Fiji Water Bottle

A fine, plain coconut water bottle, or kitu ni somi with the original coconut fiber carrying straps. The rough fibers are stripped from the drying coconut husk and carefully cleaned before being woven together to form a braided rope known as sinnet. This coconut fiber rope can be made to be as fine as sewing thread or as thick as marine hemp hawsers for ocean going canoes. Sinnet is used throughout the Pacific but its is most famous in the Western Polynesian triangle of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Here the houses are made with the cross beams and struts roped together with the cord as tight as if held together by nails or screws.

Fiji, Polynesia.
Coconut shell and coconut fiber (husk) sinnet.
19th century.
17,5 x 17, 5 cm (without the cord).

Literature: Pub. : Nuts…!! the Coconut in Oceania, Galerie Meyer, Paris, 2018, pp. 37-38