Fijian Bure

A bure is a traditional Fijian building of timber and thatch. In strict traditional usage it was the men's house of a clan, where initiated men met, ate and slept, while the family dwelling was the vale. In modern Fiji, and especially in tourism, "bure" has come to mean any thatched house or a detached resort bungalow.

Construction

Traditional Fijian houses were built from whatever local materials were available, with components stacked, tied with rope, or both. Both bure and vale were dark and smoky inside, with no windows and usually a single low door. Vale had hearth pits for cooking, and their packed-earth floors were covered first with grass or fern leaves and then with mats of pandanus or coarse coconut leaf.

Cyclone performance

Researchers from Massey University, writing in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, found that traditional bure are more likely to withstand tropical cyclones than many contemporary timber-framed houses. They identified several features that match international guidance for cyclone-resistant building:

• relatively short walls;
• few and small wall openings;
• an elevated rock base;
• a hipped roof with steep slopes and small eaves.

A hipped roof avoids a tall gable wall exposed to the wind, and small eaves leave less overhang for wind to get under and lift. Bure can also be rebuilt quickly from locally gathered materials.

After Tropical Cyclone Winston struck Fiji on 20 February 2016, residents of Navala village reported that their traditional houses performed better than contemporary ones, and that most damage came from debris torn from modern houses. The researchers warned that some villages appear to have lost traditional building knowledge and argued that it should be included in disaster relief and "build back better" programmes.

Modern use

Most Fijian homes now have metal roofs; in the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, thatch, palm or coconut leaf was recorded for only about 0.1% of households. Tourist bure range from simple huts to luxury villas built to modern standards, often with plumbing and electricity that traditional bure lacked. Some writers note that icili would be a more traditionally correct older Fijian word for such cabins.

Related forms

The bure belongs to a wider Pacific family of steep-roofed, lashed and thatched buildings, including the Samoan fale, the Kiribati maneaba and the Vanuatu nakamal.