CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY
Chiefs--The Growth of the Confederation--The Confederation in
Decay--Lala, Communal and Personal--Community of Property through
Kerekere.
The principal authority upon the state of society among the Fijians when
Europeans first came into contact with them, is the Rev. Thomas
Williams, a man possessing intelligence and observation and the instinct
of anthropological research without the training necessary for
systematic inquiries. Belonging to the pre-speculation period, he
described what he found and not what he wished to find, and in this
respect he is a valuable witness, but, like other missionaries, he used
a loose terminology in describing Fijian society, making the word
"tribe" serve any group of men from a family to a state. His manuscript
fell upon evil days. His scientific instinct of accuracy and detail was
ludicrously out of keeping with the spirit of the missionary
publications of those days, in which any customs that did not suit the
English middle-class notions of propriety were either passed over as
heathen wickedness too deplorable for description, or set forth (with a
rich commentary of invective) in an obvious spirit of exaggeration to
show the subscribers at home how perilous were the lives of
missionaries, and how worthy the labourer of his hire. In his simple
love of truth, Mr. Williams had forgotten to point the usual moral, and
when Mr. Calvert brought home his manuscript in 1856, the Missionary
Society decided that it must be edited with vigilance. A Bowdler was
found in the person of a Mr. George Stringer Rowe, otherwise unknown to
fame, who re-wrote most of what was supplied to him, he apparently
having no special knowledge of the subject. "But here," says this
maiden-modest editor, whenever the outspoken Williams dares to touch
upon the marriage laws, "even at the risk of making the picture
incomplete, there may not be given a faithful representation."
[Pageheader: SINISTER FATE OF WILLIAMS' MS.]
The manuscript has long disappeared, and now we can never know exactly
what was Williams and what was Rowe. In respect of its scientific
accuracy, it may be questioned whether it did not find in Rowe a worse
fate than the "Scented Garden" met at the hands of Lady Burton.
Fortunately for science the loss of Williams's manuscript is not as
irreparable as a distinguished anthropologist would have us believe. Mr.
McLennan, in rating Mr. George Stringer Rowe for his meddlesome editing,
remarks, "The natives were speedily converted first, and slowly
extinguished afterwards. Comparatively few of the natives remain, and
our chance of knowing well what were their laws and customs is perhaps
gone for ever."[33] Upon this curious assumption, he treats "Fiji and
the Fijians" as modern Biblical critics treat the Pentateuch--namely, as
an obscure treatise whose loose terminology can only be read by the
light of internal evidence. Had he taken the trouble to ascertain that
the Fijians, so far from being extinguished, still number more than
two-thirds of their strength when Williams wrote, and maintain their old
tribal divisions and some of their social organization intact; had he
cared to look through the mass of evidence collected since the cession
of the islands in 1874, he would have spared his readers a lengthy
commentary, and himself a number of errors which go far to explain his
unscientific attitude in his great controversy with Morgan on the
classificatory system of relationship.
The key to the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor-worship. Just
as every act in a Fijian's life was controlled by his fear of Unseen
Powers, so was his conception of human authority based upon religion.
Patriarchy, if not the oldest, is certainly the most natural shape into
which the religious instinct of primitive man would crystallize. First
there was the family--and the islands of the Pacific were probably
peopled by single families--ruled absolutely by the father with his
store of traditions brought from the land whence he came. His sons,
knowing no laws but those which he had taught them; planting their
crops, building their huts and their canoes under his direction,
bringing their disputes to him for decision, have come to trust to him
for guidance in every detail of their lives. Suddenly he leaves them.
How are they to believe that he whose approval they courted, and whose
anger they feared but yesterday, has vanished like the flame of
yesterday's fire? His spirit has left his body; yet, somewhere it must
be watching over them still. In life he was wont to threaten them with
punishment for disobedience, and even now, when they do the things of
which he disapproved, or withhold their daily offerings of food at his
tomb, punishment is sure to follow--the crops fail; a hurricane unroofs
the hut; floods sweep away the canoe. Thus they come to propitiate the
spirit armed with such powers to harm, and, in response to their
prayers, victory is given them over their enemies. When they are beaten
back, he is frowning upon them: when the yams ripen to abundant harvest
he is rewarding their piety.
In this most natural creed was the germ of government. Each son of the
dead father founded his own family, but still owed allegiance to the
earthly representative of their deified father--the eldest son--on whom
a portion of the father's godhead had descended. Generations came and
went; the tribe had increased from tens to hundreds, but still the
eldest son of the eldest, who carried in his veins the blood of the
common ancestor in its purest form, was venerated as the head of the
tribe. The ancestor was not forgotten, but he was now translated into
Kalou-vu (lit. Root-God) and had his temple and his priests, who had
themselves become a hereditary caste, with the strong motive of
self-interest for keeping his memory green. His descendant, the tribal
chief, is set within the pale of the tabu: his will may not be
disobeyed, nor his body touched without incurring the wrath of the
Unseen. The priests and the chief give one another mutual support, the
one by threatening divine punishment for disobedience; the other by
insisting upon regularity in bringing offerings to the temple.
[Pageheader: RISE OF THE CHIEF'S POWER]
Had there been no war in Fiji the power of the aristocracy would have
been limited. Among the mountain tribes of Vitilevu, who seldom extended
their borders by conquest, the chief, while enjoying some measure of
religious veneration, can issue no important order without the consent
of the council of elders. He can exact no truckling homage where every
member of the tribe is a blood relation. But for conquest, Fiji would
have been a country of tiny independent states, no larger than a single
village could contain. From conquests sprang the great confederations.
The chief of a conquering tribe rose to be head of a complicated social
body; the members of his tribe an aristocracy supported by the industry
of an alien plebs composed of tribes they had conquered and fugitives
from other conquerors. These too had had their tribal gods and tribal
chiefs, but what have men, reduced to open slavery, to do with such
dignities? A generation of ill-usage sufficed to wipe out the very
memory of independence. For god and chief alike they had their suzerain,
upon whose indulgence their lives depended.
Besides the fortune of war, the chiefs owed much of the enormous
increase in their power to their system of land tenure. The land
boundaries of the tribe were telescopic. Every tribe owned as much land
as it could defend against the encroachments of its neighbours. There
was, as will presently be explained, individual ownership of land
actually under cultivation, but all waste land was held, theoretically,
in common. And, since the mouthpiece of the tribal will was the chief,
the waste lands were at his disposal. So long as he gave it to his own
people to use he gained no power, but as soon as fugitives, driven out
by other conquerors, began to run to him for protection, and were
granted land on which to settle, he found a body of tenants springing up
who regarded him as their personal overlord. It was to him that they
paid their rent in kind and in labour; it was to him, and not to the
tribe, that they gave feudal service in war. The chief of a great
federation had thus two distinct classes of vassals--serfs conquered in
war, and feudal tenants.
Before the advent of Europeans and the introduction of firearms, the
confederations were never very large. Tribe fought with tribe on equal
terms; the besieged had an advantage over the besiegers. Every tribe had
a natural stronghold, stored with food and water for many weeks, into
which it would retire in times of danger. If they did not carry it at
the first assault, by surprise, or by treachery from within, the
besiegers went home to await a better opportunity, for the slow
starvation of a garrison by organized siege had never occurred to any
native leader. The largest confederations known to us by
tradition--Verata and Thakaundrove--controlled less than ten miles of
coast line. With the introduction of gunpowder in 1808 native wars
became far more destructive. The powerful chiefs immediately doubled
their power, and yet Thakombau, the head of the most powerful
confederation of all, even in the zenith of his power, never ruled
directly over more than fifteen thousand people, though, undoubtedly, he
could bring influence to bear upon half the group.
[Illustration: Bringing first fruits to Mbau.]
The development of autocracy followed certain well-defined lines. At
first the chief was priest and king after the order of Melchisedec of
the Ammonite city, Jebus--that is to say, he received divine honours
while wielding the temporal authority. But as the tribe grew the
temporal power became irksome to him. The tradition of the founding of
the temporal line in Tonga about the beginning of the seventeenth
century throws the clearest light upon the origin of the spiritual and
temporal lines. A king of Tonga had goaded his people into assassinating
him; and his son, after avenging his murder, sought to put a buffer
between himself and his rebellious subjects by delegating his executive
power to his younger brother, reserving to himself all the solid
advantages of his high station without any responsibilities. Safe from
popular outbreak, he began to enjoy increased veneration owing to the
more rigid tabu that hedged him in. In another case preserved by
tradition the temporal power was founded by the indolence of the
supreme chief. In order to rid himself of the cares of government, he
constituted his brother his hereditary minister, and bequeathed to his
descendants an ornamental and dignified retirement. The Mikado and the
Shogun are analogues of the Roko Tui and the Vunivalu.[34]
[Pageheader: ORIGIN OF SPIRITUAL CHIEFS]
In Fiji, the process of scission was found in every stage of evolution.
Among the Melanesian tribes of the interior it had not begun; in Rewa
the spiritual Roko Tui still wielded the temporal power; in Mbau and
Thakaundrove he was beginning to lose even the veneration due to his
rank. Just as the coast tribes had begun to adopt the Polynesian gods in
addition to their own ancestral mythology, so they were more ready to
follow the Polynesian example of separating the temporal from the
spiritual chiefs.
The constitution of Mbau may be taken as a type of the Fijian
constitution. First in rank was the Roko Tui Mbau (Sacred Lord of Mbau).
His person was sacred. He never engaged personally in war. He was the
special patron of the priests, who, in return, were unstinting in their
insistence upon his divinity. He alone might wear his turban during the
kava-drinking. It was tabu to strangle his widow, though the widows of
no other chief were exempt from paying that last honour to the dead. At
his death no cry of lamentation might be uttered, but a solemn blast was
sounded on the conch-shell, as at the passing of a god.
Next in rank came the temporal chief, the Vu-ni-valu (Root of War, or
Skilled in War), who was at once Commander-in-Chief and executive
Sovereign. He never consulted the Roko Tui Mbau in temporal affairs, and
he enjoyed tabu privileges little inferior to those paid to his
spiritual suzerain. The Vunivalu always belonged to the Tui Kamba (Lords
of Kamba) sept, and the Roko Tui Mbau to the Vusaratu ("Chief sept").
The Tunitonga, the hereditary adviser and spokesman of the chiefs,
ranked next. He was the state matchmaker, and disposed absolutely of the
young chief girls, whose natural guardian he was.
The Mbete (priests) and Mata-ni-vanua (Royal messengers, _lit._
Messengers of the land) were next in consequence, though the chiefs of
the Fisher septs wielded influence in proportion to their force of
character.
Each sept had its own quarter of the town, the heralds at its eastern
extremity, next the Vusarandave (hereditary soldiers), and the fishermen
nearest to the mainland. Across the narrow straits were the planting
lands of the subject tribes, who might be seen at every low tide, wading
across the ford with contributions of food.
The Confederation in Decay.
The first effects of foreign interference was to strengthen the power of
the chiefs; the second, to destroy it. For more than two years Mbau
enjoyed a monopoly of muskets, which enabled her almost to double the
extent of her territory. To the eastward the kingdom of Somosomo
swallowed up the whole of Taveuni and the eastern portion of Vanua Levu,
while the Tongan immigrants under Maafu first conquered the Lau group,
and then threatened the independence of Mbau itself. The immediate
effect of subjugation was to blight the traditions and religion of the
conquered tribe, for independence is as necessary to their life as light
and air to the life of a plant. It is astonishing how quickly the status
of a Fijian is reflected in his bearing. In an assemblage of Fijians an
unskilled eye can pick out the members even of tribes who were subdued
within the memory of men still living, by their slinking gait, their
shifty eye, and the humble curve of their spine. A few years have
changed them from warriors into beaten curs. Their chief, a hewer of
wood like themselves, ceases at once to inspire respect; they approach
him now without crying the _tama_, the prerogative he used to share with
the gods themselves; they keep the _tama_ for their alien conqueror and
his gods; of their own they pretend to have forgotten the very name, nor
dare they any more to claim _tauvu_ relationship with any cousin-tribe
that has preserved its freedom. They have dropped out of the social
fabric, and chief and subject alike spend their lives in weaving ignoble
plots to alleviate the squalor of their servitude.
[Pageheader: INFLUENCE OF CONQUEST]
Far otherwise the conqueror. He who, but a generation back, would have
sweated in the yam-field with his men, now grew fat upon the
contributions of his tenants and the toil of his kitchen-men. His harem
was crowded with the daughters of allied chiefs, and the fairest girls
from every conquered village. Panders and sycophants flocked to him;
dwarfs and negroes and renegade Europeans were in his train; buffoons
told dirty stories over his evening kava bowl; poets forged heroic
genealogies for him, and when he went abroad men squatted on the ground
with averted faces and _tama_'ed. Every vessel that he used was sacred,
and brought death to any lowborn man that touched it. Every member of
his tribe swam upon the tide of his prosperity. His village became a
village of chiefs, with serfs of their own to plant food for them, where
the youths were trained to the chief-like exercises of war and
seamanship and dancing, and the old men spent their nights in feasting
and concocting plots for extending their dominion. As for the Roko Tui,
the Sacred Chief among the conquered tribes--there being no place for
such rank among serfs--he was fain to surrender his sanctity; among the
conquerors he degenerated into an ornamental symbol of the powers
divine.
The chief was seen at his best among those tribes that had preserved
their independence without seeking to extend their borders. Among the
Melanesian tribes in the western half of Vitilevu, in a number of
isolated islands, such as Vatulele and the Yasawa islands, the chief was
veritably the father of his people. Neither his dignity, nor the
sanctity of his person depended, as with us, upon any adventitious
barriers between himself and his subjects. Familiarity bred no contempt.
Like them, he wore nothing but the _malo_; with them he plied the
digging-stick at planting time. And yet, though any might approach him,
none forgot the honours due to him. When Roko Tui Nandronga worked
himself into a drunken fury over the accidental burning of his kitchen,
his whole people, chiefs and all, besmeared themselves with ashes, and
crawled to his feet to sue forgiveness; and when the Colonial Government
threatened to deport him for unjust exactions levied on his people, the
very people who had suffered from his extortions implored the Governor
to reinstate him, saying that they loved him as a father. "Can we
picture," asks Teufelsdroeckh, "a naked Duke of Wellington addressing a
naked House of Lords?" Had the sage seen a Fijian chief among his people
he would have marked how the naked brown skin may be clothed in a
divinity that needs no visible garment to lend it dignity.
The first blow at the power of the chiefs was struck unconsciously by
the missionaries. Neither they nor the chiefs themselves realized how
closely the government of the Fijians was bound up with their religion.
No sooner had a missionary gained a foothold in a chief village than the
tabu was doomed, and on the tabu depended half the people's reverence
for rank. The tabu died hard, as such institutions should die. The
first-fruits were still presented to the chief, but they were no longer
carried from him to the temple, since their excuse--as an offering to
persuade the ancestors to grant abundant increase--had passed away. No
longer supported by the priests, the Sacred Chief fell upon evil days.
Disestablished and disendowed, he was left to subsist upon the bounty of
the temporal chief, whose power and dignity had, as yet, suffered no
eclipse, for it was not the interest of the Europeans who were now
crowding into the group to attack it. The chiefs guaranteed their lives
and property, the chiefs sold them land, and protected them in their
occupation of it; the chiefs levied contributions to pay for the
contracts they had made with them; and, in return, the white men were
always ready with muskets and ammunition to help them to keep rebellious
vassals in check.
[Pageheader: SIR A. GORDON'S NATIVE POLICY]
The temporal chiefs sounded the death-knell of their privileges when
they were persuaded to cede their country to the British Government.
Had they realized the consequences they would have preferred the danger
of conquest by Maafu and his Tongans, or bullying by American
commanders, as more than one has since confessed to me. But Thakombau
was weary of bearing the brunt of European aggression, and when
Thakombau persuaded, who was strong enough to hold aloof? The British
Government began wisely enough considering the information at its
disposal. Sir Arthur Gordon (now Lord Stanmore), the first governor, was
gifted with a rare sympathy with native modes of thought. With the
experience of the disastrous native wars in New Zealand before his eyes,
he realized the importance of governing the country through its own
strong native government. To deprive the chiefs of any of their
privileges, to deny them all share in the government of their people,
would have been to convert, not only them, but their people into
enemies. To accept and improve the native system was at once the most
just, the most safe and the most economical policy. His expert advisers
were Sir John Thurston and Mr. David Wilkinson, the former deeply versed
in native politics, and the latter in native customs, if not in
customary law. With their help he set about enclosing the natives as it
were within a ring fence. The islands were divided into provinces
coinciding roughly with the boundaries of the existing confederations as
he found them. The ruling chiefs were made lieutenant-governors under
the title of _Roko Tui_, borrowed from the Sacred Chiefs who had no
longer any use for it; the province was sub-divided into districts under
chiefs with the title of _Mbuli_ ("Crowned"); the system of village
councils was extended to the province, and to the high chiefs
themselves, who met once a year to make recommendations to the Governor.
War and cannibalism were of course put down, and polygamy, which had
long been forbidden by the missionaries, was discountenanced, but
otherwise the existing native customary law was embodied in a code of
regulations passed expressly for the natives to be administered by
native magistrates under European supervision.
Lala
It was here that the first mistake was made. The chiefs' privileges were
well understood; their limitations had never been studied. It was known
that the chief could command the gratuitous service of his subjects,
provided that he fed them while they were working for him. It was not
understood that each confederation had its own system of privileges. Mr.
David Wilkinson, the Native Commissioner, had a most complete knowledge
of the Confederation of Mbua, and he seems somewhat hastily to have
assumed that the Mbua system prevailed _mutatis mutandis_ throughout the
group. Nor does he appear to have clearly understood the difference
between the chiefs' personal privileges and his right to impose taxation
for the good of the commune.
In the native mind the distinction is very clearly marked. There are, in
fact, two distinct kinds of _lala_. The first, which I will call
"personal _lala_" was the payment of rent in the form of tribute or
service to certain powerful chiefs by the tenants settled upon their
land. The second, which is best described as "communal _lala_" was
taxation in the form of tribute or service on behalf of the commune.
[Pageheader: LEVY BY _LALA_]
It is necessary to draw a clear line of distinction between communal and
personal _lala_, because while the former was universal throughout Fiji,
the latter was limited to those confederations in which the chief had
private rights in the land, and also because the two forms of _lala_
originated in totally different institutions, which are by no means
confounded in the native mind. By Europeans, both official and
"anti-official," they seem always to have been confounded. To the
critics of the Colonial Government the word _lala_ is synonymous with
"authorized oppression," or, as a recent writer chooses to call it,
"legalized robbery"; to the framers of the Native Regulation No. 4. of
1877, the two were so confused that they are enumerated haphazard
without any attempt at classification. In that regulation _lala_ is
limited to house-building, planting gardens, road-making, feeding
strangers, cutting and building canoes, and turtle fishing. By
Regulation No. 7 of 1892, the communal aspect of _lala_ was extended by
giving any resolution of the Provincial or District Council that had
received the written assent of the Governor the force of law. The
exercise of _lala_ was limited to the Roko Tui of the province, or the
_Mbuli_ of a district, and the penalty for disobedience to their lawful
commands was a fine not exceeding 2s., or fourteen days' imprisonment in
default, with a slightly increased penalty for a subsequent offence.
Now, of the limitation set forth in the Native Regulations,
house-building, canoe-building, planting gardens and fishing turtle
belong to personal _lala_, though they may occasionally be applied for
communal purposes; while road-making, feeding strangers and complying
with resolutions of the Native Council are certainly exercised for the
good of the commune. And yet the Regulation, put into the hands of a
number of official chiefs, by no means entitled them to personal
privileges that were only due from tenants to their landlord.
Communal Lala
In its communal aspect _lala_ is the axis of the primitive commonwealth.
A native cannot by himself build his house, or dig his plantation, and
he has no money with which to pay others for doing so. Accordingly, he
applies to the chief, who, acting as the mouthpiece of the commune,
summons all the able-bodied men to come to his assistance. In return he
must provide food for them, and he must take his turn in helping each of
them whenever his services are required. Both in the larger
confederations and the miniature republics of the inland tribes, this
kind of _lala_ is applied by the chief of sept or chief of village with
the consent of the council of elders.
Communal _lala_ is also indispensable for the performance of all public
works, such as road-making, bridge-building; the erection of public
meeting-houses, such as the church or _Mbure-ni-sa_, and it was also
legitimately applied to such quasi-communal services as the repair of
the chief's canoe or house, the planting of food and catching fish, for
the entertainment of strangers coming to trade with the tribe. In this
respect the _lala_ corresponds closely with our system of local rates.
When exercised by the supreme chief to levy contributions for the
equipment of an army or an embassy, it may fitly be compared with public
taxation. Without it, the condition of the natives' houses, already bad,
would become worse; their crops, already diminished, would become
insufficient for their support; their villages, often now neglected,
would become unfit for habitation, and the purchase and maintenance of
boats and vessels become impossible. Where it has been abolished, as in
Tonga and the Tongan community settled in Fiji, the necessity for
combination is so keenly felt that the people have evolved a substitute
of their own. Men and women voluntarily form themselves into clubs
called _Kabani_ (company) under various fanciful names, which are called
together under the direction of an elected president to build houses,
plant gardens, and do other combined work for one another. Disobedience
to the order of the president is visited by a money fine, or by
expulsion. A person who belongs to no club can obtain no assistance from
his fellows.
I am not sufficiently acquainted with the history of the _corvee_ in
Egypt or the _rajakarya_ of Ceylon to say whether they, like the _lala_,
were instituted to meet the necessity of combination among a primitive
people. The _rajakarya_, we know, was abolished because the high chiefs
much abused it, but they did not begin to do so until the law of custom
had begun to decay, owing to intercourse with Europeans. We had the
_lala_ ourselves up to the thirteenth century, or the magnificent
churches of the Norman and Gothic periods would never have been built by
people who were content to live in thatched hovels: in Scotland it
survived until much later.
[Pageheader: LIMITATIONS OF THE _LALA_]
The communal _lala_ has suffered far less decay than the personal. The
chief had no selfish interest to tempt him to push it to excess; the
people felt it no injustice, though they were compelled to supply
extravagant contributions of food and property for the frequent
_solevu_. Nor do they grumble at being compelled to contribute a sum of
some L5000 annually for the purchase and repair of vessels owned in
common, for these exactions, burdensome as they are, minister to their
natural vanity. It was when the government applied the principle of
communal _lala_ to sanitation that they began to cry out, for this was a
clear infraction of the law of custom. Their fathers did well enough
with a road twelve inches wide, with bridges formed of a single slippery
log, with village squares unweeded save on the occasion of some great
public function. When the chief orders the widening of roads and
bridges, he is not voicing the want of the commune but the will of the
foreigners.
It is worth noting as an illustration of communal _lala_ that for the
first few years after annexation the communal vessels usually belonged
to the province. The people who contributed the purchase money did not
grumble, because they regarded the collection as a personal levy by
their chief. The vessel was at the disposal of the _Roko Tui_, who
regarded it as his private yacht. But as soon as the people grasped the
idea of owning a vessel in common, they began to subscribe for district
and village boats, in which they enjoyed an ample return for their
money. The government exercises a wise control over such collections. No
money may be levied until the resolution of the Native Council has
received the sanction of the government, and sanction is never accorded
when the levy is likely to put an undue burden upon the people. And here
again is an instance of how one cannot tamper with native customs
without letting loose a pack of unforeseen evils. The collection of
money for the purchase of vessels is a useful spur to activity; it
maintains a profitable colonial industry without putting any strain upon
the natives. But with increased facilities for travelling there is
growing up a practice on the part of both men and women of wandering
from island to island on the village boat, billeting themselves upon the
people they visit, and leaving their families to take care of
themselves.
Personal Lala
If there had been but one system of land tenure throughout the group,
the loose limitation of the personal _lala_ enacted by the government
would have worked well enough, so long as the hereditary chief had been
the holder of the government office. But among no primitive people in
the world, perhaps, is found so great a diversity of institutions
relating to land as among the Fijians. The group being the meeting
ground of the Polynesians, whose ruling aristocracy claimed special
rights in the soil, and the Melanesians, whose institutions are
republican and who hold their waste lands in common, there is every
grade of land tenure ranging from absolute feudalism or serfdom to
peasant proprietorship. And the systems are further complicated by the
natural peculiarities of the soil; in river deltas where cultivable land
is continually shifting and but little labour is required to reclaim
fields from the mud flats, ownership becomes necessarily individual, and
a regular system of transfer springs up.
For several years it did not occur to any one that the right to personal
_lala_ was merely a property in land. For the first few years after
annexation the government had enough to do in settling the land claims
of Europeans without touching the thorny question of native titles. The
Lands Commission established the fact that the chiefs had no right to
sell land without consulting the wishes of their people, but it was
outside the scope of the inquiry to define what their interest in the
land really was. That the government had a suspicion of the truth is
shown by Section 4 of Regulation No. 5 of 1881, in which it is provided
that 40 per cent, of the rent of lands leased to Europeans is to be
given to the Turanga i taukei--a status that exists in all the large
confederations, but which is unknown among the tribes of Melanesian
origin in western Vitilevu.
[Illustration: Building a Chief's House.]
[Pageheader: PERSONAL _LALA_ IS RENT]
It was not until 1890 that the government found leisure to attack the
native boundaries, and then the truth came out. By that time the natives
had come to regard land from a new point of view. The principal
commodity of old Fiji was food. Land had no value except in so far as
it produced food, and, therefore, the mere possession of it was not
coveted unless there were inferiors living on it as cultivators. But as
soon as it was realized that land, when leased to Europeans, produced
money, the earth-hunger of the chiefs increased a thousandfold. They now
laid claims to lands which, twenty years before, they would not have
accepted as a gift, and tried to prove their case by quoting instances
in which the resident cultivators had done them _lala_ service. The
rival claimants would as eagerly assert that the services in question
were given in token of gratitude for protection, or out of mere
neighbourly feeling in times of scarcity--for anything, in short, but
rent, and would allege delicate shades of distinction in the ritual
employed. But all alike admitted that a chief's interest in land would
be established if he could prove an ancient right to order gardens to be
planted by subject tribes, or to demand services from them in
house-building, fishing or contributions for the entertainment of
visitors. In few cases did the chiefs claim an absolute proprietorship
in the soil; they admitted that the land was vested in the people living
upon it, subject to the usual tribute.
Personal _lala_, then, was a landed interest. The chiefs of the large
confederations had acquired it partly by appropriating the common lands
of the tribe, and partly by the conquest or protection of the weaker
tribes that made up their confederations. And if this seems to be but a
slender title to so enormous a privilege, let it be remembered that the
large landed proprietors in Europe have come by their property in no
more regular or legitimate a fashion. Until the establishment of the
Copyhold Commission some of the landed interests in England were quite
as divergent from modern ideas as _lala_. Yet, among those who advocate
that property in land should be transferred from the landlord to the
State, there are few who propose to make the change except upon the
basis of fair compensation to the landlords. It is a recognized
principle of modern legislation that whenever a class has acquired
certain rights by prescription, no measure injuriously affecting such
rights shall be enacted without fair compensation. Policy as well as
justice made it incumbent upon the British Government to confirm in
their ancient rights the chiefs who had voluntarily ceded their country.
But the attempt to reduce these rights to written law was most
unfortunate. Chiefs who were landlords were, at a stroke of the pen,
given the right to exact personal _lala_ from tribes who were not their
tenants; and throughout quite half the group, the right to personal
_lala_ was conferred upon chiefs who were not landlords at all, and had
no claim to it whatever. Confusion became worse confounded when the
hereditary chiefs were expelled from office for misconduct, and persons
of inferior rank were appointed to succeed not only to their official
duties, but to their private rights to personal _lala_. Had the question
been understood it would have been easy to frame a regulation of
limiting the exercise of personal _lala_ to those chiefs entitled to it
by ancient usage, allowing each disputed case to be decided on its
merits, and to limit the holders of government offices of _Roko Tui_ and
_Mbuli_ to _lala_ for communal purposes. It says much for the tenacity
of customary law that the chiefs took so little advantage of the
ignorance of the government--an ignorance that may be compared with the
mistakes made by the Indian government in the matter of the Ryots. The
chiefs of the miniature republics of western Fiji have never attempted
to claim personal _lala_, and even chiefs, such as _Roko Tui Ra_, who
were brought from other provinces by the government to be _Roko Tui_
over people who had never been federated under a paramount chief, have
used their powers very sparingly, although they were placed in the false
position of having to maintain large establishments on very insufficient
salaries.
[Pageheader: _LALA_ RECEIVES LEGAL SANCTION]
The Colonial government has been bitterly attacked by certain European
critics for permitting _lala_ to exist at all. Insufficient knowledge of
the subject has betrayed them into expressions as inaccurate as they are
intemperate. "Slavery," and "Legalized Robbery," are not the strongest
terms that have been applied to _lala_, and the people have been
described as sunk in apathy and despair under the exactions of their
chiefs. Let us see how far these charges are borne out by facts. The
native regulations that defined the _lala_ also provided that--"If any
town shall desire to commute its _lala_ work due to any chief for a
fixed annual payment in money or in kind, and such chief shall have
accepted such commutation with the Governor's sanction, the right of
_lala_ cannot again be resumed by him. A record of all such commutations
shall be kept in the Native Affairs Office." Although many native
communities now receive large incomes from rents and surplus taxes, from
which commutation could be paid, there has been no single instance of an
application to commute the _lala_ during the thirty-one years in which
the Regulation has been in force. If the people felt the _lala_ to be
oppressive they would not have hesitated to tender the trifling annual
payment that would free them from it. There is no doubt that the _lala_
has been pushed beyond its legitimate uses, but always by the chiefs of
the confederations. Personal _lala_ cannot be legitimately applied
without the reciprocal obligation of providing the workers with food
(_vakaotho_), and when the chief neglects this obligation, or uses the
_lala_ in the execution of work for Europeans, the _lala_ at once
becomes, not legalized robbery, for it is illegal, but oppression. An
instance of this occurred before annexation, when, as already related,
the American Government had fined king Thakombau L9000 for the
destruction of Vice-Consul Williams's house in a fire that was probably
accidental. The people of the Tailevu coast were ordered to fish
_beche-de-mer_ for sale to Europeans in order to meet the American
claim, but they refused, though they knew that refusal might cost them
their lives. For Thakombau they would cheerfully have stripped
themselves of all they had, but to collect produce destined for a
foreigner was an infringement of the law of custom.
The instances of oppressive _lala_ nearly all came from one
province--that of Thakaundrove--governed by a young chief who, having
been educated in Sydney, wished to live in European style beyond his
means. For abuse of the _lala_, especially in levying goods for sale to
Europeans, he was punished more than once by the government. The people
who complained against him were those over whom the hereditary right to
_lala_ did not exist, and not those who were the natural tenants of his
estates. It is a significant fact that although the people have largely
lost their fear of lodging complaints against their chiefs, most of the
complaints that are made allege wrongful division of money or land,
while very few indeed are based upon abuse of the _lala_. The commission
appointed in 1893 to inquire into the causes of the decrease of the
natives went very fully into these charges, and reported that throughout
the largest portion of the group, no real discontent existed, and that
in those provinces where the chief had influence enough to abuse the
_lala_, the reported discontent was rather in the nature of grumbling at
the inexorable regularity of the call for tax and communal work than at
the chief's _lala_, for punctual recurrence is peculiarly abhorrent to
the desultory mind of the Fijian. These murmurs, which are not thought
worthy of being formulated in complaints, naturally reach the ears of
the resident Europeans, to whom they are given as excuses for broken
promises, and for disinclination to work. The fact is that _lala_ by a
hereditary chief, unless pushed to great excess, is not considered a
hardship by a Fijian. And seeing how lately the chiefs enjoyed absolute
power, and how the temptations laid in their way by the introduction of
money have increased, it is surprising how little they have abused their
power. It is unreasonable to expect from them an entire freedom from
errors which are not unknown in our own civilized society, where the
rich take advantage of the poor, the strong of the weak, the shrewd of
the simple.
[Pageheader: SPOLIATION SANCTIONED BY CUSTOM]
Defects are common to all social systems, and at the most the legal
recognition of the so-called communal system and the government of the
chiefs was a temporary compromise intended to last only until the people
could walk alone. The hostile critics of the system have viewed the
question solely by the light of modern civilization, holding the belief
that whatever fails to coincide with that system must be forcibly
dragged into line with it. They have forgotten that no social system is
perfect, that in civilized society there are many who own more property
than they can profitably use, while others have scarcely enough to
maintain existence. Our own system is in a process of transition. Our
upper classes, formerly basing their claim of rank upon the purity of
their descent, now rely upon the possession of wealth. The relations of
master and servant having passed from slavery to wage-earning, are now
in the first stage of evolution from wage-earning to profit-sharing. The
system may some day reach perfection, perhaps in the direction of state
socialism, but it is not in its present state a model upon which the
Fijian should be made to mould itself.
Two examples of spoliation recognized by customary law should here be
cited, because though they are "robbery" legalized by the law of custom
(albeit unlawful in the eye of the government), it has never occurred to
any one of the victims to seek redress. The first was exercised by what
is known as the right of the _vasu_ which has its origin in the peculiar
marriage laws of the Fijians. Every Fijian was said to be _vasu_ to the
clan of his mother, and in theory had a lien over all the property of
her family, but of course only the sons of women of high rank would dare
to claim such a right, though low-born _vasus_ could always count upon a
welcome at the hands of their cousins. To the rights of the _vasu levu_
(great _vasu_), _e.g._ the son of the reigning chief's daughter or
sister who was royal on both sides, there was practically no limit. He
might ransack the houses, sweep the plantations bare, kill the pigs and
violate the women without a murmur from the unfortunate dependants of
his kinsmen. In this way villages are occasionally swept of everything
of value. I do not think that in former days the people felt anything
but honour in being so singled out for plunder, and even now, when they
are fully aware of their legal right to refuse, the ties of custom are
stronger than their new-born love of independence. They give their
property with an outward show of good-humour, and vent their
mortification in grumbling among themselves, and to the neighbouring
Europeans. I remember Mbuli Malolo, who, as chiefs went, had a high
reputation for care of the welfare of his people, taking his
ten-year-old daughter, just recovered from sickness, for a tour round
the poverty-stricken islands of the Mamanutha group. The little girl was
led from house to house to point out every article of clothing and
furniture that happened to take her childish fancy; and, everything she
chose being swept up and carried instantly to her canoe, she left a
trail of destitution behind her. Though the poor people knew that I had
power to redress their grievance, they made no complaint; they only
mentioned the matter to account for their abject poverty. In 1887 I
offered to interfere on behalf of certain natives of Koro, thus
despoiled by one of the Mbau chiefs, but the natives themselves begged
me to take no action, saying that it was their custom to give whatever
their chiefs asked, and that their grumbling to Europeans who had given
me the information was not to be taken seriously. In this they could not
have been actuated by fear of the chief's resentment, for he belonged to
another province, and had no official relations with them.
[Pageheader: NATIVES MAY COMMUTE _LALA_]
The other example is the curious custom arising out of the tie of
_vei-tauvu_, which, though not due to the influence or authority of
chiefs, has also sometimes the effect of stripping a village of all
movable property. As already explained, the people of two villages, who,
though now widely separated, worship the same god--that is, trace their
origin to a common source--are said to be _vei-tauvu_, and have the
privilege, when visiting one another, of killing the domestic animals,
stripping the food plantations and appropriating all chattel property
belonging to their hosts. A remarkable instance of this occurred in
1892. The formerly influential, but now quite insignificant, island of
Nayau, on the eastern confines of the group, contrived, with the utmost
difficulty, to raise a hundred pounds for the purchase of a cutter. In
due course the people came to Suva to take over their little vessel. On
the first night out, whether by accident or design, they dropped anchor
at the chief village of the tribe of Notho. Under ordinary circumstances
they would have behaved themselves as befitted persons of their
insignificance, but, no sooner had they anchored than a deputation of
the Notho chiefs put off in a canoe to bid them welcome as brothers of
the _tauvu_. In the speeches of welcome allusion was made to the old
tradition of the origin of the Notho tribe, how, in times long past, a
princess of Nayau had been swallowed by a monstrous shark, and how a
Notho chief having slain and ripped the monster, rescued her and took
her to wife. Her rank being superior to his, her children worshipped the
Tutelary God of Nayau, which was a shark, and the two tribes became
_vei-tauvu_--that is to say, of common origin. In these poverty-stricken
islanders the men of Notho were now to recognize the elder branch of
their family. It took a little persuasion to convince the visitors of
the full extent of their good fortune, but when they were convinced they
made ample amends for their neglect. While the men of Notho sat passive
in their huts, they ran riot through the village, tearing down the
cocoanuts and plantains, rifling the yam stores, and slaughtering every
pig and fowl that did not escape by flight. They destroyed, indeed, far
more than the hold of their little vessel could contain, and they left
their dear brothers of the tauvu with nothing but complimentary speeches
to console them for the famine they would have to face.
Unlike the _vasu_, the _vei-tauvu_ was used reciprocally. The Notho clan
cherishes the intention of visiting Nayau, and exacting from their
brothers an eye for an eye. But the custom, like the tie of relationship
in which it is founded, is already in decay, being incompatible with the
growth of modern ideas of property. Had it been frequently exercised the
government would long ago have put a stop to it.
The Commission of 1893 recommended the government to encourage the
chiefs' tenants to commute the obligation of personal service. In Tonga,
on the abolition of the personal right of _lala_, the chiefs were
compensated by being made Lords of the Manor over large tracts of land
which yielded a fixed rental from every native occupying them, and from
every European settler to whom the landlord chose to lease land. The
Crown collected all rents and paid them over to the landlord, who,
however, had no right of eviction. The tenants held their land on
hereditary tenure, and default in payment of rent was visited with
distraint instead of eviction. This system was possible in Tonga,
because in ancient times the land there was regarded as the property of
the spiritual chief, the Tui Tonga, who could thus be made to grant
manors to his inferior chiefs without doing violence to native ideas:
but in Fiji, where the rights of the Crown have never been insisted on,
and the land is for the most part vested in the commune, such a scheme
would be impracticable.
In Fiji the time has come for adopting one of three schemes, for the
tendency towards the sub-division of the communal land among individuals
is growing so rapidly that unless something is done immediately, the
government will find itself face to face with a very serious difficulty.
Either the tenants should be induced to buy out their chiefs' interests
for a sum down to be invested for the chief by the government, or an
annual money compensation in lieu of all personal _lala_ should be fixed
by the native land court; or in those districts in which land is likely
to be leased to Europeans, portions of the communal land should be
vested absolutely in the chief in lieu of all personal _lala_, with the
power to lease, but not to sell, his holding. The economical aspect of
this latter arrangement would be to throw open to settlement on easy
terms considerable areas of native land in various parts of the colony,
for the chief would eagerly welcome tenants who would yield him an
income in money in lieu of the services of his people. While many of the
chiefs would gladly accept such commutation, it is doubtful whether the
people, superabundant though their land is, would voluntarily part with
any portion of it for an equivalent, so slender in their estimation is
immunity from personal service. Yet, so tenacious is the law of custom,
that for some time after they had commuted their obligation it is
probable that the people would continue to give their services
voluntarily to their chief, whose prestige would be in nowise affected
by the legislative restrictions imposed by foreigners.
[Illustration: Spoil from the plantations--(Taro, Cocoanuts and
Yangkona).]
At the end of 1898, however, a step was taken towards compelling
obedience to the Native Regulations in the appointment of four
European travelling inspectors who divide the group between them, and go
from village to village, persuading, exhorting, and, in the last resort,
threatening with prosecution persons who neglect to comply with the
Native Regulations concerning sanitation and the planting of food. It is
too early to look for any tangible results from this measure, of which
the success must chiefly depend upon the tact of the persons selected
for the appointments. But, in so far as it is a recognition of the fact
that the people cannot govern themselves, and that it is safe to
substitute Europeans for native agents now that the powerful chiefs of
confederations are passing away, leaving a mere tithe of their power to
degenerate descendants, it may be a step in the right direction.
[Pageheader: COMMUNISM THROUGH _KEREKERE_]
Community of Property through Kere-Kere
The Fiji commoner reckons his wealth, not by the amount of his property,
but by the number of friends from whom he can beg. There is no time in
the history of the Fijians when literal communism obtained. The tribal
waste land, it is true, was held in common, but the land actually in
cultivation for the time being, and the cocoanut and other fruit trees
were the recognized property of the man who planted them and of his
heirs. Poultry and pigs were held individually, and the ownership was
jealously guarded, the poultry being marked in various ways to secure
identification, and native manufactures of all kinds were the individual
property of the makers.
But, while individual rights were thus far recognized, the claims of the
tribe and of relationship were so strong as to constitute a lien upon
all individual property. A man who would regard the theft of his pig as
a deadly injury, and who would resent a stone thrown at his pig as an
insult offered to himself, would not feel aggrieved if called upon by
communal _lala_ to provide food for visitors to the village, even though
they were unwelcome, nor would he think of refusing any of his
possessions to a fellow-townsman who begged them of him, consoling
himself with the reflection that the gift affords him a claim upon the
borrower at some future time.
What the _solevu_ was between tribes, the _kere-kere_ was between
individuals--a mere substitute for trade by barter. A man had more salt
in his house than he wanted; his more needy neighbours begged it of him.
He in his turn, wanting yams for his daughter's marriage feast, has a
claim upon each one of them. And so the system works out to a balance.
It may be the first stage in evolution from the state in which the
proprietary unit was the tribe, or more probably it is the most ancient
of all laws of property, and dates from the day when Palaeolithic man
first found a bludgeon that balanced to his liking. Indeed, it is
difficult to imagine how primitive society could exist without some such
custom as communal _lala_ and _kere-kere_ within the limits of the
tribe. So long as there was but one standard of industry and all men
worked alike, the system answered well enough; but, as soon as each
individual became free to indulge his natural indolence, having no
longer the stimulus of fear, the custom was mutilated. The industrious
had no longer any incentive to industry, knowing that whatever they
accumulated would be preyed upon by their more idle relations. Fear of
public opinion still prevents the richer native from refusing what is
asked of him, though he knows very well that the recipient of his bounty
is too idle and thriftless ever to be in a position to yield him an
equivalent.
[Pageheader: THE FATE OF A REFORMER]
_Kere-kere_, which was formerly the pivot of native society, now wars
unceasingly against the mercantile progress of the people. One might
multiply instances of the resentment shown by Fijians against any of
their number who tries to improve his position, or accumulate property,
by braving the ridicule of those who would beg of him. In the few cases
in which Fijians have shown sufficient independence to defy the
importunities of their friends, they have been made the victims of a
kind of organized boycott well calculated to deter others from
attempting to follow their example. There is the case of Tauyasa of
Naselai on the Rewa river, who had a banana plantation and paid coolies
and Fijians to work for him. His industry prospered so that he was able
to buy a cutter and a horse, and furniture for his house. To the chiefs
who flattered him, and the host of idle relations who wanted to live
upon him, he turned a deaf ear, obstinately refusing to part with his
property. They retaliated by circulating infamous stories about him, and
by ridiculing him with the taunt that he was aspiring beyond his
station, and was trying to ape his superiors, the reproach that is of
all the hardest for a Fijian to bear. The worry of this petty
persecution preyed upon his mind so grievously that he took to his mat,
and foretold the day of his death. But not even his memory was allowed
to rest in peace, for the native teacher who preached on the Sunday
following his death, cried, "Who shipped China bananas on the Sabbath?"
and then in the pause that followed, he whispered hoarsely, "Tauyasa!"
Again he shouted, "Where is Tauyasa now?" and slowly twisting his
clenched fist before him he hissed between his teeth, "He is squirming
in the everlasting flames."
A native of Ndeumba, who used to make a net income of L250 a year from
his banana plantation, and had money deposited in the bank, asked not
long ago whether the government would not make the custom of _kere-kere_
illegal, so as to furnish him with an excuse for refusing to give money
away. He could only keep his profits to himself by depositing them in
the bank and saying that he had none, and who knew whether the bank
might not some day stop payment as he had heard banks had done in
Australia? If the government would only make begging between relations
illegal, he said he would have a valid excuse for refusing to give;
otherwise he would always be ashamed to refuse money to importunate
relatives. When this was mentioned to some Mbau women of high rank
without the disclosure of the man's name, they at once identified him
with Sakease, whose niggardly spirit appeared to be notorious.
Occasionally Fijians of the lower classes show real strength of
character in their thirst for progress. The province of Mba in Western
Vitilevu, having no paramount hereditary chief of its own, had been, for
administrative purposes, placed under the control of a _Roko Tui_,
artificially created by the government, and one Sailosi, a well-educated
man of inferior birth and quite unconnected with the province, was
appointed provincial scribe--an office of small pay but great
responsibility, for the scribe is not only the official adviser of the
_Roko Tui_, but also treasurer for the large sums of tax-money and rents
that have from time to time to be distributed. This man did his work
very well, and was proportionately unpopular in the province. Surrounded
by enemies who desired his downfall, he contrived to acquire property
and to live as far as he could in European comfort. He filled his house
with furniture and cultivated a flower garden. After several abortive
conspiracies to deprive him of his post by false accusation and of his
life by witchcraft, incendiaries burned down his house and all it
contained while he was absent on official business in Suva, and on his
return the people pressed forward with pretended expressions of sympathy
to enjoy his discomfiture. He surveyed the ruins of all he possessed
without a sign of emotion, and then he said, "It is well; I have always
wanted a larger house, and now you will have to build me one." And they
did. It is sad to have to record that this man, too, fell a victim to
the temptation of borrowing from the public funds, which so few Fijian
functionaries can resist.
Though few Fijians can be brought to trust a bank with their savings,
they are quite alive to the advantages of receiving interest. When the
Native Commissioner had been trying to foster a habit of investment
through the pages of the vernacular newspaper he received a letter
enclosing four shillings. "I send you this, sir," ran the letter, "in
order that you may make it give birth. I should like its yield to be one
dollar once a month."
[Pageheader: FEAR OF RIDICULE OBSTRUCTS PROGRESS]
It seems to be a common belief among Europeans that one has only to
abolish the power of the chief to secure to every native the fruit of
his own industry. That this is not so is proved by the example of the
Tongans, who, being a less conservative people than the Fijians, are
more inclined towards social progress. The powers of the chiefs were
there abolished by law in 1862, but, during the forty-four years that
have elapsed, the principal result of the change has been to impoverish
the chiefs without enriching the people, while the loss of the power of
combination has deprived them of the power of building any but houses of
the poorest description. And in Fiji the majority, being naturally
indolent, are interested in preserving the ancient right of begging
property from a relation and the fixed determination of the idle
majority to live at the expense of the industrious minority; and the
moral cowardice of the minority in not resisting their organized
spoliation quite neutralizes the encouragement to accumulate savings
which should have resulted from the recognition of private property by
English law. No less in Tonga than in Fiji is ridicule the most
effective weapon of intimidation. The people are enslaved, but to a more
merciless despotism than the tyranny of chiefs--the ridicule of their
fellows.
If native laws are to exist at all under the new order, this native
habit of _kere-kere_ must be swept away. New wants must be developed,
wealth must take the place of rank as the factor of social importance,
the idle must be made to feel the sting of poverty. The easy-going
native must be made to feel the pangs of the _auri fames_, the earth
must be cursed for him, competition with its unlovely spawn of class
hatred, pauperism, and vagrancy must be cultivated in a people to whom
they are unknown, for at present the Fijians have no spur to the
acquisition of money except the desire for some particular luxury. The
earth need only be tickled to laugh back in harvest. Most of the
necessaries of life are produced equally in every village. When a native
takes produce to the market it is for no abstract desire for the
possession of money; he has in his mind a definite object upon which the
proceeds should be spent; a new _sulu_, a lamp, or a contribution to the
missionary meeting. If he has no such object he will let the surplus
produce of his garden or his net decay rather than undergo the trouble
of taking it to the market. Facts never pointed to a clearer
conclusion. Under his own social Arcadian system the Fijian thrived and
multiplied; under ours it is possible that he may thrive again; but
under a fantastic medley of the two he must inevitably go under. No man
can serve two masters.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 33: _Studies in Ancient History_, 1876.]
[Footnote 34: That the native tradition was not invented to account for
the tribal constitution is shown in the form of the story, which records
the assassination and the subsequent delegation of power without
assigning any reason for the latter, or noticing the connection between
the two. (See my _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p. 304.)]