COMPLIANCE AND CARE:
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF A FIJIAN VILLAGE
by Emily Sparks

Extended Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on the Pronunciation of Fijian Words

Introduction

The Ethnography

Methods

Chapter 2 - Social Structure and Organization: Weaving the Web of Kinship

Social Organization

Social Structure

Relations Among Kin

Age

Gender

Physical Distance

Tavale

Chapter 3 - Economics: Tradition and an Ethos of Care

The Traditional Economy

Background on the Six Homes Surveyed

Sources of Income

Expenditures

Land Leasing and the FSC

Attitudes About Money

Chapter 4 - Life Cycle: Growing Up and Becoming Fijian

Marriage

Having Children and Growing Up in Fiji

Funerals

The Village "Adi"

Presentation of Gifts -- A Window into the Fijian Ethos

Food

Chapter 5 - Religion: From the Vu to Methodism

Traditional Beliefs

The Methodist Church

Seventh Day Adventists: An Alternative

Conclusion

Works Cited

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing acknowledgments for a project based on qualitative research, where my informants and mentors guided me, personally invested their time in my project, patiently and gracefully, is a privilege. However, putting in words my gratitude is something that I hope will touch the people that have helped me, but will not fully explain my appreciation for them.

Fijians are a people who thrive on the idea of doing the most that they can for their guests. I certainly felt this hospitality from Fijians. Not only did the villagers of Navolau #2 go out of their way to make me feel comfortable and at home in my new surroundings, but they also included me in their everyday life. They allowed me to become a part of their village, and of their families -- which is the most welcoming feeling that I have ever experienced. The people that I lived and worked with in Fiji, that is, those living in the village of Navolau #2, in the Ra Province, were not only willing, but enthusiastic to answer a wide range of questions, from their economic system to their religion, explain their elaborate kinship systems, and share with me their intimate feelings about their personal lives. For this I owe them my greatest thanks and respect.

Although I will not give the names of the informants in the village, my host family deserves a special thanks. They allowed me to feel at home, and were not only gave of themselves to make my living and my work easier -- they are a group of people whom I loved spending my time with, and will always cherish the time I spent living with them. I am both grateful and honored to have been so lucky to live with them for three months.

Another family to which I owe a distinguished amount of appreciation, respect, and honor to are my professors. I thank Stephen Leavitt and Karen Brison for choosing me to study in Fiji. Their subtle guidance in the field encouraged me to explore the Fijian world view somewhat independently -- something that very few undergraduate anthropology students are able to do. They also required a level and amount of work that has made me feel proud of accomplishing. Not only did they push me to produce this ethnography to the best of my ability, but they also offered support both emotionally and in their critiques of drafts of this paper throughout the term. I thank them for their dedication, their intellectual conversations, and for showing a genuine interest in my ideas, and my writing. I also thank the Department of Anthropology at Union College for offering fieldwork study abroad programs, such as this one.

I hope that this ethnography accurately represents and gives credit to those who have helped me learn about the Fijian culture, think about it, and write about it. I do not know if I will be able to return what they have offered to me, but as a notion of appreciation, I dedicate this ethnography to all who have helped me produce it.

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

This paper is an ethnography of the Fijian village Navolau #2, located in the northeast corner of Fiji's largest island -- Viti Levu. When I think back on conducting this cultural study of the lives of the residents in Navolau #2, I think not only about the information I gathered, but the context in which I collected the information. Living in the village was at times frustrating and confusing -- being surrounded by a foreign language and unfamiliar ethos can be isolating. As I look back on my brief ten week experience, I remember the difficult moments at the beginning; but these memories are quickly followed by warm, rewarding ones shared between myself and the villagers of Navolau #2.

The first person I met in Navolau #2 was my "nana," or mother. My professor brought me to my village to meet my family the morning before they would officially take me in for ten weeks as my guardians. She intimidated me at first introduction -- a relatively overweight woman, with a few teeth, she frowned at me as she spoke a few Fijian words directly to me. I did not understand what she said, except that she pointed to herself and to me, telling me to call her "nana." During the two months after this first introduction, I found my nana to be one of the most nurturing individuals I have ever met. In my second day in the village, she pointed out that, like my real mother, she too was left handed, and that "God intended it to be that way, so that your home in Fiji would feel like your real home." A home 8,000 miles away from my home in the states, the villagers, and especially my host family, in Navolau #2 have in fact made me feel that I now have a home in Fiji.

In September of 1999 I found myself in my new home on the mainland of Fiji. Fiji is known as the crossroads between Polynesia and Melanesia, and is over 5,000 km southwest of Hawaii and over 3,000 km northeast of Sydney. Fiji, or "Viti," in Fijian, constitutes a archipelago of islands, 106 of which are inhabited, (and over 216 are uninhibited), and one of which the 180th meridian runs through. The largest of these islands, Viti Levu, or "big Fiji," accounts for 57% of Fiji's overall land mass.

In the northeast corner of Viti Levu, in the Rakiraki district of the Ra province lies the village of Navolau #2, where I spent nearly three months living and collecting ethnographic data. When one drives on the King's Road to Navolau from the nearest town, Vaileka, one drives along the road in between the ocean and sugarcane fields. When one turns the corner at Nakorokula (the preceding village), one may see Navolau #2 about a half of a mile ahead of them -- the village resting on the hill. If one continues along the King's Road, they will notice that the next village, Navolau #1, does not have electricity, and that the paved road disappears within an hour or so. If the traveler proceeds with his journey, he will reach the capital city of Suva, roughly four hours later.

The Ethnography

This village of Navolau #2 is where I lived and conducted ethnographic research for roughly ten weeks. Though I gained and learned so much personally through the friends that I made in the village, I also gathered a great deal of information about the way the residents of Navolau #2 live their lives. The data that the villagers shared with me is what this paper is based on. The social organization, social structure, the economics of the village, the life cycle of the villagers, as well as their religion is the substance of the ethnography. An underlying theme in all of these chapters is the emphasis that Fijians place on the good and benefit of the community over the individual. Their relations with others, as well as the cohesiveness of the community, take precedence over individual requests. These chapters collectively illustrate that because Fijians have this sociocentric view of themselves, they deem the community relations to be more important than individual endeavors.

The social structure of the village refers to the way people conceptually organize themselves. In this paper, the social structure of Navolau is addressed, including the arrangement of the lineages, how people define themselves as members of groups, the kin term system, as well as the relationships kin members have with one another. In contrast to social structure, social organization refers to how people are actually organized in a physical place. This includes the size of the village, Navolau's history, the names and sizes of the lineages, the extent that people in Navolau have attended school, as well as their religious affiliations. In learning about social structure and organization, I found that villagers place a high priority on their relations with other villagers. Not only do they take care of each other within the village, but their kinship bonds dictate to them to extend their family bonds within and beyond the village -- and ask them to play certain roles within the community, signifying that people allow their community to determine what roles they should play.

The economics of the Fijian village is a study which is particularly interesting in its own right. Since villagers In Navolau #2 (as well as all Fijians) have this extended kinship system, they do not operate purely on capitalistic ideologies even in today's times. The traditional Fijian economy (although nowadays there are aspects of capitalism in practice in the village) is one where material goods are shared with the group, and the only person that has more material wealth than the rest of the village is the chief. This demonstrates that other than the chief, Fijians put the group's labor and interests to be as one for the good of the community.

The third chapter which discusses the life cycle and the life cycle rituals of the people of Navolau gets to the heart of the idea of the sociocentric self that puts the community before the individual. This chapter demonstrates how Fijians put the community before the individual in their celebrations and lamentations surrounding marriage, birth, and death. It also touches on how it feels to be a villager during different stages in life.

In religion too, Fijians emphasize the community and the village as a whole over people's individual role in the church. The main religion practiced in Navolau #2--Methodism--reflects traditional Fijian practices, including expectations of how people should act in the community. By emphasizing rank with in the church, as it is emphasized in secular society, the exchange of goods and services one does for the church, as well as the encouragement of interactions between different communities, Fijian religion in many ways reflects aspects of secular culture that emphasize the community. In Fiji, there are a number of religions which reject these traditional Fijian notions of putting the community over the individual, and in Navolau, the Seventh Day Adventist religion is practiced among few for this reason. This chapter will also discuss why these villagers have made this switch.

Throughout this ethnography, one can see that in doing a cultural study of Navolau #2, the idea of the sociocentric self is reflected in all aspects of Fijian culture. In all of these chapters, different ways in which the community, or the group is emphasized over the individual can be noticed, since it is apparent in every aspect of Fijian life, and thus at the heart of their world view.

Methods

Doing ethnographic fieldwork can be an exciting, disappointing, confusing and most of all rewarding experience. An anthropologist in many ways falls subject to her informants, as they dictate, share and explain to her their ways of life as they come about. Because of this nature of field work, an anthropologist must be open all times to collect data. Whether it be formally surveying a household for their economic expenditures, or having a conversation with someone while bathing in a river, an anthropologist must be ready to collect data when her informants are ready to share with her stories which act as windows to the culture.

In collecting data for this ethnography, I used various methods for different types of information. Since this ethnography holds within it charts, censuses, ritual descriptions and personal opinion, different types of methods were used to collect different types of data. Household censuses were conducted, economic surveys of households, maps, genealogy charts, participant observation, casual interviews, and of course recorded interviews drawn from to collect the information for this ethnography.

Ethnographic fieldwork often begins by physically orienting one's self in a new community. Mapping the houses and other structures in Navolau was a good first step to get myself familiar with the physical layout of the village. Having a grasp on the physical layout of the village helps one feel more comfortable in the village, making further data collecting, like censuring, a lot easier. Mapping is also a useful tool when first arriving to a field site, for it gives the anthropologist the beginning of a sense of how people live. For instance, I found through mapping that villagers do most of their cooking in separate kitchen structures, separate from the rest of the house. Censusing ten households in Navolau #2, I was able to gather some solid, basic, and quantitative information on the size of families, the family backgrounds, their religion, and the extent of their schooling. These censuses often led to discussions about the Fijian family system and how it is organized -- part of the social organization and structure of the village. Starting out early with censusing work helped give a background for kinship -- a topic which turned out to be interesting to learn about in Fijian culture.

Because kin relationships determine roles which determine how people interact with one another, it is important to supplement census information with genealogies, so that one may have a better sense of how people are related to one another. In collecting two genealogy charts, I got a sense not only of how people are related to one another, but how extensive their kinship network is -- a core value in Fijian culture.

Gathering information of the economics of Navolau #2 was done through economic surveys of six homes, as well as through informal and tape recorded interviews. As in the censusing, these surveys (which included people's sources of income, debts, and expenses), often led into interesting discussions and interviews on people's opinions about the current Fijian economy. In asking villagers about their views on social ties in comparison to money making, I was finding out information on how important having money is for members of the community. By conducting surveys and interviews, I was able to get a broad sense of the economic life of Navolau #2, and the role which money making plays in the community.

Collecting information about the life cycle, from asking about rituals to conducting personal interviews, helps the anthropologist better understand the culture which they are living in, since life cycle interviews often provide a window to look into what the culture deems as important. Listening not only to the information they were giving me, but also to the way in which they framed it and presented it to me allowed me to recognize what about their lives are important. Doing five intimate life cycle interviews was personally the most rewarding experience for me, not only because I made close friends with the informants, but because they turned out to be the most revealing way to understand the Fijian ethos -- which is the heart of what anthropologists look to find. Learning about basic cultural rituals associated with marriage, birth, child rearing and death, I was also able to gather how Fijians view the world.

Learning about religion was an ongoing quest during my stay in Navolau. Each week I attended church service, inquired about traditional beliefs along the way, and formally interviewed informants on their Christian and non-Christian beliefs. Since religion is a major part of most Fijians' lives, talking to them about religious beliefs was a topic which they were most willing to discuss.

Presenting my informants with "cultural models" about topics that are relevant in their lives helped me get a more detailed and refined sense of issues or topics Fijians are thinking about in their everyday lives. For example, when asking people about "Fijian character," I was able to better understand how they think of themselves in their world. When asked about "Fijian character," my tata responded, "Ceremonies, drinking grog with our family, helping each other out if someone needs money, all of this helps people's relations with each other continue to remind us that we are dua -- as one." From conducting cultural model interviews, I have learned about the Fijian core value system. Here, Tata explains how building relations with families or others in the community, distributing money, and participating in life cycle rituals remind people about their cultural identity, or what it means to be Fijian. As I have found great pleasure in putting together the presentation of Fijian culture to me, this paper will present this information to you, the reader.

On to Chapter 2...