THE Fijian ancestors did not see the ocean as a barrier — the way we see it today. Before, the only mode of transport were traditional canoes known as the drua.
Dr Peter Nuttal, a research associate with the Sustainable Shipping Research Program of the University of the South Pacific, believes there is a dire need to revive this national identity so that the young Fijians nowadays understand how their ancestors lived and enjoyed their lives.
The magnificent account of the drua and its significance to the native Fijians is something that has come a long way in the Fijian history. Although we no longer see them where they belong, Dr Nuttal said they could be seen everywhere in the county.
“Reality is that drua can be seen all over Fiji — on the policeman’s uniform, when you come through customs there is drua, a drua on people’s shirts, but we do not see them where they belong and I would love to see fleets of drua sailing again.” He said this was something the iTaukei forefathers had been proud of during their days.
The Ratu Finau
According to Dr Nuttal, this magnificent double hulled sailing canoe has been the central exhibit at the Fiji Museum since it was generously given to the people of Fiji by the Turner family in 1981. It was originally built on the instruction of Ratu Finau, the Tui Nayau, by his mataisau or hereditary boatbuilders on Fulaga Island and launched in 1913.
The drua was called the Ratu Finau because it was named after Ratu Finau Mara who was the Tui Nayau in 1910.
“The Pacific unlike any other region in the world is a maritime region and the Pacific ancestors were the masters of sailing,” Dr Nuttal said.
“There were no other people in the world who could build ships that were amazing as the Fijian ancestors ship and they knew more about hydrodynamics and euro dynamics and they understood so well that they invented things that weren’t used in modern yacht racing in America’s Cup and things like that.
“They learnt how to build incredible boats and spectacular boats built from the Southern Lau which were a joint collaboration of Samoan, Tongans and Fijians also using Micronesian technology sailing.”
The Southern Lau, according to Dr Nuttel had limestones and while there is now water and no food, there is one tree called vesi loa (black vesi) and it is being described as the titanium of the boatbuilding timbers.
He said these drua could go 12 to 15 knots per speed and were the most prized possession that a chief could own and hundreds probably thousands were built in the Southern Lau and then exported right across central Oceania and they went as far as Tokelau.
At that time continuous trade were going on by Fijians in their own drua in the forms of timbers, tanoa and other goods.
Dr Nuttal who has been in Fiji since the 1990s said for a whole range of complicated reasons, around the start of the 1900s the drua were disappearing and there was hardly any drua left.
He mentioned that the Ratu Finau which lies proudly at the Fiji Museum is the only four-scale double power sailing canoe original artefact that exist in the world “So this is the only artefact and the greatest heritage and if we lose that drua we lose something very important.”
The Fiji Museum is currently undergoing major renovations and as a result, the Ratu Finau may be moved as well from its original place at the museum.
Hence, the reason the Fiji Museum had invited the ambassadors from different embassies here in Fiji to the Fiji Museum verandah last Wednesday, to allow Fiji Museum to give a short presentation of the drua and its central importance to Fijian culture and history to discuss where they could seek the appropriate advice of world experts.
“So there is the renovation of the museum and they want to move the drua and I have a personal fascination with the drua.
“When I heard that the museum was talking to move the drua I became really concerned because every time I go and see it, it’s getting more and more decayed and the thing is starting to crumble.
“In the meeting last Wednesday, we have identified some experts from the British, the Papa Museum in New Zealand and we asked the diplomatic corps to come because before we can prepare funding, we need to know what we have to do and what it will cost.
“So we were asking the diplomatic corps to find us some experts and they are very pleased to assist us and see what support we can get from them and how we can preserve this drua for the next generation.”
Dr Nuttal said the process of moving the Ratu Finau was not an easy one as it needed international experts being the only one in the world left.
“We need to know if we can move it and if we try to move it and it falls to pieces you know I won’t want to be responsible for that and we need expert advice.”
Fuluna Tikoidelaimakotu Tuimoce
In late November, a few days before the climate change summit in Paris, Fijian sailor and 27-year-old Fuluna Tikoidelaimakotu Tuimoce shared his story at the conference on indigenous peoples and climate change, held at UNESCO.
“My name is Tikoidelaimakotu Tuimoce Fuluna. My name tells you who I am and where I am from. I come from a small country, Fiji, in the middle of the world’s greatest ocean, the Pacific. I live in a small village, Korova, near Suva, Capital City of Fiji. But my people are from an even smaller island, Moce (“mo-they”), in the Lau group,” Mr Tuimoce shared.
“We are an ocean people. For most of our history of millennia living on the Pacific Ocean the land is a place we go to rest. The ocean is our real home. The ocean has always provided for us, fed us and protected us. It is our highway and our supermarket. Today our ocean is a shadow of its former self — increasingly polluted, acidified, overfished, warmer and rising.
“For thousands of years our parents have taught us to respect and care for the ocean. But the forces that attack and damage our ocean today are beyond our control to manage.
“We are a sailing people. We have always sailed and our ‘canoes’ were the fastest and largest sailing ships in the world when the Europeans first sailed into our ocean.”
Mr Tuimoce’s speech moved people into tears as he shared reports of all European “explorers” which described the Pacific as an ocean covered by sails.
“We were a mobile people. Despite the cyclones, tsunamis and other natural disasters, which are common in the Pacific, our ancestors never saw the ocean as a barrier. They never talked about being “vulnerable”, “isolated”, “remote”: our drua — our ability to sail at will — meant we were always connected. We were not “small”, “island” or “developing” countries. We were — and still are — large ocean communities.
“The islands of the Lau Group are often described as beautiful, idyllic, unspoiled and our people as one of the most hospitable and friendly in the world. And so we are.”
Mr Tuimoce said despite all this, the reality was more complex as our Pacific countries were on the frontline of climate change.
He told hundreds participants that it was not that it’s any fault of ours, but we are on a slow moving train wreck that now drives us from our coasts and atolls, that turns our oceans to an acidic, plastic filled soup, that bleaches our coral and destroys our water and food supplies.
“For some of us, it will entirely destroy our homes, our countries and our cultures. For all of us, it means unprecedented change, often beyond the capacity of our elders to guide us or our children to prepare for.
“My village has never had an outboard motor. We are one of a handful of communities that still sail on our ocean.
“My elders are the last that still know how to build and maintain sailing canoes. My own father died when I was three years old, sailing one of the last drua from Lau to Suva.”
The Moce islander from Lau also shared that his community is a remnant of what once was.
“Our canoes are small — only shadows of the giant drua our grandfathers and their fathers built. We use them every day to go to the reef, to fish and forage for our supplies.
“But we can now only dream of the day when our chiefs send us out to sail in great fleets to other countries on the other side of our known world.
“So what can be done? We are not accepting our fate passively. There is a renaissance of our seafaring heritage occurring across our ocean. In the past few years I have been fortunate enough to sail with a small fleet of ocean-going canoes from across the Pacific.
Mr Tuimoce highlighted that if they lose their sailing culture, they would surely lose everything.
“Our canoes were once called Waqa Tabu — Sacred Ships — they are our icons, our heritage, our definition of who and what we are. They are symbols of a time when we did live in tune with wind and wave, when we were truly big people on a great ocean.
“The linkage with the past that our canoes provide is not quite severed. Although we have little resourcing, we are moving now to ensure the knowledge that is still held by our elders does not pass from this earth when they do, but that it is recorded for generations to come.
“We are building new canoes, only small ones at first but we continue to plan for the day when we again launch our drua upon the waters of the Pacific.
‘We must start from the beginning. Preparation for the future begins with the lessons of the past.
“So what can I do in the face of climate change? It seems the best thing I can do is to build a drua and sail it back to Lau.”
The strong sentiment shared by Mr Tuimoce recognised the need for the iTaukei to preserve their identity and learn from elders who are still alive while they still can.
