Degei

Yesterday I mentioned that a friend from our days in the Fiji Islands had recently died. We first met Josie in 1971 when she was 12 years old. Here she is, in traditional dress, in our garden in Suva, the capital of Fiji.

Josiliva Babavono Navavia Crick went on to become an accomplished contemporary artist and was a prominent figure among the art community in Fiji. In 2003 the French Government made her a Chevalier de L’order des Arts et des Letters for her contribution to art in the South Pacific.

I have superimposed the photograph of the young Josie against a detail of one of her paintings which hangs in our house. The subject of the painting is Degei. First and foremost among the Kalou-vu, the hierarchy of the old Fijian gods, Degei took the form of a huge snake.