Traditional society in north west Fiji and its political development : constructing a history through the use of oral and written accounts, archaeological and linguistic evidence
Date
2006
Authors
Parke, Aubrey L
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Abstract
The first aim of my research project is to determine from oral accounts I recorded over a period of some fifty years, how Fijians especially in western areas of Fiji currently understand and explain (a) the origins, characteristics, development and interactions of the social and political divisions of late pre-colonial traditional Fijian society, and (b) the general principles of traditional land tenure. The second aim is to assess the reasoning, consistency and, where possible, the historical accuracy of such understandings. The period on which my project concentrates is the two centuries or so immediately prior to Cession. Under the Deed of Cession a number of the major chiefs of Fiji had offered to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria; and after the offer had been accepted, Fiji became a British Crown Colony on lOth October 1874. The traditional Fijian society and system of land tenure with which the project is particularly concerned is
referred to in this dissertation as "pre-colonial" or "pre-Cession" Fijian society. For the sake of chronological convenience, pre-colonial Fijian society has been divided into "late prehistoric" and "protohistoric" periods. "Proto-historic" refers to the century ending at Cession in 187 4 and beginning with the arrival of the first outsiders to have significant interaction with Fijians. Other studies of Fijian traditional social structure have generally concentrated on areas in the eastern parts of Viti Levu and in other parts of Fiji to the east of the main island (the so-called Na Tu i Cake). Partly for this reason and partly because I have been
familiar with the area since 1951, my investigations culminating in this dissertation have concentrated on the relatively little known west (the Yasayasa vakaRa). It is hoped that the outcome of my project will now enable people to endorse the more easily the line with which I introduce Chapter 1, "But westward look, the land is bright." Research into pre-colonial Fijian society began incidentally when I was an officer of the Colonial Service in the Fiji District Administration and in the Fijian Administration in the 1950s and 1960s. My experience and general investigations while a member of these two Administrations served as a background to my later formal research conducted directly in relation to this project. When I returned to carry out the latter research in the 1990s, I endeavoured to operate through both these
Administrations as well as through the currently recognised socio-political units or
polities.
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Fiji, political anthropology, oral and written history, politics of Fiji, land tenure, ethnology, achaeology, linguistics
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