the Sigatoka district. I have to protect otherwise this is what I'm known as. It's my identity.
Salamasina von Reiche
To me, these beautiful ceramics are like time capsules, carrying the deep knowledge of ancient cultures that travelled vast distances. Even thousands of years later, shards of the original Lapita pottery are still being discovered. In 2011, a major archaeological dig in Papua New Guinea revealed thousands of Lapita pottery shards in a space that was not previously considered a launching pad for their exploration. Dr. Tarisi Vunidolo believes this is no surprise as our people were known as true voyagers. She's a Fijian archaeologist and has been involved in excavations across the Pacific. Dr. Tarisi says that exciting modern technologies are leading us to go below the surface without disturbing the sites, each discovery proving just how connected we are as a culture.
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
The Lapita pottery is the one that is named for the pottery found in this part of the world, in the Southeast Asia region, all the way over to the Pacific, but mainly only on the western side of the Pacific, all the way from Papua New Guinea, the Melanesian region, and all the way to Samoa, including Tonga, Fiji, and all the islands in between. So the pottery is very important because it has carbon content in which carbon dating is done to determine when a place was occupied.
Salamasina von Reiche
In my mind, the voyagers back then, it must have been such a busy motorway on the sea. But from your perspective, what makes the Lapita migration one of the greatest seafaring journeys in human history?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Yes, the reason being that this Lapita pottery is found along many of the coastal of many of these island nations. And also the uniqueness of the Lapita pottery, you know, it's very different from other types of pottery. But the Lapita one is quite unique because of the color of the actual clay that is used, and also the designs on it. Plus also, the carbon dates that come out of the Lapita pottery is much, much older. So it's like 3,000 years ago. So wherever Lapita pottery is found, that determines that that place has been settled for 3,000 years, and that's a long time for the Pacific region. It just shows that a lot of these places where Lapita potteries are found, they were inhabited by humans 1,290 years before Christ was born. So that shows that our many islands in this part of the world was already filled with people, which is contrary to what other people may have thought that it was just recently been occupied.
Salamasina von Reiche
And for a long time, the story of Lapita began with Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, and all those areas you've mentioned. But more recently, pottery shards were found in Papua New Guinea. How did that shift our understanding of where this journey began?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Yeah, I think, you know, it just shows us how migratory and how mobile our people were. You know, most of the time when it comes to archaeology, some archaeologists may draw a pattern of movement over centuries of how people moved by locating where the Lapita pottery were found. But then again, when they are found in other locations, such as, you know, northern Queensland, and also in the Torres Strait, it just got to show that these were areas that were not in the attention of the archaeologists in the earlier days. And also a lot of archaeologists that are more open to see that, you know, that my Lapita people are not just moving in a singular line. You know, they can also move away from that movement track and also explore other islands as well. So that's why I wasn't surprised. The Lapita pottery around the Papua New Guinean region, it is so rich and so special, because not only that old type of Lapita pottery are found in Papua New Guinea, the people in Papua New Guinea are still making the pottery, which is amazing. So there's modern making of pottery, but also the old ones as well.
Salamasina von Reiche
You mentioned there were people still making Lapita pottery in Papua New Guinea, and we also understand it's still being crafted in Fiji. Are you aware of any other places where it's still being made?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Yes, in terms of pottery, the ones that are dated, you know, to 3,000 years ago, that's the one that we gave the Lapita name to. Everyone else, they have their own names that they've given it. In some islands in Vanuatu, they still make pottery. Great to know that in Papua New Guinea, and of course in Fiji, which you've already mentioned, the provinces of Narnonga and the province of Rewa, those are the only two that are still making pottery today. And if you go to the Fiji Museum, they have two potters, actually a mother and daughter, who are still making the pottery today, which is great. And I think what the Fiji Museum has done is to, you know, not only keep the potters to be hidden in the villages, but to bring them out of the village into the museum where a lot of people from around the world, but also locals in Fiji, to come in and see how the pots are made. And, you know, maybe someone should also do some research in the Samoan Islands, because definitely if, you know, the island neighbors are still doing pottery, then I'm sure they do too.
Salamasina von Reiche
As we talk about the pottery itself, how would you describe the visual style or typical markings of Lapita pottery?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
So the pottery for Lapita is a different color. So it's reddish in color. And one thing that is quite unique, because for many other pottery, normally the color is kind of like light brown or dark black, especially those that are exposed to fire while it was being made. And some others are quite just plain looking. And others have designs that are just, you know, have lines or zigzag lines. Also, you can see the use of the fingers for pinching the side of the pot while it's still wet, you know, while it's still being made. There are many other designs, but what sets the Lapita pottery aside is again the type of clay, the color, and also the design. The design that are found on the Lapita pottery is not only found on the outside of the pot, but in some instances, in the case of the pottery that are found in New Caledonia, where the original Lapita site was found in Kone, in New Caledonia, the designs were also found inside the pot, which kind of made this pottery very different. And it's very pretty to look at, and according to the archaeologists that have been studying the Lapita pottery for a number of years, they seem to kind of use a very fine tooth comb to make the designs, but also some of the designs that are put on the outside of the pot, it creates faces. It creates designs that are not found in any other pots that we have located over the years.
Salamasina von Reiche
Are there noticeable changes in design or techniques as the pottery shows up in different parts of the Pacific?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
One thing I've noticed is that as time goes by, the designs are losing its finer details, and that's what sets Lapita pottery apart from everyone else. The finer details are just amazing. It's so mind-boggling to realize that there are people who sit there for hours, you know, drawing these patterns, and then for me, what is kind of interesting for modern-day archaeologists is to try and understand what those designs were. It's like they have left behind some evidence that they don't give any clues to them, and then we in this generation, that's our duty, to find out what message are they trying to pass on to us.
Salamasina von Reiche
When you hold a shard of Lapita pottery in your hands, what goes through your mind?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Yes, for me, it's basically, you know, who was the last maker or who was the maker that made this pot? That's the first one. And then the second one, who was the last one to use that particular vessel? And, you know, for a number of years, for thousands of years, no one saw this evidence of Lapita pottery, and then we found it much later. You know, it really kind of is very, very special. You know, it's quite a very somber moment when you're holding a piece and you're looking around, and then you're starting to see pieces in different parts around where you're standing, and then you realize, wow, there was a village site right here. You know, there were people that were using this pot for whatever reason, for religious purpose, for cooking, for ceremony, whatever it was used for, those were the emotions you go through.
Salamasina von Reiche
With new and modern technologies continuing to evolve, how might future discoveries reshape what we know about the Lapita people?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Yes, I think with technology, it is exciting. To me, when I look at technology, I don't want us, the older generation, to look at it in a negative way. I want to look at technology as a tool to, you know, be able to identify other sites that we don't normally see on a normal archaeological survey. You know, because most times, because a lot of the Lapita pottery are found in the coastal areas, so we normally do a walk around the island in search of all of these materials, but now we have drones, and also we have a lot of machines that can determine what's underneath the soil. You know, instead of digging and disturbing a site, now you have a ground-penetrating radar that you don't have to actually dig. You just put the machine on top of the soil, and it shows you what's underneath, which is amazing. So I believe that in the future, this younger generation who have really IT backgrounds can be able to create amazing tools that can be able to identify sites that are not being seen today, you know, especially sites that are underwater because of climate change and sea level rise. A lot of the Lapita sites are now under the sea, so therefore you need divers, and then you also need technology that can allow the maritime archaeologists to find this pottery in the sea, and in order for them to also map some of the old village sites under the water.
Salamasina von Reiche
Why do you feel it's so important to preserve this aspect of our cultural heritage and continue to uncover these archaeological sites?
Dr Tarisi Vunidilo
Because I think the archaeological sites has more evidence that can make our history more clear, because a lot of our modern-day Pacific Islanders, you know, we have more questions than answers, and so archaeology provides answers in some aspect of, you know, doing this inquiry learning. So finding this pottery all around the Pacific is an exciting activity, because the more archaeological sites that we find, the more Lapita sites that we find, the more information we keep adding to our collective history. And the pottery that we're talking about today was something that united all of us, you know. We should not be separating each of the island nations. We were one people that brought this tradition into this region 3,000 years ago, and so for me, you know, we need to keep the tradition alive, because the more we talk about pottery, the more we celebrate the lives of our porters, the more we keep the traditions alive. Our younger generation will appreciate where the source of the clay comes from, what are the processes for making the pottery, because it's not easy. It's a lot of work, but when you look at all the processes, you know, you get to appreciate the amount of work that goes into it, but also we get to have a clear picture of what the Pacific or what Oceania should really be.
Salamasina von Reiche
As we retrace the great migration of the Lapita people, we continue to uncover fragments they left behind, clues to stories, skills, and messages they were hoping to pass on.
Kenneth McLean
My name is Kenneth McLean. I'm the chairperson of Walmbaar Aboriginal Corporation, also a Dingaal Traditional Owner and a Dingaal spokesperson, which is Cape Flattery, Hopevale. So I'm from Hopevalel Aboriginal community, but my ancestors are from Cape Flattery, just north of Hopevale.
Salamasina von Reiche
Kenneth has been working alongside archaeologists on his country in North Queensland, Australia. They've recently found shards of Lapita pottery, traded by his ancestors thousands of years ago. It's a discovery that's reshaping what we thought we knew. Until now, we weren't aware the Lapita people had journeyed this far south.
Kenneth McLean
Growing up around Jiigurru on Dingaal Water Country, it was like a classroom to us. That was a classroom that our elders took us to. Our elders gave us knowledge, gave us some strong stories about how sacred our country was, and collaborating with the archaeologists on country, working on country, looking after country, and also looking at archaeological evidence that's been on country. For my people, they were known as sacred, and now we've done, we worked on country together, found some pottery pieces and dated them back to about 2,300 years old. So even charcoal that dated back to be 6,300 years old, and sharing a piece of history like that, it gives everybody an understanding what's been happening to our continent through songlines, through trading, through the law of the land and the law of the sea. You could see how our ancestors were trading thousands of years ago. It went back further than 3,000, 4,000 years ago, but you can actually see how the continent's been looked after, the continent we are living in today, and how our law is still existing today. Just like going up the coast throughout the Torres Strait Islands and to Papua New Guinea, the law is still strong today. The law of the land and the law of the sea is still strong, as well as the coast of Australia and the mainland of Australia.
Salamasina von Reiche
Every fragment uncovered cracks open a world of possibility. What did that vast, bustling ocean highway of the Pacific really look like? These discoveries aren't just windows into the past. Understanding how our elders cared for the land and moved through the ocean could hold the keys and knowledge that might just guide our future.
Kenneth McLean
For the last 50 years, archaeological science and indigenous knowledge, it wasn't working together the way it's supposed to be. But now you can see and work together with archaeologists and scientists, with the voices of the Torres Strait Islanders. This is the only way they could tell the story, to share something significant from country. And that's helping history, to learn from history, to live a better future. That's how we've been looking after this continent for the last 65,000 years. If we lose our connection to country, if we lose our culture, if we lose our songlines, if we lose our story, what would our country be today?
Salamasina von Reiche
One magnificent shot at a time, Lapita pottery reminds us just how deeply our stories are woven together across the Pacific. The more sites we find, the more we know about our collective history. It's a journey of survival, of revival through generations, and of connection, a shared heritage that still shapes our identity. These fragments are more than ancient clay. They hold the stories that connect our past to our present. This is Culture Compass on ABC Radio Australia. Culture Compass is hosted by me, Afamsaga Seilui Salamasina von Reich. Our ABC Radio Australia executive producer is Faleagafulu Inga Stünzner. From Deadset Studios, our producer is Lucy McAfee, and our supervising producer is Gia Moylan. Sound design is by Nick McCorriston. This episode was produced on the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people. We pay respect to their elders past and present.