THE tabua is an important item in the iTaukei custom.
According to the iTaukei Trust Fund Board, a tabua presented in each ceremony is given a name.
“The name reflects the ceremony being observed or the purpose of a particular aspect of the ceremony. The tabua is presented in deaths, in marriages, to present something new, to receive and farewell important visitors, at the installation of a chief, to request for something, as an atonement, for an agreement, and a few more.”
The information below was sourced from the Fiji Museum and the iTaukei Trust Fund Board. Displayed at the Fiji Muesum are priceless artefacts (tabua) used in the olden days.
iTaubeciva
Breastplate composed of a black-lipped pearl-shell core, to which plates cut from sperm whale teeth have been fastened by lead rivets. A human image is fastened to the centre of the shell by a lead rivet through its navel. The strings are coir sinnet.
Were it not for the human image in its centre, this breastplate would be fairly representative of the smaller, generally cruder, often metal-riveted breastplates produced in profusion in the 1840s and 1950s, apparently to satisfy a demand created by chronic wars between Bau and Rewa, when the engaging and buying off of highland mercenaries became a strategic necessity.
The only other known human images on civavonovono are a completely different little knob head which caps a breastplate made for the Tui Noco in the 1850s by a Tongan Methodist minister, and a head and torso on a breastplate from the eastern highlands of Viti Levu, both of which are in the Fiji Museum. The head and torso on this last breastplate are stylistically related to the image on the breastplate illustrated, and as the head and torso are definitely replacements for a star inlay of Tongan form, it may be that both images were carved by a Vitian highlander, rather than a Tongan or Samoan derived craftsman. The right leg of the image is shown wrapped in an old linen bandage, which may refer to a leg injury received by an ancestor in one of the Nasorovakawalu wars.
Cavunikelekele
The tabua that’s presented by a local party to a visiting delegation on their canoe, anchored at sea, asking them to pull up anchor and move closer to shore.
Cula ni mataniika
A tabua presented by a chief or someone who has received fish from the fisher folk clan as reciprocation and show of gratitude.
iDiriki
A tabua that’s presented to respectfully turndown the request (a presented tabua) by a woman’s relatives for her return to them after the death of her husband.
iDuguci
A tabua that’s presented to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage.
iKerei
A tabua that’s presented to ask for land for planting or building purposes or for the use of fishing grounds.
