HISTORY is subject to bias and bigotry. Google “Fiji discoverer” if you don’t believe us and you’ll get Abel Tasman, James Cook and William Bligh. Which in the 21st century, long after Fiji cast off the shackles of colonialism, is nothing short of a disgrace.
What did Tasman discover? Something that he (and the people who spoke his language) did not know before. What does the first-time tourist arriving today at Nadi discover? Something that they did not know before. To them, it is a discovery, nothing less. But in both cases, there were people here already.
Europeans did not discover Fiji but perhaps one reason why the internet pretends they did is because so little is known about Fiji history before European arrival. It’s not much of an excuse, we know!
For two years, researchers from the Fiji Museum and USP have been working with those from the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) studying the ancient hillforts (koronivalu) of Bua in western Vanua Levu. As the fascinating stories compiled recently about this area by Luke Rawalai for The Fiji Times show us, Bua is rich in oral traditions as well as the more tangible remains of Fiji’s pre-European history.
The story of Naicobocobo, the leaping-off place for dead souls (FT August 14, 2017) is well known to the people of Navunievu Village.
But what our research team found there last January was less well known to them. Behind Navunievu is a bush-covered hill on the flanks of which local informants showed us several stone house platforms (yavu).
No-one could tell us what was further up the hill so we climbed it and to our surprise we found the remains of a fortified hilltop settlement.
Named Nabouwalu, the first thing you encounter on the southeast side of the hill is a raised earth rampart. Like a wall, it is about one metre high today and could be traced — on and off — for about 180 metres along the contour. Above it, shielded by its rim is a flat area, probably for houses.
Then you climb a little more and come across a ditch. Something that people dug along the contour with narrow causeways crossing it in places. The ditch surrounds a high point, possibly an artificial mound.
One of the reasons our research team has focused its efforts in the western part of Bua is that, because of the sandalwood trade early in Fiji’s post-contact history, we have a few written accounts of hillforts in the area. Something that we don’t have for most other parts of Fiji. Consider this account of William Lockerby, a sandalwood trader marooned in Bua in July 1808.
“On the 9th of Sept, the king told me that the next day I must go with him to see the fort of Tattalepo (Tacilevu).”
Off he went and described the discussions and the feast that followed but not much else. Still we can infer that Tacilevu hillfort was sufficiently powerful and had enough warriors in it in 1808 to make it worthy of the Tui Bua’s attention. The maps our research team made of Tacilevu hillfort — three times higher than Nabouwalu — show it had two major parts, both laid out along a steep-sided ridge.
The lower (main) part, which occupies a high piece of the ridge about 170 metres above sea level is approached from below along a narrow stretch that has the remains of guard houses on either side. A huge artificial mound, still standing after a few hundred years, dominates the entrance to the lower occupation area, which we infer was probably occupied mostly by warriors, charged with the protection of the people who lived higher up.
Some 500 metres further along the ridge at Tacilevu, the ridge is crossed by the remains of a defensive ditch; the remains of guard houses are placed strategically around it. Then you climb up to the summit, over walls, past yavu, until you reach the highest part of Tacilevu, 250 metres above sea level.
Here there is an enclosure, surrounded on three sides by a neatly-constructed rock wall, on the fourth side by a sheer cliff. There is a mound on the top. This area, we infer, is where the elite lived, protected as far as possible from attack by several lines of defence.
And now we come to Seseleka, the highest of the koronivalu in the area, a majestic flat-topped rock the size of a rugby pitch, surrounded on almost every side by sheer cliffs. The only way up is along a narrow ridge that is peppered with defensive yavu, crossed by stone walls and ditches. Seseleka must truly have housed some special people.
The research team excavated near one of the summit yavu on Seseleka and found abundant sea shells. People here ate shellfish, it seems, in considerable quantities, even though it must have taken someone six or seven hours to get down to the sea and back.
One of these shells was sent for radiocarbon dating and can be shown to have been carried up to Seseleka and consumed by someone there around the year 1680AD. Almost 340 years ago.
On the top of Seseleka is an artificial pond (tobu), lined with rocks. The mud accumulated over perhaps many centuries in this pond was also sampled by the researchers and sent for radiocarbon dating. Incredibly, it showed that some of the mud in the bottom of that pond formed there about 1670AD.
So we know the tobu existed almost 350 years ago; people must have been well established on Seseleka long before that. They were still there in the 1840s because an American called Charles Wilkes sailed past and commented as follows.
“There is a high and insulated peak north of Dimba-dimba (Naicobocobo) Point, which has a town perched on its very top.”
So don’t let the internet tell you that Tasman, who did not sail even remotely close to western Vanua Levu in 1642, “discovered” Fiji because there were then people living on top of a mountain in Bua (and probably a hundred other Fiji mountaintops) who had settled there long before.
And of course, there were people in Fiji around three thousand years ago. On the Rove Peninsula (near Natadola); on Moturiki and Naigani Islands (in Lomaiviti); near Sigatoka; around Beqa Island; at Natunuku (near Ba); on Yadua Island, and perhaps in a couple of places in Macuata. These are the real “discoverers” of Fiji and it is their achievements that we should be celebrating these days.
* Patrick Nunn is professor of geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and Elia Nakoro is Head of Prehistory-Archeology at the Fiji Museum. The views expressed are not of this newspaper.
