The Itaukei Chief: Value and Alterity in Verata

Journal de la Société des Océanistes

141 | juillet-décembre 2015 Nouveaux regards sur les chefferies fidjiennes

The iTaukei Chief: Value and Alterity in Verata

Matti Eräsaari

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7407 DOI: 10.4000/jso.7407 ISSN: 1760-7256

Publisher Société des océanistes

Printed version Date of publication: 15 December 2015 Number of pages: 239-254 ISBN: 978-2-85430-126-7 ISSN: 0300-953x

Electronic reference Matti Eräsaari, « The iTaukei Chief: Value and Alterity in Verata », Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 141 | juillet-décembre 2015, Online since 15 December 2018, connection on 20 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7407 ; DOI : 10.4000/jso.7407

Matti Eräsaari*

ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ Over the course of the last century and a half, the struc- Au cours du dernier siècle et demi, la structure et les tural and political underpinnings of Fijian chieftaincy soubassements politiques du système de cheferie de Fidji have changed in signiicant ways and is no longer best ont changé de manière signiicative, et leur meilleure represented by the union of the stranger-chief and local représentation n’est plus l’union de l’étranger-chef avec lineage. According to what must be the most widely- le lignage local. Selon ce qui est sans doute le mythe des accepted origin mythology in present-day Fiji, the irst origines le plus largement accepté à Fidji aujourd’hui, Fijians arrived from Tanganyika, Africa. Emphasi- les premiers Fidjéens arrivèrent de Tanganyika, en sing the shared origins of all indigenous Fijians, this Afrique. Mettant l’accent sur les origines partagées de mythology denies the internal diferentiation between tous les Fidjéens, ce mythe nie la distinction interne autochthones and strangers that is often highlighted as a entre autochtones et étrangers – distinction souvent key constituent in Fijian political organization. In this présentée comme un constituant clef de l’organisa- ethnographic tradition, it is the “synthetic” combination tion politique de Fidji. Dans cette tradition, c’est la of foreign charisma and autochthonous legitimation that combinaison « synthétique » entre le charisme étran- holds up chieftaincy. Colonial-era Native Legislation ger et la légitimité autochtone qui déinit la cheferie. reveals us a similar denial of the dichotomy in material La législation autochtone de l’ère coloniale nie égale- and linguistic terms, overriding the distinction between ment la dichotomie matérielle et linguistique entre les the land-owning autochthones and the landless stran- propriétaires fonciers autochtones et les étrangers sans gers, respectively designated as the “owners” or “hosts” terre, respectivement désignés comme « propriétaires » (taukei) and “strangers” or “guests” (vulagi). his article (taukei) et « hôtes » (vulagi). Cet article se penche sur considers the 2010 governmental decision to replace the la décision gouvernementale de 2010 de remplacer words “Fijian” or “native Fijian” with the word iTaukei les mots « Fidjian » ou « Native Fidjian » par le mot in oicial English-language use as merely the most recent iTaukei en anglais oiciel – une décision qui n’est que example of a development that has been in the making l’exemple le plus récent d’un développement qui est en for a considerable while. cours depuis longtemps. Keywords: value, origin, alterity, autochthony, tabua Mots-clés: valeur, origine, altérité, autochthonie, tabua

In 2010 the Government of Fiji passed a decree and native settlers of Fiji” (Government of Fiji which replaced the English words “Fijian”, 2010). Consequently, the Ministry of Indigenous “indigenous” and “indigenous Fijian” with Afairs became the Ministry of iTaukei Afairs, the Fijian word “iTaukei” in all the English- the Fijian Afairs Act became the iTaukei Afairs language laws, oicial documents and names of Act, and so forth1. In the simplest of terms, what Government agencies referring to “the original happened here was that the government used its * Newton International Fellow, Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, [email protected] 1. Since this article looks into changes that have occurred in the meaning of the word taukei, I will try to avoid unnecessary confusion by sticking with the old system, using the expressions “indigenous” or “indigenous Fijian” for indigenous Fijian Journal de la Société des Océanistes 141, année 2015-2 240 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES authority to establish an endonym in place of the belonging, and therefore not feeling responsibility for misleading “Fijian”, a term which can be used the land, resources and all else that exists within it both in reference to the indigenous population […] those who are taukei to a vanua (“land”) should and to Fijian nationals. always have the best interests of their vanua at heart, Everyone familiar with Fiji’s recent history especially if they are brought up well. » (Nabobo- of coups and the role ethnicity has played in Baba, 2006: 44-45) the coups understands that the name change works in two ways: it both sets apart the group However, it is not the diferent interests of designated as taukei2 as a distinct category, but it the owner and the visitor that come out most can also be seen as an attempt at broadening the strongly in Nabobo-Baba’s writing, but rather gloss of the word “Fijian” – “freeing” the noun the implications of the moral higher ground denoting Fijian nationality to usage that is devoid occupied by the taukei. In the words of one of her of ethnic connotations, as it were. Whether the interlocutors: “If I was a vulagi woman, I could irst should have been attempted in the irst not speak out freely” (Nabobo-Baba, 2006: 45). place, and whether the second is possible just by In an examination of texts forwarded during a governmental decision, are both questions that the public hearings organised for the review of this article addresses only indirectly. What I want the 1990 constitution, Robert Norton (2000) to draw attention to, instead, is what a value- discusses a range of diferent takes on the taukei/ laden choice this is, and what are the structural ulagi dichotomy. hese show how the ideology implications of such a choice. discussed by Nabobo-Baba can be harnessed he word taukei has for a long time been into national-level political usage, a rhetorical deined as one half of a conceptual pair, serving move sometimes labelled “taukeism”. Here are as counter-notion to that of vulagi, the “guest” some examples: or “stranger”. he signiicance of foreign origin in indigenous Fijian value systems has been a « “he Fijians regard themselves as the owner of constant theme in the ethnography of Fiji; this Fiji in the same way the owner of a house protects his interests in his house,” and they do not respond has been elaborated with regard to political favorably to tenants “who demand equal rights with power and exchange value in a highly persuasive the owner” as the issue was phrased by the Viti Civil manner by Marshall Sahlins in particular (see Servants’ Association. » (Norton, 2000: 103) e.g. Sahlins, 1985, 1994, and also 2013). In this conceptual pairing, taukei does indeed he svt party’s petition phrased the issue even stand for “the original settlers”, as clariied by more pointedly: the Government circular letter cited above, but it also stands for the notions of “owner” and « he Taukei are normally at the forefront in deci- “host”. Together, the conceptual pair can be sion making. he vulagi are allowed to participate taken to exemplify how certain values can be […] but they must not be domineering or forceful. “preserved in the very fabric of language”, as E. […] Whilst they are welcome to stay and enjoy the P. hompson (1970 [1968]: 54) once phrased it. fruits of their labour, […] they need to be reminded hough hompson speaks of the moral values time and time again of this fact. […] he taukei and of the English crowd rather than the binary vulagi concept, host/guest relationship, continues to semantic values of Fijian symbolic order that I be challenged and upset by […] the human rights evoke here, I want to emphasise that the two are, concept in which all are considered equal. » (Norton, in this instance at least, inseparable. Linguistic 2000: 98; see also Ravuvu, 1991) value is also, as Saussure (1993 [1983]: 113) already reminded us, a fundamentally social And so it goes on, all the way to the Methodist construction that relies on the general acceptance Church’s call “to ensure the absolute control over of the community of speakers. this nation by the i Taukei” (Norton, 2000: 100). Unaisi Nabobo-Baba (2006) gives a fair Similar rhetoric is very common in the account of the connotations expressed through Tailevu Province where I conducted research the taukei–vulagi dichotomy in the district of in 2007–2008, and judging by conversations Vugalei, south-eastern Viti Levu: held with visitors from other parts of Fiji, not uncommon elsewhere in indigenous Fiji either. « he Vugalei Fijian see the world in terms of a Most typically applied to interethnic relations, clear dichotomy between taukei – people who are of the point typically remains the same: « they are the land, own the land and therefore look after the the guests, they ought to know their place ». land – and vulagi (visitors). Visitors are seen as not his is radically diferent from a Fiji that once people and culture. In the pre-2010 state nomenclature, institutions referring to indigenous Fiji often used simply “Fijian”: I prefer to reserve this label to people and phenomena of or from the Republic of Fiji, regardless of ethnic background. 2. he spelling preferred in the names of oicial state institutions simply places the particle i before the root word taukei. In such instances the particle connotes “the person or thing acted on” (Capell 2003 [1941]: 73), as in “the ministry acting on iTaukei afairs”. THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 241 allowed A. M. Hocart to gloss vulagi both as he argument, in a nutshell, is that particularly “guest” and as “heavenly god” (cited in Sahlins, coastal East Fijian chiefs have been regarded as 1985: 75) rather than a mere “visitor”. Indeed, landless aristocrats who are dependent on their it is the liberal and accommodating view on subjects for their material welfare, but are at the “visitors” that makes the contrast between same time powerful leaders because of the alterity the “past” and “present” guests particularly they incorporate. his duality is realised through pronounced, such as the one expressed by Ratu the founding marriage between an apical male Nacula Jo, who would rather portray the taukei ancestor and his autochthonous spouse, whose ofspring then make up the chiely dynasty. « as the gracious host who is mindful of the in- Chiely lineages, in other words, can be regarded terests of other communities […] the honoured both as strangers vis-à-vis the owners of the guests. » (Norton, 2000: 98) land due to their foreign ancestry, and as their indigenous kinsmen: “synthetic personae” who For such a view brings to the fore with marked incorporate both autochthonous and foreign inality exactly how far the current usage is values. Yet it has been the foreign side that has from the idea of chieftainship based on alterity: traditionally served as the marker of chiely stranger-kings, sacred nephews or ruthless charisma (Sahlins, 1994; cf. Geertz, 1983). usurpers can hardly feed of the kind benevolence Hocart’s interpretation of the word vulagi as of their gracious hosts. “heavenly god” (vū + lagi) is inseparable from his article addresses the theme of Fijian the socio-cultural underpinnings of this model chieftainship from the viewpoint of the categories of chieftainship; for him it is an expression of of guest and host, presenting irst the social- what Kajsa Ekholm-Friedman and Jonathan structural argument on an abstract, “as if” basis Friedman (1995) discuss as exo-sociality, the and then an ethnographic case from the particular utilisation of distinctly foreign means for local location that I am most familiar with, the village ends; or what Rupert Stasch (2013) describes as of Naloto in Verata, Tailevu. Although I view the “xenophilia” or the « variety of representations ethnographic case and the historical argument as in which people […] invest the culturally and fundamentally intertwined, I want to keep the ethnically diferent with special value » and two threads apart for two reasons. First of all, what Marshall Sahlins discusses as “alterity” the chiefdom of Verata has a unique position in (2012, 2013) in reference to the socio-cultural the Fijian order, and the ideas of autochthony principle of diferentiation that often precedes and alterity implied by the categories of stranger economics in the determination of spiritual and and guest are crucial to that position. Verata is material value. What all three clearly show is that the chiefdom that is most consistently regarded this principle does not apply to politics alone, as the genealogical senior among the Fijian but can be observed in a variety of interrelated chiely families, and could with relative ease be contexts, ranging from economic to semantic, regarded either as the epitome of the alterity of moral or, according to Sahlins (2013), even chieftaincy or its opposite, the origin point par nutritional value. excellence (Eräsaari 2013). In other words, what Hence, as Sahlins (e.g. 1994) has shown, in applies for one region in Fiji does not necessarily addition to the chiefs being strangers, so were apply for another. And for this reason, I want their attendants, close allies and paraphernalia. to irst present the largely shared core ideas and he chiefs surrounded themselves with foreigners, common history that is applicable to most of wore foreign decorations made by foreign artisans, Fijian ethnography, and only then the particular even assumed foreign titles. he value of alterity way in which these ideas play out in the Naloto has been particularly manifest in the tabua, whale social world. teeth that have been described as “Fijian money” by Marcel Mauss (1966: 29), “cultural currency” by Andrew Arno (2005), and as similar to money by Nicholas homas (1991, 1995). his worth, it Taukei vs. vulagi: the structural argument has repeatedly been shown (for previous work on tabua see Hooper 2013: 103-106), is due to the In Lau Islands, Fiji, A. M. Hocart forwards the objects’ foreign origin. As a matter of fact, this was often-cited claim that Fijian chiefs “came from not evident merely in origin myths (see Sahlins, overseas: it is so in all countries in Fiji” (Hocart, 1983: 72-73; homas, 1991: 70): 19th century 1929: 27). he claim agrees with an observable sources also state that the exchange value of tabua general pattern which is present throughout varied in accordance to the physical signs of age the ethnography of central-eastern Fiji, from displayed by the objects: the diference between Brewster (1922) to Hocart (1929, 1970 [1936]) the “red” and the “white” whale teeth was, and Sahlins (e.g. 1972, 1985, 1994), with the according to the beachcomber William Diaper, general principle also upheld by Kaplan (1995) “the same as between our shillings and sovereigns”. and Toren (1988, 1994), to name but a few. he red teeth, Diaper informs us, “were brought 242 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES to the Feejees by the Tongans, by whom they the bare-bones version that makes it possible to were irst introduced” (Erskine, 1967 [1853]: follow my argument. 439; see also Williams, 1985 [1858]: 40-41). In he status of “guest” marked the old-time a manner reminiscent of Malinowski’s analysis of chiefs of as a non-land-owning category: the kula exchange, these items then prove that Hocart’s informants told him as much in the Lau not only does the objects’ exchange value increase group, where “[t]he nobles of old had no land; with the distance they have travelled, value may they had only the authority (lewa)” (Hocart, also be recorded onto the objects in marks of 1929: 98). But a similar pattern can be traced in wear that Malinowski identiied as “historic Eastern Viti Levu, too: in the village of Naloto, sentimentalism” (Malinowski, 1984 [1922]: 89; people maintain that the chiefs of old did not see also Godelier, 1999). own land, and though they became oicial land Yet the whale teeth do not just draw their owners when the village lands were surveyed in value from the same source that also comprises the 1930s, theirs is but a small patch of land in the chiefs’ charisma, the mythological accounts comparison to the Naloto “land warriors” (bati). actually draw close parallels between the tabua he same applies for the Naloto “sea people”, and the chiefs. he whale teeth not only irst two immigrant clans of shared ancestry from the appear in Fiji together with the foreigner-chief in nearby village of Ucunivanua, whose farm land the best-known myth accounting for the origin lies at the edge of the village land area. Together, of whale teeth (Stanmore papers ca 1875-1880; the sea moiety and the chiely lineage comprise Sahlins, 1983: 72-73; homas, 1991: 70), but over 50% of the village population, yet own also share a name with the foreigner, Tabua. In less than 10% of the village lands (see Eräsaari another myth, a multiply-reversed version from 2013: 18-39) In this respect, the distinction interior Viti Levu reported by Abramson (2013: between chiefs and people is materially similar 13-14), the sacred stranger brought in by the and symbolically largely overlapping with the shark-god is a woman known as Adi Waimaro, division into land and sea people that comes to who herself turns into a whale tooth and is the fore on ritual occasions, when the groups stored away as a valuable. A recent issue of the denoted as “land” and “sea” (are expected to) Journal of the Polynesian Society (122 [2]) presents follow a set of prescriptive rules: the sea people an exhaustive analysis of the material and the should provide salt water produce to the land cosmological origins of Fijian tabua, clearly people and abstain from eating it themselves, illustrating that original source of Fijian tabua whilst the land people should provide pork and is in Tonga. But Clunie’s (2013) contribution in root crops to the sea people and abstain from particular further illustrates that the histories of eating pork, red coconut cream or plantains. For whale teeth and stranger-kings are fundamentally the clans designated as “sea people” (kai wai), intertwined: that the Tongan tapua, crescent- like the foreigner-chiefs, “do not belong to the shaped objects made from ivory, were once original scheme of things, never being natives heirlooms or “shrines” containing lineage deities of the tribe, but foreigners attached to it” as and associated with irst-fruits type harvest rites. specialist groups who ply their trade “only for Between the 15th and the 17th centuries, the chiefs” (Hocart, 1970: 108). Sea people are, as a rule, considered more proicient ishermen « successive Tu‘i Tonga […] set about forging a fresh and are often expected to make a living from power base in Fiji, spawning hybrid lineages, becom- the sea rather than land, which they were only ing variously deiied and disseminating tapua, which entitled to as aines or due to the benevolence changed the face of Fijian society. » (Clunie 2013: of their hosts in the “original scheme of things”. 164-165) A. M. Hocart illustrates the overlapping of the categories of land and sea with those of “noble” he growing importance of tabua in Fiji was, and “warrior” (bati) as they are played out on the from the outset, connected with the Tongan geographical plane: chiely inluence in Fiji. he whale teeth, in other words, are a « each coast tribe stands to one or more tribes inland powerful symbol of the foreign value invested of them in the relation of coast and hill, or noble and in Fijian chieftaincy. But the issue extends much mbati [bati] or tooth on edge; the “hill tribe” in its further: the dichotomy of stranger-guests and turn is “coast tribe” to one further inland, and so it autochthonous hosts is also generalizable to goes on. his relation is called veimbatiki [veibatiki], the wider relations between groups designated or relation of noble and mbati. It involves certain as “land” and “sea”, whilst the “land” and “sea” food restrictions: thus the coast tribe may not eat ish in presence of its mbati, nor can the mbati eat pig designations in their turn also express the material in presence of the coast tribe; as for turtle and large conditions of land ownership – a political ish, the coast tribe might not eat them at all, but had economic rationale, if you will. All of this has, to send them to the mbati; if they ate it in secret, as again, been extensively reported elsewhere (for often happened, and it was found out, they had their references, see below), so I will here present but houses burnt down. » (Hocart, 1924: 186) THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 243

ceremonial obligation was to provide ish from the Wainibuka river, which they gave to the Bati, the Bati people gave pork to the Tui, until a section of the chiely group was forced to move away from the chiefdom of Naloto and settle in what became Naloto village “probably because they ate something they should not have”, I was told in the village. Ultimately, the sea people were not just dependent on the land people for farm land, root crops and manpower: the land people also installed or “made” (buli) the chiefs in what can be seen as the structural equivalent of Hocart’s (1929) famous descriptions of chiely installations in the Lau Map 1. – Sea encompasses land: author’s depiction of Hocart group – in which the stranger- 1924 (Viti Levu map from Wikimedia Commons) chief symbolically dies during the ceremony in order to be reborn as a god of the land (see also Sahlins, 1985: 73-103). What Hocart illustrates is that although based his is why Hocart regarded the 19th century on the material conditions of land ownership divine kings as synthetic personae who, once on the village or corresponding local level, the in oice, combined the gods of the land with same categories co-exist on the inter-village or their own stranger ancestry. “Fijian titles are inter-chiefdom level, where they take on a more in [sic] the gift of certain families, who alone relational character. He depicts North-Eastern can perform the rite of installation”, he writes Viti Levu as a series of consecutive zones, where elsewhere (Hocart, 1922: 289), and from this the same group can be classiied as “sea” in point of view it makes sense to recall what the relation to the groups landward from it and as head of the installing clan in Naloto was keen to “land” in relation to those seaward of it; these point out to me – that relationships ind expression in exchanges of ish and pork moving against each other, ish « he sauturaga [installer/war chief] and the mata- moving inland from the coast and pork towards nivanua [spokesman] are born into their stations, the the coast from inland. All this can be visualised komai [hereditary village chief] is not » as a relation of encompassment, where the hierarchically superior sea encompasses land on According to this model, there should be no every consecutive level. Even sea people who are hereditary chieftaincy in Fiji. not considered “nobles” are easily itted in this hus in this east Fijian tradition the pattern in Hocart’s model, in which they are hierarchical superiority of the sea/stranger/guest ailiated with the chiefs; maintain their specialist denomination can only be legitimated through role only for the chiefs (map 1). the dichotomic relation with its antithesis, as But Hocart’s explanation of the relationship the installation of the foreigner-chief by the between land and sea also illustrates another autochthonous “king makers” clearly illustrates. important characteristic of the arrangement. Even the powerful rulers of the big coastal polities hough the sea denomination stands for required autochthonous legitimation for their “nobility” and chieliness, the landspeople have rule – a point emphasised by Martha Kaplan privileges to counterbalance their obligations. A (1995), who pointed out that the colonial-era coast tribe who ate the bati’s due, Hocart recalls, codiication of Fijian culture turned the eastern/ “had their houses burnt down”. hese are no coastal arrangement into a model for Fijian mere formalities. political organisation writ large. he centralised he same assumptions were also present in my political power of the coastal chiefs was both ieldwork site, Naloto village, which is said to more convenient for administrative purposes take its name from the inland polity of Naloto and corresponded with the expectations of the in Wainibuka. According to Naloto village colonial administrators. he resulting large- sources, the Wainibuka polity was split into two scale inability to recognise the “land” groups’ groups in the mythical past: the Tui (“chief”) structural claims led to the rise of a powerful people, closer to the Wainibuka river, became hereditary Fijian chiely class: the installing the chiely group vis-à-vis the Bati people, who groups were no longer necessary. But it is crucial took residence “in the bush”. he Tui people’s to recognise the fact that in the long run, it is 244 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES impossible to maintain one half of a dichotomy foundations of indigenous land rights, therefore, and do away with the other: the two rely on one hardly support the taukei vs. vulagi distinction any another for deinition. he strangeness of the more. Hocart’s Lauan informants attested as much stranger needs the autochthone or the in-group already in the early 20th century: to remain strange: once the contrast disappears the distinction is void of meaning – the stranger « he nobles of old had no land; they had only the grows unstrange, as happens in a Bernard authority (lewa); it is only since the Tongan rule [in Malamud novel (he Assistant, 1957). Hence the Lau group] and the Government that it extends the colonial administration’s failure to recognise to the soil. hey could not take land; only the sister’s the structural arrangement contained in the son could bring land to the nobles; the elders of the dichotomy of land and sea led them not only landsmen […] would decide to give land for their sister’s son to plant in. he nobles used to refer to us to make all Fijian clans land owners in concrete landsmen. » (Hocart, 1929: 98) terms – regardless of “land” or “sea” ailiations – they also adopted the practice of translating But it was not just the material conditions of “native Fijian” as in colonial legislation. taukei the Land-Sea division that changed. Over the course of translating a seemingly endless number of Native Laws, Regulations, Bills, Bulletins he historical argument and Circulars, the Native Administration also adopted a practice of translating “native Fijian” he emergence of a state-approved Fijian culture as taukei (rather than kai Viti – “Fijian” – for has been described and explained elsewhere example), applying a term that in the old order (e.g. France, 1969; Kaplan, 1988; Kaplan and was reserved for the titular land owners in Kelly, 2001; Kelly, 2004), so again I will but reference to the entire native population. I am recapitulate. What emerged from the work of a not saying that this act of re-naming by itself group of turn-of-the-20th-century ethnographer- would have necessarily changed anything, but administrators was an administrator’s version combined with the communal system of land of Fijian culture, encoded in the Native Laws ownership, not to mention the pre-cession acts and Regulations. Almost every aspect of Fijian aimed at reducing the Tongan inluence in culture was codiied in the Native Regulations: Fijian politics (see e.g. Derrick, 2001 [1949]: from the chiefs’ obligations towards their people 143; Seemann, 1862: 250-251), it is justiied to to the limits of their privileges; from proper say that the material and historical conditions window and house foundation sizes to correct underlying Fijian chieftainship changed religious practises, acceptable reasons for leaving dramatically. one’s home village; marriages, funerals, taxation And of course the very same colonial values for village produce, observance of the administrators who took it upon themselves to Sunday Sabbath, monetary limits for requests inalise and codify Fijian culture also brought to from kinsmen and rules regarding stray pigs, and Fiji a signiicant number of new “guests” – or so forth. But, crucially, the whole construction was it “strangers” – the Indo-Fijian population was founded upon collective land ownership. that today makes up over 37% of Fiji’s total From Lorimer Fison’s (1881) tradition-deining population (Fiji Facts and Figures, 2011). Over lecture it still took almost forty years to decide the course of the history outlined above, they upon which level of social organisation the have repeatedly been deployed as the silent other land ownership ought to be ixed. In the end against whom indigenous Fijian culture has it was decided that the land-owning unit is the been compared. As Kaplan and Kelly (2001) mataqali, although it became obvious early on have shown, Indo-Fijians have been presented as that not only did patterns of land ownership vary business-oriented and lacking a culture of their throughout Fiji, but also the meaning of this own, whilst the rationale of bringing indentured social division varied – people were uncertain labour into the islands in the late 19th century what was the diference or relation between the was inseparable from the protectivist stance that mataqali and the yavusa, for example (France, the colonial administration adopted towards the 1969). indigenous population (see also Kelly, 2004). In material terms, this process came to deine he deployment of racial stereotypes plays a all native Fijians as land owners. Every mataqali’s signiicant part in the turn from xenophilia history was recorded as evidence in the Native Lands even to its opposite, xenophobia, as has become Commission books where mataqali membership apparent at least during the 1987 and 2000 was likewise registered; native lands were surveyed coups. and allocated to local mataqali, and this model It should be emphasised that this is not a sudden remains deinitive to this day – presently 87.9% of change but rather represents a series of gradual, Fiji’s land area belongs to indigenous Fijian groups interrelated processes that have been unfolding (Fiji Bureau of Statistics, 2011). he material for almost one and a half centuries. What I want THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 245 to draw attention to here is that the subsequent their village neighbours. At the same time, a sea shift in the connotations of guesthood and moiety elder once pointed out, “the kai wai are alterity represents a transformation of the not supposed to be in Naloto” but represent a conditions underlying chiefship particularly in division which, in his opinion, should only exist eastern Fiji. After all, the ability of Fijian chiefs in a chiely village. With this he meant that the to encompass the social totalities of people that presence of sea people in a non-chiely village they rule over, it has repeatedly been emphasised represents a departure from the established in the literature (e.g. Hocart, 1970; Sahlins, order of things. However, this would be a 1985, 1994), is grounded in their capacity to highly typical anomaly insofar as there are in personify shared notions of power and charisma. fact sea people in at least six out of the seven he actualisation of these conditions is a far Verata villages. Hence, in Hocart’s terms, the more complex issue to look into than simply sea people are regularly occurring strangers who laying out the structural argument. Moreover, it “do not belong to the original scheme of things”. is something that cannot be conclusively argued Yet they, too, call themselves taukei, regarding with reference to a single locality in Fiji. What I themselves both “the original and native settlers want to do, however, is to portray one instance of Fiji” and land owners in Naloto. where a strong case can be made for precisely At the very beginning of my 2007-2008 such a value shift. If this may happen in one ieldwork in Naloto, one of my hosts – a sea particular place in Fiji, it may then be asked, the moiety man just a few years my senior – explained possibility of parallel developments ought to be me: “We have always been here, we were the irst! looked into elsewhere as well. he originals [laughs], the originals.” “What about the people on the other side”, I asked, meaning the other half of the village associated with the land moiety, “where do they come he case of Naloto, Verata from?” “Everyone was always here”, my friend explained and repeated. “We are the originals, Naloto is the largest of the seven villages that we have always been here”. make up the land (vanua) of Verata (cf. Eräsaari, At that time, what struck me as odd was that 2013: 16). he village is home to roughly 300 he had just inished explaining to me a version people, in addition to whom there are more of the widespread origin myth according to than twice as many people registered in the which all Fijians originate from Tanganyika, Native Land Register as Nalotans but who do Africa. Diferent versions of this myth are not live there. Less than a mile from the village widely accepted throughout Fiji; I have heard of Ucunivanua, home of the Verata paramount the same core myth, with only minor variations, chief, Nalotans take great pride in being part recounted from the Mamanucas to Tailevu, of the chiefdom of Verata: the kin groups in and have good reason to believe it is accepted the village trace their histories back to the further east as well. A key feature of the myth mythical founding of the kingdom in Verata lies in its ability to provide a shared history for (see below), whilst in historical times, Naloto all indigenous Fijians. In a Naloto version, for was the stronghold of the Veratans during the example, “the irst Fijian taukei” set out from Cakobau wars when Ucunivanua was burnt to Tanganyika, crossed the seas with canoes that the ground. Together with the villages of Kumi, were expertly handled by their “sea people”, Sawa and Uliloli, Naloto is classiied as part of until they reached Vuda on the west coast of the Yavusa Qalibure, or the Verata high chief’s Viti Levu. Some versions say they then split up land warriors. Naloto is thus a commoner village in Vuda: the land people crossed the island on of relatively low status within the chiefdom, foot through the interior; the sea people took the though representative of Verata’s high chiely canoes round the island. Finally they all settled status when Nalotans visit another chiefdom. in Verata on the east coast, where their leader, he village itself divides into two local-level the mythical hero Rokomoutu, founded the irst yavusa or moieties, land and sea. he groups kingdom of Fiji. comprising the land moiety own 94% of the As Kaplan (1995: 28) points out, the myth could village lands and the head of the land moiety, just as well stand for foreign origin in contrast to the Komai Naloto, is the hereditary village fully autochthonous origin myths (e.g. Tregear, leader. On ceremonial occasions, he represents 1903) in which the “original” Fijians are created the entire village; encompasses both moieties, in Fiji, from the local soil or fauna. But this is not even though the sea moiety has its own chief, the use to which the myths are put to in Naloto, titled Na Tunidau. as evident already from the citation above. Rather, he sea moiety, for their part, are descendants the origin stories portray the arriving Fijians as of a chiely lineage from Ucunivanua; they are irst settlers, whether that be in Fiji in general or in “nobles”, turaga, as a land moiety man once a particular locality – or both, as in Verata. Hence pointed out to me, and genealogically outrank in Naloto village, the same pattern is repeated 246 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES in every local group’s origin story: each group in the village – typically classiied as mataqali (see Eräsaari, 2013: 22-31) – has its own origin story, and all of them emphasise the group’s “originality” in the village. he group said to have originated from the inland polity of Naloto and thence given the village its name, I was once explained, are “the same Naloto as those in Naitaisiri, but they have always been here”. It is similar with the other clans in the village: one claims to have occupied land adjacent to the present-day village before the arrival of the others, another to have been the irst but then conceding the chieftainship to another group, and so forth. And since Nalotans as a rule do not ind it necessary to contest each others’ accounts, every group is equally original to the place, every group was the irst. Even the sea people in Naloto make the same claim, despite the fact that they are latecomers in the village: they moved to Naloto from the neighbouring village in the early 20th century. hey, however, claim originality by being originals to the chiefdom of Verata rather than the village of Naloto: it was their founding ancestor, the sea chief Ramasi, who oversaw the migration from Africa. But as evidenced by the Naloto sea people’s story of their arrival in Verata, power Picture 1. Tanoa – inside water, outside land, Naloto village, is thought to always have been on 2008 (photograph by Milla Eräsaari) the “land” side:

« when they arrived at Verata, Rokomoutu asked the sea is mine; islands and everything out of the sea, Ramasi if they could have a bowl of yaqona to thank out of Verata is mine. Yours will be the land round him for sailing them safely through the rough oceans. here. » (Abbreviated from an English-language narra- So they prepared the yaqona, but there was no cup. So tion by a sea moiety clan elder recorded in July 2007) Rokomoutu asked Ramasi: ‘you drink irst, because you’re older than me’. Ramasi replied: ‘No, I cannot he myth reveals the Naloto sea people’s drink it, you drink the yaqona irst.’ But Rokomoutu preference for classifying themselves amongst insisted: ‘Oh, this is just to express our thanks to you for protecting us from the high seas.’ “the original and native settlers of Fiji”: the hey kept on arguing like that, until inally Ramasi sea denomination is primarily regarded as a bent over to drink the yaqona inside the tanoa without hereditary occupational proiciency, so that using a cup. While he was doing that, Rokomoutu sea people (kai wai) are assumed to be expert knew our land, Verata, will be lead and looked after by ishermen and sailors. Yet they share a common these kai wai people. ‘his is not good’, he thought, origin, common substance, with all the other and so he pressed Ramasi’s head right in to the tanoa. taukei in Fiji. But there is more to the myth, Ramasi cleaned his face with his hand and said: obviously. It also shows that just like the sea ‘What have you done? his is shameful, you shouldn’t people were skilled professionals from the very have done this. You asked me, I told you to drink irst but you told me to drink irst. But when I was drin- beginning, so the ruling chiefs were landsmen. king, you pressed my head down. Why?’ Rokomoutu In this particular myth, the narrator goes as far didn’t say anything. He was ashamed. And so Ramasi as to bend the Viti Levu geography to match told Rokomoutu: ‘From now on, we’ll share this ta- the shift in relations of encompassment, making noa. Inside it’s water; outside it’s land. I will look after land contain the sea like a kava bowl contains the sea, you look after the land. Whatever is found in the liquid inside it (picture 1). THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 247

Pictures 2-3. – A man of the chiely clan receiving the irst cup during a funeral, Naisausau village, Namara, 2008 (photograph by Milla Eräsaari)

he ascendency of the land ailiation, described by Hocart (1924, see above), Nalotans furthermore, coincides with what can be now prefer mortuary gifts (reguregu) comprising described almost as the disappearance of “sea” tabua, mats, oxen, taro and cassava: compiled goods from traditional exchanges. Instead prestations that stand for men and women, of the prescribed exchanges in pigs and ish land and sea alike, and tend to be reciprocated described above, the villagers and their Tailevu with more of the same over time. hey generally neighbours now prefer exchanges in mutually reciprocate ceremonial gifts of yaqona (sevusevu) similar substances – taro, cassava and beef. Pigs, with more yaqona, and always, always respond the land people’s ceremonial ofering, are still at to a tabua received with another tabua (for full times used to mark out particular personages, details, see Eräsaari, 2013: 124-186). but ish has become a seldom-used ceremonial Steven Hooper (2013), drawing on material gift. he generally preferred ceremonial meat collected in the Lau group, explicitly states that item (sasalu) is now beef, which for example in presenting whale teeth in combination with funeral rites is typically accompanied by root other categories of exchange items – such as crops, pandanus mats, yaqona and whale teeth, feast food (magiti) – and the undiscriminating and eventually reciprocated in kind. reciprocation of tabua with tabua, regardless of he whale teeth, while remaining in use, have context, would both go against received protocol been thoroughly “indigenised”. In the locally (Hooper, 2013: 122, 129). Hooper exempliies best-known myth accounting for their origin, the the latter with a Kabara informant’s account of irst tabua was made by Rokomoutu’s disowned atoning for an elopement (bulubulu), a context son, Buatawatawa, from a branch (taba) of the wherein a tabua should not be reciprocated Frangipani (bua) tree on the island of Vanua Levu (though this obviously can happen in Lau, too). in Fiji. he autochthonous wooden objects were, Nalotans, for their part, not only systematically according to this story (for a longer version, see reciprocate whale teeth given as bulubulu, they Eräsaari, 2013: 133-134) replaced by whale teeth also systematically combine the bulubulu with only when European whalers made their way to another ritual event, the kau mata ni gone, in Fiji in the 19th century. Indeed, a whale tooth which a child is presented to his/her maternal is now sometimes known as a tabua ni Viti – a relatives. Both of these are quintessentially “Fijian tabua” – though to distinguish a “Fijian” events in which the two parties or “sides” are not whale tooth from what, that I do not know. of equal standing: the bulubulu is an event for Perhaps from the “tabua lasulasu”, counterfeit humbly asking for forgiveness, the kau mata ni whale teeth made out of plastic: objects which, gone an ostentatious afair for asserting a child’s so the villagers assured me, are made by “some vasu rights which, as one of Simonne Pauwels’ people in Australia”, by “Indians” or simply by Lauan informants puts it, “should not be an generic “foreigners” – anyone but the taukei, exchange, otherwise we become equal again” that is. Hence a genuine whale tooth is now (Pauwels, 2015: 151). considered autochthonous to Fiji whilst the In Naloto, the two terms – bulubulu and kau counterfeit item is considered foreign. mata ni gone – both refer to the prototypical he distinctive value of foreign origin has, Naloto wedding that is organised once the couple in other words, not just fallen out of favour in have a child that they can present to the girl’s Naloto; it has taken on a markedly negative family. he choice of term used in reference to the connotation. But along with it has gone the event may still depend on whether the speaker is passion for diference itself, previously exempliied of the boy’s or the girl’s group: the former would in the chiefs, groups and the exchanges they be more likely to call the event a “kau mata ni made. Instead of the exchanges in pigs and ish gone”, the latter could call it a “bulubulu” – whilst 248 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES the couple at the centre of the ritual would be It would actually be impossible, she points out, likely to label it vakamau: a “wedding”. Yet the for chieftaincy to be based on an all-embracing content of the ceremony remains the same: the hierarchy any more than it is possible to wedding comprises two recognisable parts or maintain chieftaincy on the basis of equality; “in rites that are always performed in succession. Fiji, equal and hierarchical relations invariably he irst is the bulubulu, atonement (“burying” implicate one another – so much so that at times of the ill deed). In the bulubulu the boy’s side – they threaten to collapse into one another, and the guests (vulagi) – present tabua, print cloth the challenge is to keep them distinct” (Toren, and kerosene to the girl’s side – the hosts (taukei) 2000: 119). – to make up for “stealing” a bride (and receive Looking at the semantic value accruing to the an equal number of tabua in reciprocation). land and sea denominations – their mythological his was explained to me as a one-sided afair denotata, if you will – one could justiiably argue inasmuch as the hosts are the wronged party that in Naloto, the two have indeed “collapsed who are under no obligation to even receive the into one another”. he “stranger” or “foreigner” visitors, let alone their gifts. I was explicitly told is a prime example of a category which can that no feasting ought to be expected after what only be upheld in a dichotomous relation to its is, in the inal analysis, a mere presentation of antithesis; without the stranger, the in-group wealth given in recompense of a priceless human also lacks a deinition, as Lévi-Strauss’ (1952, being. In practice, however, the bulubulu is 1970) work also makes clear. his contrast is always followed by another rite, the kau mata ni absent from the myths considered relevant in gone (“carrying the face of the child”), in which Naloto, where everyone are simply “originals”. the child of the couple is presented to his or he corresponding absence of chiely elections her maternal relatives. he linkage appears to or installations in Naloto its the pattern almost be so well established, that I have even seen the too neatly. he last chiely installation in Naloto marriage of a couple who had to wait long years took place sometime in the ifties or early sixties, because they had no child to present. In the end and since then the village chiefs have been titled they held the ceremony after adopting a child komai rather than ratu, the latter being the title from a close relative. In the kau mata ni gone, the born by the installed Naloto chiefs of old. I was child, carrying a tabua, is presented to a maternal told that this corresponds to diminishing status: grandmother: they exchange tabua, whilst the that in comparison to the ratus of old, the current ceremonial wealth brought by the visitors (more village paramounts are “just komais”. he komai cloth and kerosene, though these gifts are often title, which according to Capell’s Dictionary collated into the presentation made during the (2003 [1941]) is a short form for koya mai (“the bulubulu) is reciprocated with the thick pile of one from…”), is used for the chiefs of every pandanus mats and tapa that the grandmother Veratan village except for the paramount chief in was waiting upon. A feast ofered by the hosts Ucunivanua, the Ratu mai Verata. he last Ratu of in honour of the guests concludes the event. Naloto, so I have been told, was buried within the he label adopted obviously does afect the way village perimeters with full ritual observances; since one morally evaluates the situation: a group that then the Komai Naloto have been buried in their arrives to bulubulu are wrongdoers who should mataqali’s graveyard outside the village proper. not expect anything in reciprocation, a group A senior member of the kin group traditionally arriving to kau mata ni gone will be the honoured responsible for burying the chiefs suspects the guests of a feast. he ritual, nonetheless, always installations ceased because the installing clan follows the same format, in which every tabua lost the paraphernalia required for installations. A is reciprocated with a tabua and a feast is given senior member of the installing clan insists that the after the gift exchanges. By fusing the two into installations ceased when the chiely group started a single ritual, Nalotans display their preference picking out the chiefs by themselves, thereby to render practices that are elsewhere markedly violating the installers’ right to elect the chief. unequal into displays of balanced reciprocity, But this unilaterally transmitted title is not bordering on competitive equality (McDowell, a particularly coveted one. Before the current 1990; Toren, 2000; Eräsaari, 2013). komai, all senior members of the chiely group Christina Toren (1994, 2000) has referred refused the title in turn, so that it was handed to to the Fijian ideologies of hierarchy and another lineage for a time, whilst several senior competitive equality – overlapping the “sea” men also report that they refused the title before and “land” denominations – as an “antithetical it was handed to its current holder. Nor is it a duality”, pointing out that the two should strong title. he villagers treat their hereditary be regarded as aspects of one another (Toren, chief with little respect: they disobey his 2000: 226). hey constitute a single idea, an commands, fail to consult him before initiating opposition upon which much of Fijian social life communal projects, talk while he is talking, and political organisation is based, as evidenced many even make witchcraft accusations behind in the “election” and installation of Fijian chiefs. his back. he komai has no right to request THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 249 people to work for him, nor does he receive any early-morning lorry to town in order to sell formal irst fruits oferings – though people are a big ish and use the money to buy taro for generally uncertain whether even a Ratu Naloto another funeral in Vugalei. And the same was ever received irst fruits. even more pronounced within the village, where he komai, for his part, often fails to attend to the local bati were at times angrily calling for the his chiely duties: he generally refuses the chiely sea people to bring them ish that they could seat in the Methodist church, and is regularly reciprocate with a “bati ni ika” – tabua presented absent from big ceremonial events, too – often in reciprocation for ish, but to no avail. Such because he was not consulted in advance. his diferentiating features, it would appear, are only is, by and large, no big deal: in his absence reserved for chiefs seen to preside over others, either the chief of the sea people (na Tunidau) or diferentiated by distance. hus it is in the another member of the komai’s mataqali assumes chiely village of Ucunivanua, too. Not even the his place as well as his title. Verata paramount was awarded full honours in his is the only model for village chieftaincy his lifetime: I was always told that his own village available to the villagers. No-one remembers was split over the paramountcy and he himself what the installations were like, no-one knows remained uninstalled. Indeed, the emphatic how to perform them, and not once during comments of one of his clansmen during his my ieldwork in 2007–2008 did I hear anyone funeral seem to indicate as much: “He said only suggest re-instituting the practice. Neither did those from the Sobasoba clan knew who could people ever discuss the possibility of making their become the titleholder [and added that] Ratu Komai into a Ratu again. Yet this is not to say Ilisoni Qio was the next in line, the younger that they cannot show respect in the traditional brother of the late Ratu” (Bolatiki, 2015). mode. Take, for instance, the two formal chiely And yet Naloto villagers would prefer to have funerals that occurred in Tailevu in 2015: those a strong leader: they talk of the deeds of old- of the Verata paramount (Ratu mai Verata) and time chiefs, look at the ine igures of ancient the Vugalei paramount (Vunisalevu na Turaga na chiefs in the Fiji Museum photographs, talk of Tui Vugalei). he latter, recognised as a chief of the deeds of the ancients. Many maintain that Verata’s warrior allies, bati balavu, passed away the title is simply held by the wrong man, that in March 2015. His funeral was attended by the rightful heir lives on another island or has a group of Naloto sea people, who joined the refused the title. But it is just as common that hosting group in the capacity of in-laws. On the they ind fault with the village population at occasion of this big, formal funeral organised large. I was often told that the real problem is by people known for their “traditionalism”, the that “everyone wants to be chiefs”, “everyone Nalotans did mark the event by presenting the wants to be grand”, or what amounts to the traditionally prescribed ish in addition to gifts of same, that “everyone wants to drink irst” in the tabua, yaqona, mats, biscuits, bread and the like. yaqona ring. here is a wide consensus about Upon the funeral of the Verata paramount in the fact that the chieftaincy is not as it ought June 2015, Naloto attended the funeral together to be, but the problem is conceived to be either with the Sawa and Uliloli villages, presenting at the top of the pyramid or at the bottom, or a pig in addition to tabua, yaqona, mats and not irregularly both. here is, in other words, no taro and, furthermore, staying overnight in the prevailing view regarding the root causes of this chiely village as a high chief’s land warriors are conceived lack of leadership. supposed to. “he old ones”, one of my friends once However, recognising chiefship elsewhere and commented the absence of leadership in the acting upon it in the custom-prescribed way village, “those who should be making the has no bearing on issues of leadership closer to decisions do not know how to act properly […] home. he fact remains that the relevant modes do not know how to give orders or to call people for articulating diferentiation are absent in the together”. He thought that they only “stay up community. Indeed, during my ieldwork I too late and wake up too late”, a reference to witnessed several occasions where recognition excessive yaqona drinking. Yet he did not think of the land–sea dichotomy was called for, such that the solution to the problem was to be found as several non-chiely funerals in Vugalei, during in the elders’ actions as such, or even in changing which Nalotans went to considerable lengths to the chief. Instead, he saw it as a question of not take their traditional due. On one occasion, returning to the old ways: the villagers should when a mataqali meeting admitted – at the invite “someone from Fijian Afairs” (now the insistence of a Vugalei lady married to Naloto Ministry of iTaukei Afairs) to teach them how – that a “sea” presentation was called for, the to again observe the old food taboos. In his view, elders still decided to request money from an in other words, the route to rediscovering proper urban relative in order to buy a bull instead. leadership lay in the rediscovery of diferential On another, one of the sea moiety ishermen roles in the village. Once the land and the sea went through considerable trouble to catch an sides would resume the food prohibitions that 250 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES are the sign of their contrasting roles, the rest moral value that extends beyond questions would follow suit. of ethnicity – questions that are hardly part his was as close as any of my interlocutors of everyday conversation in an all-indigenous came to connecting the village-level issues with village. In-marrying women, for example, can the long-term changes discussed in this article: be described as vulagi, particularly if they are an unspeciied assumption that if villagers were new to the village (Cf. Nabobo-Baba 2006: 45); again to start observing the discontinued food likewise, I have heard visiting urban relatives exchanges and corresponding prohibitions, being likened to “guests” with the implication chieftaincy would follow suit. As a rule, though, that they come to partake in the hospitalities the villagers had no shared stance on the issue of rather than shoulder collective responsibilities. chieftainship: some preferred to blame the bad But the logic of guests and hosts also unfolds food – biscuits and noodles – that make men less recurrently on ceremonial occasions. imposing than their forefathers, others blamed his can be exempliied with funerals, the “human rights and democracy”, whilst money most numerous of the diferent traditional was perhaps the most common scapegoat. (vakavanua) rituals held in the village. During What was common to these and many other a funeral the kin group of the deceased, known explanations was that whilst they were not very as taukei ni mate, receive each group of guests speciic on the causation, they all agreed that (vulagi) in turn, one after the other. Upon there was something amiss with leadership that presenting the funeral gifts known as reguregu – was in need of ixing. the whale teeth and beef discussed above – the With regard to Fijian ethnography in general, guests proceed to take their place as part of the this is a claim that has been heard before, growing group of hosts gathered to welcome the whilst causes have been sought from diverse next arrivals. In a large funeral, this can mean sources ranging from the mismatch between more than twenty arriving groups who, one by chiely obligations and privileges (Sahlins, one, present their gifts and join the company 1962) to increased commodiication of inter- of those who have come before them. In short, household relations (Toren, 2007) or the efect each group that arrives to a funeral goes from of Christianity on the chiefs’ mana (Tomlinson, being funeral guests to being subsumed into the 2009). My version, focusing on a shift in the hosting group. he last group to arrive should valuation of origin, would probably be best taken be the weka ni mate, the group who bring as an addition to the existing literature rather the body and act as the ultimate guests in the than a challenge upon it. It is, nevertheless, the funeral. It is upon their arrival that the expanded explanation that best agrees with the situation in group of hosts moves to one side of the funeral Naloto, Verata, where the discourse is particularly space to face a small group of honoured guests. preoccupied with origins. Not only does Nalotan Once the two sides have completed a series of mythology show a single-minded preference for exchanges, these ultimate guests, too, become local origin, the same occurs with whale teeth as part of the funeral communion. he second day well. his further corresponds with a shift away of the funeral brings this funeral communion from the use of salt-water produce in ceremonial markedly in focus: the church service and exchange, a media traditionally associated with burial are followed by a feast and another guesthood vis-à-vis land ownership. Indeed, the formal yaqona session, at the end of which the points connecting village ideology with the state guests of honour customarily ask permission to and colonial discourse are evident in the local leave (tatau): once granted, the communion is connotations of the concepts for guest – vulagi – considered over and others, too, are free to leave and host – taukei. the funeral. his idea of unity is also emphasised During my ieldwork in 2008, many of my in the exchanges: the activities leading to the friends in Naloto recalled the heated racist reguregu put an emphasis on ceremonial pooling, anger towards the Indo-Fijian population that conducted under the supervision of senior men, gripped Naloto, like many other northern whilst the subsequent distribution of wealth is Tailevu villages, during the 2000 coup. One conducted unceremoniously by women. he can still hear the racial stereotypes of the traditional funeral hymn sang at every Fijian greedy, calculating and proiteering “Indian” funeral service, “Meda sa tiko vakaveiwekani”, employed in village discourse. And even though expresses yet again the same idea of unity: “we the villagers are, by their own admission, now are like kinsmen to each other”. much more relexive about issues of race and What I want to draw attention to is this. he nationality, most nevertheless emphasise the category of the host maintains a higher moral notion that as taukei – meaning indigenous value, as is evident in the inter-ethnic application Fijians – they hold an inalienable claim on of the term, or the insecure status of a young Fijian soil, one which all “guests” in Fiji ought wife in her husband’s village: this has been noted to recognise. (For similar views, see Trnka 2008: before, for example by Norton (2000), Nabobo- 3.) However, this emphasis on hostship carries Baba (2006) and Trnka (2008). But the ritual THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 251

that such ideas ofer a poor basis for distinction – it has to be found anew.

Conclusions

At least since the 1960s there has been a widespread consensus among the learned about the falsity of the myth concerning the African origins of the Fijian taukei (e.g. Sahlins, 1962; France, 1966): it is a recent, easily traceable construction and cannot be Picture 4. – Na Tunidau, the head of the Naloto sea moiety, receiving supported by archaeological ceremonial wealth during a wedding (Naloto village, 2007, photograph by Milla Eräsaari) or linguistic facts. By the time of my Ph.D. ieldwork in 2008, renouncing this myth had become such arrangement also presents a pattern in which the a routine act both in Fiji’s classrooms and in two sides are repeatedly merged into the hosting popular newspapers like the Fiji Times and side. hese events are overseen by and organised Fiji Sun, that people would often be ashamed in terms of the hosts: they are an example of of even talking about their beliefs regarding what Joel Robbins (2007: 297) has discussed origins (see, however, Tuwere, 2002 for a more in terms of “rationalisation”, of the idea that in sympathetic view). All this myth-bashing has hierarchical arrangements hidden in plain view what the myth actually stands for: the shared ancestry of all indigenous « valued elements tend to be more elaborately Fijians. To reiterate a view gleaned from a worked out […] and to control the rationalization of number of Tailevu villages, it makes no sense to less valued ideas. » talk about “autochthones” and “foreigners” if the entire indigenous population is thought to have Hence the signiicance of the build-up to the arrived at the same time. valued moments, the combining of people In this article I have argued, furthermore, that and ceremonial wealth as well as the repetitive due to both colonial policies and 20th century presentations that accompany the inclusion of ethnic tensions, this merged identity has individual groups to the ritual communion. In tended to emphasise the host/land owner side contrast, the moments of division and distribution of the dichotomy rather than its opposite. he are distinctively lacking in decorum and senior taukei concept, in its present-day form, could participation. accommodate both autochthonous and foreign But following Robbins’ idea of rationalisation, origin (insofar as both can be regarded the we can also view the entire movement away from “original settlers” of Fiji) but the issue of land stranger-kings, Tongan titles or foreign valuables ownership tips the scales signiicantly in favour (Sahlins, 1994) as an instantiation of the same of the former. his is certainly so in the Veratan value shift. Instead of foreign paraphernalia, we village of Naloto, where not just political power, now ind power in Verata wrapped in indigenous but also the value invested in exchange items symbols – symbols which can, like the tabua, such as whale teeth is dressed in local rather than even remain precisely the same as before. But if foreign clothes. we are simply talking about a reversal of polarities Steven Hooper (2013: 154) emphasises the within a dichotomy, then why should it be of latter point, stating that “[t]abua and chiefs any consequence – “the more things change, the may be regarded as equivalent, the former more they stay the same”? he answer is simple: metonymically standing for the latter, and strangers and alterity stand for a profound possibly vice-versa”, while regarding both as diference, in one way or the other they require “culturally constructed artefacts of external the presence among “us” of something or origin”. But whereas Hooper’s material from someone whose origin lies outside the present Lau is unequivocal about the external origin of society. he ideas of indigeneity or originality both, my Naloto material sees them reversing hardly require the presence of strangers among polarities, while still maintaining “the explicit us, it suices that they are somewhere out there. association, in testimony and in practice, he problem with regard to political power is between tabua and chiefs” (Hooper, 2013: 153). 252 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES

may be upheld without labelling either side as the foreigner, through an emphasis on their “occupational” roles, just as the host–guest relationship may also be relevant with regard to places of residence or temporary ceremonial roles. All of this does not, in other words, have to pose a “threat” to the dichotomous pattern within which matters of value tend to be articulated in Fiji: this structural arrangement itself ought to be considered a bearer of value rather than expression thereof. But what I believe has relevance beyond the village of Naloto or chiefdom of Verata, is the turn to “originality” adopted as a mode of legitimation, and this is Picture 5. – Drinking yaqona to mark the occasion of clearing up something that I feel will only have the chiely burial ground where the old chiefs were buried (Naloto an increasing inluence on the way village, 2007, photograph by Milla Eräsaari) political authority is articulated in indigenous Fiji. But reversing polarities from a foreign to indigenous value – even moving across the invisible line separating xenophilia from Acknowledgements xenophobia – implicates important structural changes for Fijian chieftainship. In practical terms, the changes described above do not allow I would like to thank the editors and reviewers for a select aristocracy to express their status for the questions and comments that made and wealth as originality. Rather, the category it possible for me to present the argument in of taukei now stands in opposition to other a readable form. he writing of this article ethnic groups, exposing a shift from a structural was made possible by grants from the Finnish arrangement where the value of alterity was Cultural Foundation and the Emil Aaltonen expressed by groups of domesticated or “in- Foundation to whom I am also grateful. group” strangers, to one where the negative value of alterity is – at least on the level of political organisation – moved outside the “us” group. bibliogrAphy From this point of view, the values crucial to the political organisation can no longer be evoked in an “among” relation but rather “between” Abramson Allen, 2013. A Locus of Exogeni- increasingly clearly-demarcated groups. sation in Fiji. Traditions of Disjuncture and Yet what applies for Naloto should not be the Renunciation of Tradition in a Western generalised for all of Fiji, that much is evident Polynesian Context, Suomen Antropologi: just by recalling the Lauan examples discussed Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society in this article, whilst much of the west of Fiji 38 (2), pp. 4-22. remains ethnographically uncharted territory. I therefore want to conclude this article by Arno Andrew, 2005. Cobo and Tabua in Fiji. emphasising the fact that even the mythological Two Forms of Cultural Currency in an Eco- foundation ofered by the myth of African nomy of Sentiment, American Ethnologist 32 origins ofers itself to other structural realisations (1), pp. 46-62. besides the one discussed here. he most obvious Bolatiki Maika, 2015. He Was Humble And is the one ofered to Martha Kaplan (1995: 28) Kind. Chief’s Son. Fiji Sun Online, 4 July by a Vatukaloko man: 2015 (available online at http://ijisun.com. « I hold to Fiji only, I do not come from South fj/2015/06/04/he-was-humble-and-kind- America, Egypt, or Tanganyika. I have always been chiefs-son/#share, accessed 10/09/2015). here, not arrived there. » Brewster A. B., 1922. he Hill Tribes of Fiji. It is, in other words, still possible to insist upon A Record of Forty Years’ Intimate Connection the sea groups’ alterity, whether they are keen to with the Tribes, London, Seeley, Service & Co uphold such an idea themselves or not. Likewise, (available online at http://www.archive.org/ as I have tried to show, the land–sea dichotomy details/hilltribesoiji00brew). THE ITAUKEI CHIEF: VALUE AND ALTERITY IN VERATA 253

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