page_title: Fe'i banana
section_title: In culture
hierarchical_section_title: Fe'i banana / In culture
context_page_description: Fe'i bananas are cultivated plants in the genus Musa, used mainly for their fruit. Unlike most other cultivated bananas they are diploids of the AA-type. They are distinct in appearance and origin from the majority of bananas and plantains currently grown. Found mainly in the islands of the Pacific, particularly French Polynesia, Fe'i bananas have skins which are brilliant orange to red in colour with yellow or orange flesh inside. They are usually eaten cooked and have been an important food for Pacific Islanders, moving with them as they migrated across the ocean. Most are high in beta-carotene.
  The botanical name for Fe'i bananas is Musa × troglodytarum L. Precisely which wild species they are descended from remained unclear as of January 2013.
context_section_description: Fe'i bananas are an important component of ceremonial feasts in the Marquesas and the Society Islands. Karat bananas are reported to be one of the few kinds of banana that can be used in ceremonial presentations in Pohnpei, Micronesia. A Samoan legend is that the mountain and the lowland banana fought. The mountain banana – the Fe'i banana – won. Filled with pride at its victory, the mountain banana raised its head high, whereas the defeated lowland banana never raised its head again. (Fe'i bananas have an upright fruiting stem, whereas the fruiting stem droops in other kinds of banana.)
  The bright orange-red colours of Fe'i bananas make them attractive to artists. The French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin visited the Society Islands, including Tahiti, towards the end of the 19th century. Three of his works include what are considered to be Fe'i bananas: Le Repas (The Meal, 1891), La Orana Maria (Hail Mary, 1891) and Paysage de Tahiti (Tahitian Landscape, 1891).
  Fe'i bananas were one of the main staples of Liv Coucheron-Torpand and Thor Heyerdahl during their one-and-a-half-year stay on the Marquesan island of Fatu-Hiva in 1937-38. Heyerdahl reported that Fe'i bananas grew all around their cabin on Fatu-Hiva, while on Tahiti they had only seen fe'i bananas growing "in almost inaccessible cliffs."
caption: Paul Gauguin's Le Repas; Fe'i bananas bottom left
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