My last article highlighted the importance of relationships (veiwekani) in iTaukei culture. When a relationship is broken or acrimonious communal relations persist, bonding weakens and growth is stunted.
Even when there is growth in social activities or relational enhancement during lifecycle events, this is negated when communal relations splinter. I come from such a vanua. Whenever a chiefly dispute arises, splits in the vanua resurface and old wounds reopen.
The school is disrupted, collective responsibility over its upkeep deflates and communal synergy evaporates. A sad example to the young generation.
The Fiji Times report of July 30, 2022 on the TLFC commissioner’s comment at a Ba provincial meeting about increasing cases of disputes on land and leadership positions, illustrates the regrettable state of affairs of the iTaukei community today.
He also stressed the need to speed up the bestowing of chiefly titles and to record them in the commission’s records. An iTaukei commented that the disputes have worsened acrimonious relations among clans.
TLFC records are stored in its “strong room” and not accessible to the public.
One such record is the Tukutuku Raraba (TR), a narrative, based on a template summarising the early settlement of a vanua, traditional status, and the nomenclature of its people connected to their traditional identities.
These records help the commission make decisions on disputes. However, they appear to have helped little in solving disputes. What are the deficiencies in the records and how might they be rectified?
The records should be a major issue for the GCC and TLFC if they are serious about restoring healthy relations among the iTaukei.
Today’s article examines the problem with the Tukutuku Raraba and its social impacts. I will use records of the chiefly island of Bau as an example, drawing mainly from The Fiji Times articles.
The records of Bau
Several articles on Bau’s history appeared in The Fiji Times during 2020. Bau’s TR illustrates how things have gone awry because of the template that guided the assemblage of information from vanua members, later tampered with by officials, before becoming the TR narrative. I summarise John Kamea’s attempt to sift the “grain from the chaff” in Bau’s history:
May 09: In 1957 Ronald Garvey, then governor of Fiji, summarised Bau’s TR concerning its first settlement by fishermen clans and later by other tribes and their migrations. I concluded that the architects of the narrative were attempting to conflate the Roko Tui Bau and the Tui Kaba chieftaincies.
May 16: Kamea straightened out the conflated story: The earliest to settle on Bau was the Roko Tui Bau and his entourage; others settled later. The Tui Kaba was the Vunivalu of Kubuna, but the Roko Tui Bau was the paramount chief.
June 06: Kamea highlighted two salient developments concerning Cakobau. The white community bestowed the title Tui Viti (King of Fiji) to which he is not entitled. The Vunivalu installation only confirmed his position as an executive. Hocart, who conducted interviews in 1912 about vanua histories, claimed that the “title (Vunivalu) belongs to the second chief”.
November 23: Rawalai wrote about “Rivalry relations” among iTaukei and described veitabani relations between Ono-i-Lau and Bau. This relationship was an outcome of an “illicit affair” between a chiefly ancestor of Ono-i-Lau, Niumataiwalu, and the wife of the Vunivalu of Bau. She bore a son named Banuve, the grandfather of Cakobau.
Why is this important? The TR template includes a misleading genealogy based on the assumption that everyone living in the same village/vanua share a descent line. That is not the case in the Bau genealogy.
This may be a minor point to the people of Bau, but not in other vanua. In my vanua, the family tree is so muddled that many do not know their origins. Knowing one’s origin is important to one’s identity.
Identity confusion can find expression in many forms such as having “a chip on one’s shoulder” or other challenging behaviour. Back to Bau’s dilemma. Another aspect of the TR template concerns land ownership, a proof of chiefly identity.
Bau’s proof of its jurisdiction required acquisition of more land from subject villages on the mainland. USP academic Robert Nicole found archival evidence that Bau chiefs coerced the Nakelo people to surrender their lands.
They would have also ensured that Nakelo’s narrative was aligned with Bau’s. In 2017 in the West, I interviewed an informant, originally from Bau, who claimed that a clan from Bau held clandestine meetings with mainland villages to ensure their TR narratives aligned with Bau’s.
How did Cakobau come to be regarded as the paramount chief of Bau? With the white community in the 1800s and early post-colonial period elevating him, Cakobau started to believe he was the highest chief. Support from his cronies and clan reinforced this.
They manipulated their history to link it with the highest chiefly position. Toganivalu, the Bauan historian, claimed that Bau was first settled by a clan whose leader became known as Rokotuibau (meaning supreme), the senior and sacred chief and that the Vunivalu as the executive came later.
Despite Toganivalu’s account, the manipulated version appeared “authentic” in the TR. Although this was disputed by Hocart’s informants in 1912, the TR, with the backing of the colonial administration, but not the vanua placed the Vunivalu at the leadership helm.
Bau and my vanua, Natewa, are just two examples whose TRs are tainted with erroneous historical accounts.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare) It is not unusual for researchers to find oral histories conflicting with the TR of the vanua they were studying. Nonetheless, the TLFC insists that its documents are the true history.
Successful manipulation of a narrative and its presentation as authentic history was enabled by three factors:
• One is the decimation of Indigenous Fijians during the measles and influenza epidemics. With many deaths and with reforms introduced by the colonial government, there was fission and fusion of groups. This together with the reforms provided opportunities to cancel or create roles and relegate clans to lower roles to benefit the architects of the narrative.
• Another factor is time lags between NLC/TLFC inquiries, enabling interested parties to plan and consult clan members and other vanua to “tweak” certain changes to the architects’ advantage. In my vanua, 16 years before the 1928 NLC inquiry, certain clans were already divided into subclans. Over the 16 years, the architects of the TR regrouped and repositioned their clans to downgrade others.
• But most important is the power of the Roko and Buli. They filtered information for the NLC, as well as controlling what goes to the grassroots, affecting the welfare of a clan and bringing benefits to themselves. In conclusion, we must question the authenticity of the TRs. How truthful are they? Can we rely on the TLFC to be honest with us, the iTaukei? Indigenous Fijians must first get their own house in order before we can attend to others. We must face the problematic nature of official records of our history and do some soul searching and truth telling.
• NEXT WEEK: I will focus on what self-determination means and the role of the GCC and TLFC on the welfare of indigenous Fijians.
• ETA VARANI has a PhD in Education (University of Sydney). She taught indigenous studies and education at Macquarie University and University of Sydney. The views expressed in this article are hers and not of this newspaper
