Cultivation and Viti Kabani
In the 1900s, the surrounding Nairukuruku river plains were cultivated with bananas as the major cash crop. The village banana farmers became exponents of the Viti Kabani movement and the quest by its enigmatic founder Apolosi Ranawai for native indigenous commercial enterprise against the wishes of colonial administrators. Ranawai had founded his Company at Nakorovatu, Matailobau where in 1912, as a carpenter he was building a church. Ratu Esira Rovucago V (1870–1934) of Nairukuruku was the secretary for the Viti Kabani in Colo East at the height of its popularity from 1913 to 1917. With the demise of the banana industry many villagers left to seek employment in the gold mines of Vatukoula and the tourism industry of western Viti Levu. Today subsistence market farming is the major village income earner with many families having left for urban living.
Read more about this topic: Taukei Ni Waluvu
Famous quotes containing the word cultivation:
“Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)