‘Very scanty covering for the chocolate body’: The art of burlesque and the Fijian Cricket Team in Australia, 1907–1908

Press accounts of public appearances by the Fijian Cricket Teamthat toured Australia in 1907–08 expose broader social trends in contemporary understandings of commercialised sport, popular entertainment and male sexuality. The centrality of the Fijians’ apparel to the sexual display within their performances suggests that the team fused humour with a desire to appeal to the massive crowds that patronised their matches – upward of 9,000 spectators at some games. By simultaneously appropriating a national game – cricket – the team engineered a forum for entertainment that confronted Edwardians with illustrations of raw power, physical prowess and near-naked Fijian masculinity. To this day, these reports offer vivid examples of how the team enticed Edwardians with performances combining sport, ethnographic display, and titillation.