Fijian-English Dictionary - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

FIJIAN – ENGLISH DICTIONARY R. GATTY
a white chevron on the top of their head. Extremely few Fijians have ever seen one and most do not
know of its existence. One never hears of anyone being bitten by the snake and it normally scurries off
and disappears very quickly. Paddy Ryan suggests it is probably nocturnal. Living in the rain forest
and jungle for decades, I have encountered it only once. They are perhaps best known in Namosi
Province and Colo East, where they have been eaten. They live in dead, rotting vegetation.
Highlanders catch them with a forked stick. Some believe they render it harmless by rubbing the
snake's mouth and teeth with the cut stem of via milamila, Alocasia indica, Araceae, which has a very
irritating sap. Curiously, this is spoken of as "sawing" (varo, varota) the teeth. It would seem to be a
dangerous treatment.
bologa, bololaka v. to heave, throw heavily, an object, a kick or a punch. To smash into pieces.
bolomo v., n. to steep or dunk a starch food e.g., chunks of breadfruit most commonly but also taro, in
coconut cream (lolo), or a biscuit in tea, a favoured and acceptable way of eating. Steeping tends to
soften starch foods which is helpful to older people whose teeth are weak. toni, tonia to dip or dunk.
bona v., n. adj. stink. putrid. Occasionally used pejoratively to a person; also, in children's game of tag
veibona, the word is exclaimed to mean "you are 'it'!" Syn. (Kadavu) busi.
Boni Vilive n. Burns Philp, major department store, Australian origin now under the name of Courts.
Often written as one word. Now mainly known for its clock tower in central Suva.
bono, bonota (or) bonata v. to stuff, to block, to plug up or dam (hole, stream of water). ibono dam,
plug. bonata na vanua galala close off the open spaces.
bonu n. swamp eel or mud eel sp., very thin body up to a meter long but hardly more than an inch in
thickness, pointed nose, lives beside creeks, in drains, thriving in mud. It never lives right in the creeks
but only alongside. A good food, to be caught with care by hand but it bites when grabbed. One can
reach into the slender mud holes but the bonu can move as easily in reverse as it can forward. Brown
on the back, white underneath. One type is the bonu loa, which is short and has more distinctive beaklike
head. The other, longer type is the “true” bonu dina. Fijians do not consider bonu as a type of eel
(duna), possibly because it does not live in creeks or rivers. There is a river named Wai-ni-sulu-bonu,
a tributary into the Wainadoi, near the coast of Namosi.
bora, borota, boralaka v. to bawl out, reprimand.
bore, borea v. to wash, usually of utensils or food. bore vakawai to rinse without washing completely.
See dere.
borete n. shrubby fern, Acrostichum aureum, Pteridaceae (or Adiantaceae), that has edible young leaves, a
delicious vegetable, normally lightly cooked, like ota, and can be eaten raw. Sometimes used as
medicine. It grows by the mangrove shore or in brackish, boggy areas, and is unknown at sandy shores
and in the highlands. It is never cultivated. Syn. boresi, babasiga, caca, (Lau,, Cakau) vativati.
boro 1. (Lau) n. virtually any green vegetable.
boro 2. n. certain edible shrubs and small plants, virtually all of genus Solanum, family Solanaceae,
formerly important in the diet, now mostly neglected, replaced by bele and tubua, and to some extent
by European vegetables (English cabbage) or oriental greens (Chinese cabbage, mustard greens).
Cooking is by boiling, formerly by steaming. Only rarely sold in the market.
• boro dina Solanum uporo, formerly S. anthropophagorum, smooth leaves, small tomato-like fruit
yellow or red. Seeman considered the plant a digestive that was eaten in association with human
bodies in cannibal times. Eastern Polynesians have used the red fruit in floral necklaces.
• boro sou, sou, (or) sousou S. repandum, shrub with edible leaves when well cooked in boiling water.
Seeman mentions this was eaten with yams, or cooked in soups. sou suggests something that occurs
early. S. Savage mentions the edible fruits shaped like very small papaya with a pleasant aromatic
smell, as used by maoris of eastern Polynesia.
• boro gaga (or) rokete is introduced, hot chilli pepper, Capsicum frutescens, (so-called because of
similarity to some species of Solanum genus in their form of plant and shape of leaves). Quite a few
Fijians now use chilli, in curry, in
tomato sauce, in a Tongan coconut-cream sauce called miti for seafood, and on a salad-seaweed nama.
Idiom: boro gaga reference to sarcastic, hurtful speech.
• boro wa (or) tokoi edible leaves of woody liana or shrub with long hanging branches, wild or semicultivated
at low altitude from Malesia eastward to the Marianas and Fiji, Deeringia amaranthoides,
Amaranthaceae.
• boro ni yaloka ni gata S. nigrum. Black nightshade.
boro, boroya v. to paint, apply (ointment etc.). boro pouta v. to apply talcum powder to the head,
usually of a dancer, as a compliment fakawela, a Lauan custom, now adopted elsewhere. Formerly
Fijians painted with colour their faces, as with war-paint, and in coastal areas and small islands, to
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