Last week, we looked closely at the rivalry between Ratu Seru Cakobau and Ratu Raivalita and the circumstances surrounding the death/assassination of Ratu Raivalita at the hands of Ratu Seru and his henchmen. We said Rewa’s positioning vis a vis Bau, and therefore Fiji, lay at the centre of plots and counterplots from both sides that led to simmering political intrigue and tension on Bau. This came to the fore by the time Ratu Raivalita was killed in 1945. His death was followed by renewed and more ambitious efforts from Ratu Seru to consolidate his position throughout the late 1940s and further. The Bau-Rewa rivalry, however, was about to explode. That was the Kaba wars that are often repeated in oral renditions of Bauan/Rewan history. Here, we look at those two deadly encounters and the lead-up to it.
Before the Kaba wars
RATU Seru’s ambitions became obvious after 1837 when he garnered the Lasakau people to overthrow Ratu Ravulo Vakayaliyalo, the reigning Roko Tui Bau Vuaniivi and his puppet Vunivalu Ramudra in 1837. After reinstalling Ratu Tanoa (his father) to the Vunivalu throne in Bau, he began to increasingly assert himself as the executive Vunivalu while the aging Tanoa receded to the more ceremonial role of Roko Tui Bau (as the Vuaniivi had dissipated by then).
Thus, under the chieftainship of Cakobau, Bau began to expand her aggressiveness, power and control well beyond her old dominions. Just after the Cakaudrove wars of 1846, the Reverend John Hunt was reported to have said that in a short time Ratu Seru had “raised Bau to a degree of prosperity to which perhaps, no Fijian state ever attained before”. He also observed that Ratu Seru was well on his way to becoming “in every sense the Emperor of Feejee” (in Lyth: nd, c 4 January 1845).
Bau’s conflicts with Rewa is better understood when one accepts that the principal Fijian kingdoms in the 1800s were Bau, Rewa, Lau, Cakaudrove, Macuata and Nadroga. Of these, the truly dominant forces were Bau, Rewa and later Lau (because of the arrival of Ma’afu in 1848).
The attrition between Rewa and Bau was focused on a geographical location that was distant from the rest even though involvements especially from Lau and, to a lesser extent, Cakaudrove, were not uncommon. Indeed in 1850 when Cakobau declared war on some Christian villages in Verata, Tongans came to the help of the missionaries and thus became involved in direct conflict with Bau.
The primary conflict, however, involved Rewa because through Tanoa’s marriage to Adi Qereitoga, Rewa had vasu rights to the throne in Bau. This was one of the primary reasons for Ratu Raivalita’s assassination as presented in some detail earlier in this series.
However, it is important to also note that control of Bau meant access to power and control over domains that were beyond the reach of Rewa with Bau in the way. A deeper dive into history reveals that before its eruption into open conflict, this rivalry involved a proxy war between “the lesser lands of Tokatoka and Nakelo in the Rewa Delta” (Sahlins, 2004, p19). Cakobau’s deviousness, designs, dexterity and strategic manoeuvrings seemed to have no parallels in the Fiji of old. He was a chess master who played for ultimate stakes. Before we go to the drubbing of Rewa in 1845, we need to look at developments that took place after 1840 as these feed into the final eruption of open war between Rewa and Bau.
The Suva wars
The siege of Suva is linked to an ongoing power rivalry between Ro Kania, the Roko Tui Dreketi and head of Rewa and his younger brother, Ratu Qaraniqio. This difference dated back to 1838 and 1839 when Christianity was introduced to Rewa at Ratu Tanoa’s (Bau) behest. Remember, one of Ratu Tanoa’s wives, Adi Qereitoga, was Ro Kania’s sister. Ratu Qaraniqio took to tormenting the missionaries in order to rile his brother, Ro Kania. He had done more than this a little earlier when he seduced one of Kania’s wives into an open relationship. Records show that Ratu Qaraniqio cut a more impressive, dashing and chief-like figure than Kania. He also had the most imposing house and household in Rewa (Sahlins, 2004, p269). This rivalry was alive when Qaraniqio entered Suva and commandeered a prized pig belonging to the ruler of Suva, the Roko Tui Suva.
The Roko Tui Suva was not without connections himself. He was the son of one of Ratu Tanoa’s wives, therefore, vasu i Bau. However, following his genealogy two generations back, he was also vasu i Rewa. Thus, when Qaraniqio took the pig, he did so as a vasu of both kingdoms. He was simply helping himself to a place that was subject to whichever kingdom one took as the more important one. This did not go down well with the Roko Tui Suva, and the ensuing fight rolled over into a Bau-Rewa conflict. Qaraniqio, who was thwarted from helping himself to the pig, organised a major retaliatory attack on Suva.
This had serious implications for the “political relations between Bau and Rewa, for the personal relations between their rulers, Ratu Tanoa and Ro Kania, for the rivalry within Rewa between Ratu Qaraniqio and the king — and, within Bau for the fortunes of ‘the party of Rewa’, Adi Qereitoga and Ratu Raivalita” (ibid p271). It needs to be noted that there was a Rewa faction within Bau itself that came from the criss-crossing vasu relationships between the two kingdoms. This faction, like a few others, had legitimate claims to the throne in Bau.
Qaraniqio’s onslaught on Suva came in early 1842, but despite the formidable size of his army, he was driven back by the Suvans (Jaggar J:23, 25 June 1842). The ignominy of this defeat prompted him to make another attempt in 1843 when he not only overran the town, but managed to slaughter women and children who were fleeing to shelter under a ceasefire agreement. There was much anger in Bau as all embraced for imminent retaliation. This was delayed as Bau vacillated for some six months with Cakobau having left for Lau in an attempt to confirm Bau’s dominance over Lau — Ma’afu was yet to arrive in Fiji at this juncture. Cakobau was feted in Lakeba by the Tui Nayau on 21 May 1843 marking a successful trip (Williams, 1931, 1:162-163).
On the other hand, Tanoa was holding back because of considerations for Ratu Raivalita who was not only his son, but a high vasu of Rewa, being Ro Kania’s nephew. What tipped Tanoa towards war was betrayal by Raivalita’s mother, Adi Qereitoga. This “favourite” wife of Tanoa committed adultery and fled to Rewa with women of her Bauan household who were then divvied up among Rewan royalty. An ailing Tanoa was suddenly furious as his virility had been questioned. There was need for setting the record straight and with the return of Cakobau, war was declared on Rewa.
The conflagration at Rewa
In December 1845, some months after the death of Ratu Raivalita, a large Bauan army engaged a smaller Rewan force in Rewa and slaughtered some 300 of them. Journal entries of the time show that treachery was involved in ensuring this critical victory for Ratu Seru Cakobau. A key in the plot involved the Mata ki Bau at the time. The holder of this position operated as an envoy, a go between, whenever there were cross-tribal engagements. In this case, the envoy was a kai Rewa dina. There was thus a distinction between the iTaukei (real people) of the domain and the conquering chiefs and their descendants who lorded over these domains. This is an important aspect of traditional Fijian society as it continued to evolve, and I will expand on this later. For our purposes, let’s turn back to the 1845 annihilation of Rewan forces and the role played by the Mata ki Bau in it.
This envoy was from the Navolau clan that led the iTaukei of Rewa. Reports noted by Wallis (1851, p168) say that this envoy was indeed acting on behalf of “his party and the real people of Rewa”. Cakobau was able to exploit this divide between the “real Rewans” and their rulers who were essentially chiefly clans who had conquered them earlier. It was the Mata ki Bau who signalled Cakobau’s forces for when to attack and where. What transpired was a total rout by a much larger force involving the burning of a whole Rewan town/settlement and the death of an estimated 300 people. Very interestingly, some 100 of these were killed by Rewans themselves either because they were seen to be of the “outsider” clan or there was opportunistic gain to be made. The story goes that it was very difficult to distinguish friend from foe during the battle.
That battle in 1845 was thus catastrophic for Rewa. The power struggle, however, was far from over. We will focus on the next stage next week.
DR SUBHASH APPANNA is a senior USP academic who has been writing regularly on issues of historical and national significance. The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers subhash.appana@usp.ac.fj