LIFE IN A FIJIAN VILLAGE:
THE STRUGGLE OF SELF AND COMMUNITY
by Megan Lee

Extended Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on the Pronunciation of Fijian Words

Introduction

Methods

Chapter 2 - Social Structure and Organization of Naivuvuni Village

Village Hierarchy (Tokatoka, Mataqali, and Yavusa)

The Vanua

Patrilineal Descent

The Kinship System

      Table 1. Fijian Kin Terms in Naivuvuni

Naming a Child (Namesakes and Naming Practices)

Respect and Avoidances

Naivuvuni Village (Population and Mataqali)

Origin Stories

Religion

The School System

Marriage

Conclusion

Chapter 3 - Village Economics

Household Income

Remittances

Cane Farming and the Land Lease System

Selling Items from the Home

Pensions

Total Income

Income Distribution

Expenses

Church and Mataqali Donations

Chapter 4 - The Life Cycle

Birth

Birthdays

Marriage

A Bulubulu Ceremony

Death

Themes from Life History Interviews

Chapter 5 - Religion

The Methodist Church (Physical Layout)

Services

Interview: Jehovah's Witnesses As One Alternative

Interview: The Methodist Church Gives Personal Strength

Conclusion

Works Cited

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My trip to Fiji and the work I accomplished there would not have been possible without the help, support and encouragement from a number of people. I am greatly appreciative of Professors Karen Brison and Stephen Leavitt who made the trip to Fiji possible. Without their support and guidance, my research would not have been successful. They were willing to take the time from their own work to offer an amazing field experience to their students as well.

I would also like to thank the Ministry of Education in Fiji who also helped make our homestays and research in Fiji possible.

I am also extremely grateful to the people of Naivuvuni village who so willingly opened their hearts and homes to me. They took time from their daily work to help me understand their lives and help me with my research. Most importantly, they gave me a feeling of belonging and offered me friendship during my stay in the village. I am also greatly appreciative of my host family. To Adi and Maika, Akini, Nina, Koni, and Semesa I am indebted for their hospitality and care during my stay in their home. I must also thank Nina and Wati for offering me friendships I will treasure forever.

To the six other Union students who ventured to Fiji with me I am also grateful. Erinn Gregg, Michelle Nason, Apryle Pickering, Emily Sparks, Andy Spitz, and Stephanie Sienkiewicz became good friends and a welcome refuse at times. For their friendship and encouragement I am appreciative.

Without the love and support of my parents and family I would not have had the courage or strength to make such an incredible journey and for that I will always be greatly thankful.

NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF FIJIAN WORDS

Fijian orthography generally follows an pattern that fits with an English speaker's intuitive understanding, but some distinctive devices have been used to render Fijian in a systematic way.

More conventional orthography:

"a" as in "father"
"e" as in "bed"
"i" as the "ee" in "beet"
"o" as in "hope" but with no diphthong
"u" as in "tube"

The unconventional features of Fijian orthography are as follows:

"b" refers to the sound "mb" as in "tomboy"
"d" refers to "nd" as in "find"
"c" is a voiced "th" as in "the"
"g" is the "ng" as in "singer"
"q" is the "ng" as in "finger"

INTRODUCTION

Located in the South Pacific, Fiji is an archipelago of 322 individual islands. Of these, approximately one hundred are inhabited by a mix of native Fijians, Indians, Chinese and Europeans. Fiji is known as the "crossroads of the Pacific," where the traditions of Polynesia and Melanesia mix with a unique Fijian culture. The emigration of thousands of indentured Indian servants by the British has also added a unique Indo-Fijian culture to the nation.

Viti Levu is the largest and most populated island. Located in the northwestern corner of Viti Levu, in the Ra province, is the district of Rakiraki. The village of Naivuvuni, in which I spent nine weeks, is located some five miles west of the town of Vaileka in this district.

The village of Naivuvuni is home to approximately 37 families and 230 people. The village is nestled into a small hill, providing a picturesque view of the ocean. It was there, with one of the village families, that I lived during my nine weeks of field work. My house was located at the top of the hill, in one of the largest houses in the village and also the only one with indoor plumbing. My host family consisted of my tata, who according to Fijian social structure is the second highest ranking man in the village and in line to become the next village head, and my nana. Although she spoke little English, my nana and I developed a fun and relaxed relationship as we tried to communicate with each other. Also living in their house is their 22 year old son, Akini, his wife of two years, Nina, and their son Semesa who was nine months old when I left the village. Nina and I are the same age and became close friends during my stay. She also acted as my village guide during the first few weeks of my stay as I tried to orient myself to the village and remember the names and faces of my new extended family and the other villagers who, in a few weeks time would become my good friends.

During my stay in Naivuvuni, I lived and studied in direct contact with Fijians and their culture and ways of life and so, was constantly being bombarded by new ideas, attitudes, and ways of living. These new ideas and attitudes became the basis of my first field notes, and then on a more in depth level, the basis of my research as I collected information and began to compile this ethnography. As my research developed and I studied the topics of social structure and organization, village economics, religion, life rituals and the life cycle, I found a reoccurring theme in my work. The structure of Fijian society is such that there is little room for independence and personal autonomy. The patriarchal and hierarchical nature of the society revolves around a "share and care" mentality in which personal fulfillment is found in providing for others. There is pressure placed on individuals to conform to the social structure and perform their role in the larger society by suppressing personal desires of individuality and autonomy. However, there are ways in which individuals have been able to gain autonomy and personal fulfillment within this highly structured society.

The first chapter of my ethnography discusses the social structure of Naivuvuni village. It focuses on the ways that people are conceptually organized within the framework of the village and how this social structure is different from the social organization of the village. Social organization refers to how people are actually arranged within the village. For example, the social structure of the village dictates that adult married brothers and sisters should avoid each other, as a sign of respect. According to the structure of the society, men and women as brothers and sisters have separate social positions and roles. In order to properly fulfill these roles, they need to avoid each other. However, this does not always happen. On several occasions I witnessed brothers and sisters spending time together in comfortable and relaxed situations. Therefore, the social organization of these relationships, what actually happens between brothers and sisters, differs from how people have conceptually defined the role of brothers and sisters.

This chapter explains what the social structure of the village should be like, as it was explained to me by the villagers, and then how the actual organization of the village differs from that structure. The differences between the way in which the villagers conceptualize their roles in the society and the ways in which they actually perform these roles, can be seen as a way to find personal autonomy within the structure of the village.

The second chapter, on the economic system that shapes the village, explores the ways in which the introduction of a market economy has created changes and placed certain stresses on the traditional village economy. Traditionally, Fijian economics revolved around the care and share mentality that, in theory, worked to create economic equality among the villagers. A Westernized economy has introduced new expenses that have changed villagers' conceptions of their traditional economic system in two ways. First, it has created additional burdens and expenses that have produced hardships in continuing the care and share mentality of the traditional economy that may eventually undermine that system. Secondly, it has encouraged individuals to collect personal wealth and material goods, expressions of autonomy and individuality that do not have a place in the traditional social structure.

The Fijian life cycle and the rituals that mark the entrance and exit of an individual from one social role to another is discussed in the third chapter. The hierarchical structure of the society is illustrated and maintained through a series of life cycle rituals that revolve around major life altering events, including birth, marriage and death. Although these events occur on an individual level, the social structure of the society requires that they focus not on the individual but on the society as a whole, particularly on the relationship between the groups that the individual belongs to, not on the individual himself. The focus of these rituals is on the interdependency of groups and the role that the individual must play as a member of these groups, not on the individual as a person. However, the rituals also impress upon the individual the sense that he is being cared for by the entire group. This is often repressive. Many people feel constrained by the role they are required to perform in. The ways in which a particular group of people, young to middle aged women, has found personal fulfillment while playing their role, is discussed through a series of life history interviews in this chapter. This chapter also focuses on one particular life cycle ritual, the bulubulu , to demonstrate the ways in which these rituals focus on groups, and not individuals.

The focus of the final chapter is religion, and the way in which the structure of the Methodist church parallels that of the larger society. Because the church structure so closely follows that of the society as a whole, it is difficult for those who have problems with the larger society to accept the Methodist church. As a result, they often turn to other denominations to find fulfillment in God; a rejection of the Methodist church can therefore be seen as a rejection of the society at large and therefore a rejection of the social structure. This is illustrated through the testimony of two individuals, one who has found fulfillment and autonomy by leaving the Methodist church, the other who has accepted the Methodist church into his life by rising through its hierarchy to find a higher level of communalism in it.

Methods

The material used to compile this ethnography was obtained in several different ways. I began by conducting a census of eleven households in the village. Nina helped me select the first five households to include in the survey. She suggested that I talk to at least one family in each mataqali (patriline) and after that, because I was not yet familiar with the families, I randomly selected the last six. I interviewed one member of each family and asked each person the same questions in order to gather consistent information. I began by asking the person I was interviewing for their full name. I then asked for: the name of the head of the household and his wife, the name of the house location, to which tokatoka (minimal lineage), mataqali, and yavusa (clan) the family belongs, the wife's original village and then more detailed information on each person living in the house, including parent's names and original village, extent of schooling, religious affiliation, occupations, and any previous marriages.

From this information, I was able to estimate the size of families, the population of the village, the proportion of people who attend the different churches, and a general idea of the amount of schooling people had completed. Additionally, the kinship information that they provided allowed me to see how different people were related to each other within the structure of the village. Also, the census interviews helped me become familiar with some of the villagers on a more personal level, and I began to build real relationships with them through these interviews.

As part of censusing, I also drew a sketch map of the village. This helped me become visually oriented with the village and provided a good visual record of each house in the village.

To supplement the census, I collected genealogies of two different villagers. Because kin relations determine the way in which people interact with each other, it was important to have a sense of how people are related to one another. In order to collect two different genealogies that did not have a big overlap in family members and relationships, I selected two people who are related to each other only through marriage. From one of these informants, I also collected a list of kin terms. Looking at the family tree we had just drawn, I asked her to tell me how she was related to each person and how she referred to that person. She also explained to me what her relationship is with each of these people; if they had to avoid each other, as cousin-brothers do, or if they could joke and have fun with each other, as cross cousins can. Based on this information, I wrote a short paper outlining these relationships which I later expanded and incorporated into the chapter on social structure and organization.

During the fourth week of the term, I conducted economic surveys of six households. As in the census, I asked the same set of questions to each person interviewed, in order to collect detailed and consistent information. I began by asking my informants to describe what they do each day in order to get a sense of how much time they spend actually engaged in economic activities. I then asked them what their sources of income are or all the ways in which they earn money. I also asked about their expenses and debts. Most importantly, I tried to get them to articulate their attitudes and true feelings about economic issues in order to more fully understand how the traditional social structure dictates their attitudes and how the introduction of a Western economy has altered or affected their attitudes.

Following the economic surveys, I began to collect information on the Fijian life cycle. What I was interested in understanding was how people felt during the various stages of their life. In interviews with three different women in the village, I asked them to describe what it is like to be a woman at different times in their life. I asked very open ended questions that allowed them to speak freely about the issues that were important to them. During these interviews, I also asked the informants to describe the practices that surround life cycle events. I asked them to explain who is involved and how they are involved, what the movement of an individual from one status to another means and how it feels to be involved in these rituals.

In addition to these life history interviews, I also witnessed two different rituals that mark stages of the life cycle. I traveled with a group of Naivuvuni villagers to participate in a bulubulu ceremony, so that I could actually see how individuals are moved from one social role to a new one and how this is reflected in the larger groups to which an individual belongs. I also attended a hundred nights ceremony in the nearby village of Vitawa. Again, I observed the relationships between the different groups involved in this ceremony and the way in which they interacted with each other and how this is reflected in the life of one individual.

I also conducted interviews concerning religious beliefs and the structure and importance of the Methodist church within the larger society. In interviews with two different individuals, one of whom is a leader in the Methodist church and the other of whom attends another denomination, I gathered information on the importance of religion in people's everyday lives; why their respective religion is important to them; and how they view the Methodist church. I also observed the service in the Methodist church and gathered basic information on the structure of the service and how it parallels that of the larger society.

As I collected this information I recorded in my field notes. From my notes I then compiled the following ethnography: "Life in a Fijian Village: The Struggle of Self and Community."

On to Chapter 2...