How old is fiji

According to R. Derrick in his History of Fiji Government Press, Suva, , a yavusa is strictly neither a tribe nor a clan; its members are direct agnate descendants of a single kalou-vu or deified ancestor; the unit originating from the Lutunasobasoba migration. If the founder of the family had only one son the yavusa retained its patriarchal structure, even after his death, when in accordance with Polynesian custom his son succeeded him.

If his family included two or more sons, the chiefly succession was from brother to brother and on the death of the last brother it reverted to the eldest son of the senior brother who had left male issue. Each member of the first such family of brothers found a branch of the yavusa called the mataqali which thereafter retained its identity, acquired a distinctive name and in the course of time became the traditional custodian of a designated function.

In a fully developed yavusa there was mataqali: 1, the turaga or chiefly mataqali, who were in the most direct line of descent, by male links, from the common ancestor, and from whom the ruling chiefs of succeeding generations were chosen; 2, the sauturaga or executive mataqali, whose rank was next to that of the chiefs of the blood and whose function it was to carry out their commands and to support their authority; 3, the mata-ni-vanua or diplomatic mataqali from whom the official heralds and masters of ceremony were chosen; 4, bete or priestly mataqali, into certain of whom the spirit of the common ancestor was supposed to enter and 5, the bati or warrior mataqali whose function was war.

The third and smallest unit was the i tokatoka which was a subdivision of the mataqali and comprised closely relating families acknowledging the same blood relative as their head and living in a defined village area.

The simple branching of yavusa into mataqali and of the mataqali into the i tokatoka was subject to disruptive influences of war, internal strife, migration and conquest. This was a dynamic process subject to internal and external stress which saw many of the original yavusa broken or merged wholly or in part with others strong enough to seize and hold the position which thereafter became hereditary.

Some of the vanua were united by conquest or accretion into kingdoms known as matanitu. But this is regarded as a recent development during the wars of historic times. Among the people of the interior and western Viti Levu large confederations were unknown.

In the people of Fiji said there were thirty-two places in the group entitled to rank as matanitu, but during the British Colonial period the Native Lands Commission found the political status and order of precedence of the chiefdoms to be as follows: Bau, Rewa, Naitasiri, Namosi, Nadroga, Bau, Macuata, Cakaudrove, Lau, Kadavu, Ba, Serua, and Tavua.

The life of Fijians was governed by ritual accompanied by elaborate ceremonies and strict observance of ancient custom. A serious breach of etiquette or error in precedence could lead to bloodshed or even war.

There is a recorded instance of the chief of Rewa inviting his bati warriors from different parts of his state to a feast in their honor. On this occasion the chief decided to bring them together but a dispute quickly arose over precedence between two parties and neither would yield and determined to settle the issue with the club. The chiefs of Rewa, fearing that once started such a disturbance could lead to a greater conflict, promptly fired muskets on the disturbing parties.

There were appropriate ceremonies for every event of importance and also for many minor ones. Life was governed by superstitious beliefs. Good and evil fortune was ascribed to the will of gods and spirits which needed to be constantly propitiated with gifts but especially the presentation of the bodies of slain victims which would then be redistributed for cooking and eating.

On such occasions the ceremonial preparation and serving of yaqona was an important part of the ritual as was the presentation of the tabua. In recent times the name tabua has come to signify the tooth of the sperm whale.

In former times it was a special stone cut and polished in the shape of a sperm whale tooth, but larger in size, which was used. The incidence of whaling ships in the Pacific during the nineteenth century caused a large supply of whale teeth to become available. At first these were introduced into Fiji by Tongans who had a better access to them, but later European trading ships brought these directly.

Tabua were the price of life and death and indispensable adjuncts to every proposal, whether for marriage, alliance, intrigue, request, apology, appeal to the gods or sympathy with the bereaved. Priests were an important link between the gods and the people but the gods were capricious and, even if there was proper observance of all customary rites and the presentation of suitable gifts, the god or gods could still withhold their favor. At such times an explanation might be demanded of the priests and on some occasions the gods have been challenged to fight.

Degei, the deified ancestor of the Lutunasobasoba migration, was recognized as the most important. He is said to have lived in pre-Christian times near the place of his original settlement following the landing of the canoe at Vuda and his march to the Kauvadra Range.

Degei became a huge snake living in a cave on the mountain Uluda. No cave has been found on the summit of Uluda, but there is a cleft hardly wide enough for a man to fit into. There were gods of agriculture, fishing, craftsmen and war.

The god of war often received the greatest attention because so much depended on him. No campaign was begun without his temple being either completely rebuilt or refurbished and the presentation of lavish gifts. The bure kalou the temple , of which two fine examples may be seen in Fiji today at Pacific Harbor and at Orchid Island near Suva, was the home of the god and was marked by lofty roofs which dominated all others and fully decorated with sennit and cowerie shells.

A strip of masi was draped before a corner post and it was down this curtain that the god would descend when invoked. Because Fijians believed in the power of gods and spirits and in sorcery, the office of the priest was important. Priests were the link between gods and men and for this important function they received gifts for the use of the gods, but in reality appropriated by the priests.

All would then sit silently in the cool, gloomy interior of the bure kalou and gaze with expectation on the priest who would sit before the strip of masi along which the god would be expected to descend.

The priest would begin to twitch until finally he would be in a fit with violent convulsions, sweat running out of every pore and frothing at the mouth. In this state the priest was in the possession of the god and he would speak to the assembly in a strange voice, often ambiguously, until he would cease to shake when it was recognized that the god had departed.

Much depended on what the god promised. If success, all was jubilation but if it was failure, not even the boldest chiefs would dare move. The feast and gifts offered to the god would then be shared by the priests and petitioners.

Only the spirit substance of the gifts would be used by the god. The Fijians believed in an afterlife. This was an island somewhere to the west from where the original migration migrations had come.

The path taken by the soul was always difficult and fraught with dangers. Major credit for the discovery and recording of the islands went to Captain William Bligh who sailed through Fiji after the mutiny on the Bounty in The first Europeans to land and live among the Fijians were shipwrecked sailors and runaway convicts from the Australian penal settlements. Sandalwood traders and missionaries came by the mid 19th century. Cannibalism practiced in Fiji at that time quickly disappeared as missionaries gained influence.

When Ratu Seru Cakobau accepted Christianity in , the rest of the country soon followed and tribal warfare came to an end. From to Indians came as indentured labourers to work on the sugar plantations. After the indentured system was abolished, many stayed on as independent farmers and businessmen.

Today they comprise Culture Fiji was first settled about three and a half thousand years ago. The original inhabitants are now called "Lapita people" after a distinctive type of fine pottery they produced, remnants of which have been found in practically all the islands of the Pacific, east of New Guinea, though not in eastern Polynesia. Linguistic evidence suggests that they came from northern or central Vanuatu, or possibly the eastern Solomons.

Before long they had moved further on, colonizing Rotuma to the north, and Tonga and Samoa to the east. From there, vast distances were crossed to complete the settlement of the Pacific to Hawaii in the north, Rapanui Easter Island in the east and Aotearoa New Zealand in the south. Unlike the islands of Polynesia which showed a continuous steadily evolving culture from initial occupation, Fiji appears to have undergone at least two periods of rapid culture change in prehistoric times.

This may have been due to the arrival of fresh waves of immigrants, presumably from the west. Prehistorians have noted that a massive 12th century volcanic eruption in southern Vanuatu coincides with the disappearance there of a certain pottery style, and its sudden emergence in Fiji.

It is hardly surprising then, that the Fijian culture is an intricate network and that generalisations are fraught with danger. Although the legendary king of Bau, Naulivou, and his successors had control over a large area of eastern Fiji, at no time before colonialisation was Fiji a political unity.

Nevertheless, Fiji does exhibit certain traits that sets it apart from its neighbours, and it is this that defines a distinctive Fijian culture. The skeletons are to be sent to Japan for assembling and further research. Lapita pottery found on the surface of the graves was almost years old, he said. Fiji Museum archaeologist Sepeti Matararaba said that the area beside the sea must have been occupied, because a great deal of pottery, hunting tools, and ancient shell jewellery had been discovered.

More than 20 pits had been dug following the discovery of lapita in the area. On 15 July , it was reported that the same teams had uncovered 16 skeletons at Bourewa, near Natadola. The skeletons were found in a layer of undisturbed soil containing pottery from around BC. Professor Nunn suggests there was abundant evidence that Bourewa could be the first human settlement in the Fiji archipelago, occupied from around BC onwards.

These people left evidence of their existence by mainly their elaborately decorated and finely fashioned pottery," Nunn said. He pointed to Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands as the place from where the earliest Fijians came, as the pottery fragments were typical of the early Lapita period in Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, but not readily found on Lapita pottery in Fiji.

Nunn suspects and announced on 9 November that a black obsidian rock discovered near Natadola in southwest Viti Levu had originated in the Kutau-Bao obsidian mine onTalasea Peninsula on the island of New Britain, in Papua New Guinea, some kilometers away.

Although carried throughout the Western Pacific by the Lapita people, as it is not often found in Fiji. The obsidian, which showed signs of being "worked", probably arrived soon after the initial Lapita settlement in Bourewa circa BC, Nunn observed.

He theorized that it was kept by the Lapita settlers as a talisman, a reminder of where they had come from. Fiji Television reported on 20 March that an ancient Fijian village, believed to have been occupied by chiefs sometime between and , had been discovered atKuku, in Nausori.