The Fijians Part 30

The tobacco plant was indigenous in Fiji, but until the beginning of the nineteenth century the leaf was only used for killing lice, from which it took its original native name of _mate-ni-kutu_ (lice-slayer).

Smoking was introduced by a Manila ship, and it spread rapidly through the group, being adopted by both s.e.xes.

The plant is grown in dry, sandy soil, preferably on the sites of old houses which have been well manured by the village pigs. The leaves are hung suspended in bundles from the rafters of a house to wither, and are then twisted tightly together to sweat. This produces a leaf of great pungency and strength. It is smoked almost exclusively in the form of a _suluka_, or cigarette, rolled in dry banana leaf. The ribs of the tobacco leaf are stripped off, the leaf is partially dried over a firebrand, and shredded before being rolled, and a supply of ready-rolled _suluka_ is either stuck into a cleft reed to keep it from unrolling, or carried behind the ear.

Until about 1880 every native over fourteen years of age smoked; many of the children began at a much earlier age, and, if punished for it, continued the practice in secret. About twenty years ago the Wesleyan missionaries tried to discourage the practice, by inst.i.tuting a blue ribbon for total abstainers from kava and tobacco. They may have induced five per cent. of the adults to abandon the habit.

[Pageheader: PIPE SMOKING]

As long as smoking was confined to the _suluka_ it had a picturesque side, but latterly the inconvenience of a cigarette that goes out every two or three minutes, even with continuous application, has favoured the introduction of the English pipe. The young chiefs are seldom seen without one, and as they omit to remove it when speaking to you, it has not tended to preserve the courtliness of Fijian manners. The women have now begun to use it, and may be seen working in their plantations, smoking a short, black clay pipe, with the bowl turned downwards to keep out the rain. It would no doubt be universal were it not that the imported tobacco, though it is admitted to have a pleasant smell, is objected to as being less narcotic than the native-cured leaf.

The women smoke a great deal during pregnancy, but abstain for the first ten days after confinement. One woman told me that she had noticed, when suckling, that when she was smoking heavily she had less milk, and that her baby cried a great deal, whereupon she discontinued smoking until the child was able to crawl. Few Fijian mothers show so much consideration. With the view of testing the important point as to whether excessive smoking affected the mothers, an experiment was made on May 29, 1883. A healthy Fijian woman, with a child at the breast, was taken to Suva hospital and given half-an-ounce of native leaf to smoke.

She consumed is all in two hours, and then declined to smoke any more.

One and a half fluid ounces of her milk were drawn off and submitted to examination by the late Dr. Zimmer. Unfortunately there were not sufficient appliances for securing a positive a.n.a.lysis, but the addition of platinum bichloride to the distillate gave a yellow precipitate, such as is produced by the combination of nicotine with that salt.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE TENURE OF LAND

At the cession of the islands in 1874 the form of land tenure among the Fijians was very imperfectly understood. Most of the settlers, seeing the large tracts of uncultivated land and the comparatively small patches of cultivation round the native villages, planted one year and deserted the next in favour of virgin soil, did not believe that the natives had any definite system of land tenure, or that, with so large a tract of waste land, they had found the necessity for evolving proprietary rights in the soil.

[Pageheader: THE PROPRIETARY UNIT]

As soon as the sale of land by the chiefs to Europeans came to be investigated by the Lands Commission there was a bitter controversy as to what was the proprietary unit in the eye of customary law. It was the object of every claimant to land to show that the proprietary unit was the chief who had signed the deed upon which he relied. The natives on the other hand, chiefs and people alike, were at pains to prove that the land was vested in the people, that the chief virtually had no interest in it at all, and had acted _ultra vires_ in selling it. The reader will remember the disastrous mistake made by the Government in British India--how as our empire spread our representatives took from their Mahommedan predecessors the a.s.sumption that all private property in land was held from the sovereign; that the soil was therefore theirs, and that any land laws would be of their creation; how Lord Cornwallis converted the Mahommedan tax-gatherers into landed proprietors, and how in the southern provinces this was reversed and the Government recognized nothing between itself and the proprietors. Both these beliefs proved to be erroneous, because as in Fiji they were attempting to make certain facts accord with European ideas. In India the real unit was the village community; in Fiji, the tribal community.

The inquiries of the Lands Commission have shown that the proprietary unit is an aggregation of Matankalis seldom less than four, subdivided in their turn into Tokatoka (septs), but known for ordinary purposes by the name of the village they inhabit, or on occasions of ceremony by their t.i.tle, _Thavu_. This t.i.tle is in some instances, probably in all, taken from the name of the site of their original village. Matankalis generally took their name from the house site of their founders. A process of fission and fusion (unfortunately the latter in these days of excessive mortality) is continually taking place. If a Tokatoka becomes too numerous it is subdivided, and the new sept takes its name from that of the house in which its leader lives. If it becomes more numerous still it is called a Matankali. When the Matankali becomes reduced to six males or less, it is usually absorbed, and becomes a Tokatoka of the Matankali most nearly allied to it.[106]

The early basis of society throughout the world is kinship. If a man is not a kinsman, then he is an enemy, the craftiest order of wild beast.

Among primitive tribes the groups of consanguineous relations are much larger than among civilized peoples, because there is always a tendency for persons owning any tie of kinship to band together for mutual protection. The Fijians had no territorial roots. It is not too much to say that no tribe now occupies the land held by its fathers two centuries ago. They are united by consanguinity, not by the joint ownership of the soil. But the longer they stay upon land, the stronger becomes their connection with it, until at last it becomes the basis of brotherhood, and the adoption of a stranger confers nearly the same privileges as those enjoyed by full-born members of the tribe.

The evolution of the chief in Polynesia is not so complicated as in Europe. Chiefs in ancient Greece were necessarily wealthy, and in Europe wealth led to chieftaincy. But in Fiji the chief arrived at his position only in virtue of being the representative of the purest line of the common ancestor, related to his inferiors of the same tribe, but distinct from the surrounding tribes, who admitted his authority in virtue of conquest. Sir Henry Maine well says, "When the relation which it created lasted some time, there would have been no deadlier insult to the lord than to have attributed to him a common origin with the great bulk of his tenants." For tenants in England innocent names have come to bear an insulting meaning; "villain," "churl" and "boor" are names perverted by the chiefs to indicate their contempt for the tenants, with whom in reality they were related.

The exalted rank of the high chiefs in Fiji does not seem to arise until his tribe has subdued others by conquest. His people seemed to treat him with far greater respect when he had allowed _fuidhir_ tenants--fugitives from broken tribes--to settle on the waste lands of the tribe. The superst.i.tious element that had hitherto lain dormant then brought into prominence the fact that in his body ran the purest blood of the Kalou-Vu, the ancestor-G.o.d, a being to whom reverence as well as obedience must be paid. The priests, who always cultivated an excellent understanding with the chiefs, encouraged this feeling, and in return the chief took care that the offerings to the G.o.ds were not stinted. At the death of the chief there was a limited election, such as was practised in Ireland as late as 1596. The candidates for election were limited first to the brothers of the deceased, and in default to his cousins, the sons of his brothers' brother. In default of these the son was elected if he was old enough. The reason for this law of succession is obvious. The tribe must have a leader in the zenith of his powers, and the dead chief's brother was looked upon as the most fit person to be regent during the son's minority. The eldest brother succeeded, unless there were objections to him. In Bureta the ancient ceremony was still practised up to a few years ago. The people were a.s.sembled after the burial of the chief, and one of the elders of the tribe proposed the name of his successor. Often voices from the crowd shouted objections.

"No, he is hasty tempered." "One goes into his house hungry and he gives not to eat." Even if they had resolved on the appointment of the eldest brother as successor the objections were still made as a delicate hint to him to amend his conduct when he became chief. He was then taken to a stream and bathed, and the chief's _masi_ was then wrapped round him.

Once elected, whether by the actual ceremony or by a survival of it, he a.s.sumed control over the tenants in villeinage and over the waste lands of the tribe.

[Pageheader: THREE KINDS OF REAL ESTATE]

Now, among tribes sprung from a common origin, living upon adjacent lands, practising the same form of religion, subjected to the same conditions of intertribal warfare, and having attained the same social development, one would expect to find the land laws almost identical, but, on the contrary, in the narrow area formed by the watershed on the eastern part of Vitilevu, no less than eight systems of tenure have been found to exist.

The t.i.tle to land is vested in the full-born members of a tribe. Three kinds of land are recognized. The _yavu_ or town lot, the _nkele_ or arable land, and the _veikau_ or forest. The two first of these are nominally in the occupation of the heads of families. The _veikau_ is common to all the members of the community, but it is always liable to be encroached upon and appropriated according to the rules to be laid down when I come to discuss the _nkele_.

The Yavu or Building Site

The nucleus of every Fijian village has been at no very remote date a single family, inhabiting a single house. As Fijians from the parent stock multiplied, houses were built round the site of the house of the common ancestor. Each son when he married and settled down, chose for himself a site for his house, within the limits of the fortification.

He named it after his own fancy, and when imagination failed him, after the nearest natural object. Thus most Fijian houses are named after some native tree. In the course of years, or the vicissitudes of war, the village was removed, but when this was done, the new settlement was built as nearly as possible upon the exact plan of the old one. I have watched the process. When the site was decided upon the chief went with his people, and selected a site for his own house. In heathen times, the position of the _Mbure_, or temple, was first marked out, and the chief pitched his temporary shelter in a position that corresponded with the site of his house in the village he had abandoned. Then his nearest neighbours marked out the sites of their houses. Their neighbours followed, and so on until the new village corresponded exactly with the old, as far as the nature of the ground permitted. If the town increased in size, new ground from outside the moat was appropriated by the householders in want of a house, and the moat was dug so as to include it. These house sites descended by the ordinary law of inheritance to the eldest brother, or in default of a brother, to the eldest son. One man, especially if he were a representative of a decaying family, might own several. For years no house might have been built upon them, and yet, unless he formally conveyed them to another, the right of himself and his heirs was never disputed. The proprietary rights were most jealously guarded. Between each _yavu_ there must be s.p.a.ce for a path, and the eaves of your house must not project so as to drip upon a part of the path appertaining to your neighbour's _yavu_. A _yavu_ might occasionally, though rarely, be given in dowry, but in such cases it reverted, as in the case of arable land, to the descendants of the original owner.

Nkele, Or Arable Land

[Pageheader: METHOD OF APPROPRIATING COMMONS]

The _nkele_ is simply that portion of the _veikau_ or forest that has been appropriated. Once appropriated it descends according to the fixed laws of inheritance. But the ownership of a proprietor is strictly limited. There is no more absolute ownership known to the Fijian customary law than there is to the English. "No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them."[107] The tenure of the _nkele_ may be best compared to an estate for life. Each owner holds for the household to which he belongs; the household holds for the sept, the sept for the clan, the clan for the community, and the community for posterity. The owner of the _nkele_ had over his land a little less than _dominium_ and a little more than _usufruct_.

Now that the tribes have been so reduced in numbers by war and foreign diseases, and whole villages have been swept away, leaving only one or two representatives who have merged themselves for shelter and protection in the community most nearly allied to them, there is still little, even of the forest land, that has not some reputed owner. Thus, when a man would clear and cultivate some patch far removed from the village and overgrown by trees he first inquires (if he does not know) who is the direct descendant and representative of the tribe that formerly planted on the land. It is rare that no claimant can be found, and in some cases the communal rights have apparently merged into the individual ownership of a solitary survivor. But among tribes who have quite lately fought their way into land belonging to their neighbours, and who have successfully held the conquered territory until the cession of the islands to England, no member of the tribe can have rights over the _veikau_ greater than those enjoyed by his fellows. Among these one may almost daily observe the manner of appropriating land when required for planting purposes. Under the primitive system, agricultural crops could not be grown in the same soil with success for more than two seasons, and consequently an industrious planter will have patches of cultivation scattered about upon the flat land bordering the watercourses for a large area surrounding the village. When he would acquire and dig a new garden he goes to the chief and uses some such formula as this: "I have come, sir, to speak about my garden. I wish to plant on the little flat known as So-and-so." The chief asks those round him whether the land has an owner, and if they answer in the negative, tells the man to report his intention to his Matankali. Thenceforward the land, or the usufruct of it, is appropriated by that man and his heirs.

So simple a procedure cannot of course be tolerated unless the land far exceeds the requirements of the population; and it is curious to note in some communities such as Rewa, where the people outnumber the planting-grounds, that the procedure for appropriation or transfer becomes at once more formal and elaborate.

The ancient boundaries of lands were continually contracting and extending, in accordance with the military strength of the tribe. But when tribes were of nearly equal strength, and the fortunes of war were doubtful, both sides were as anxious to maintain peace as the diplomatist of modern Europe. Questions of land boundaries, where the land was so far more abundant than either side required, were submitted to a rough form of arbitration. If one tribe could show occupation, the other gave way rather than fight about such a trifle. Unless it had strategic importance or bore valuable fruit-trees, or salt-pans, or some other product whose loss would be felt, land in itself in those days was of no account. Almost the only things of value that the Fijians recognized in connection with land were the products of human industry--wells, trees and crops. To claim another man's plantation was a _casus belli_: to appropriate a patch of forest, reputed to belong to a neighbour, was an offence that could be palliated by a paltry present.

Thus, if the council of the tribe determined to lay claim to a boundary enclosing a strip of debatable land, they sent men to acquire and plant gardens as near the projected boundary as possible. These gardens became the property of the men who planted them, and of their heirs, unless of course the neighbours resented the intrusion, and drove them back. The same custom prevails even more largely under the English Government. As soon as the lands court is reported to be about to visit the district, every tribe begins extending its forest boundaries. The claims invariably overlap, and when the surveyor visits the spot, he finds newly-made plantations overlapping one another for several furlongs in inextricable confusion. Any of these plantations, if the claimants be successful, will be vested in the persons who acquired them, with of course the same restrictions as applies to the tenure of _nkele_ generally.

[Pageheader: METHOD OF EVICTION]

Having sketched the manner of acquisition and appropriation of common land, I will now describe the common method of divesting the person of ownership. This could only be done immediately after appropriation, as a protest against his right to acquire and plant, or as punishment for a crime. In the latter case the crime must in some way have infringed upon the rights or dignity of a chief, and that chief must feel in himself the power to support his prohibition by force of arms if need be. The custom was called _veisauthi_. It consisted in sticking a row of peeled reeds into the acquired ground. From this the land-grabber understood that he planted again at his peril. If he felt strong enough he might continue, but he would have to fight for it. As a general rule he desisted, because he knew that the protesting parties, whoever they were, had not taken this step without counting the cost. If the protestors were persons within his own tribe, the dispute would be brought up before the council of headmen, and adjusted one way or the other. If the _veisauthi_ was resorted to as a punishment for an injury to the chief, it was erected upon all the planting-lands of the offending person. It had only one meaning, that he must flee for his life, and, conscious of his guilt, he almost invariably did so. Even if he were stronger than the chief he fled to collect his strength among the enemies of the tribe, for the _veisauthi_ in this case meant that he would be killed by foul means rather than fair--by the club in his sleep, or by poison.

The Veikau, or Forest

[Pageheader: EVOLUTION OF THE LANDLORD]

This term included all the uncultivated lands within the reputed boundaries of the tribe. As I have already said, these boundaries fluctuated with its military strength. Much of the land was worthless for cultivation, rough, bare hills, from which every sc.r.a.p of soil had been washed by the summer rains, and on which the scanty herbage was scorched dry by the winter drought, and burnt annually in the autumn bush fires. To such land as this no value whatever was attached. At the foot of every hill ran streams, with patches of rich land here and there along their banks. To include this, the claim was laid to the whole tract. Besides its value as planting land, the actual forest was often claimed for the rights of cutting timber, and pasturing herds of half-wild pigs. Forests containing the _vesi_, valued as the best timber for the posts of houses, or sandal-wood, a profitable article of barter from remote times, were claimed with the same tenacity as in the case of the _nkele_; but they were claimed by the whole community, not by individuals. We have now to observe a very curious transition from communal waste lands to land owned exclusively, under the law, which is so well described by Sir Henry Maine. The waste lands belonged, collectively, to the tribe, but inasmuch as tribal matters were decided for the community by the chief, and an oligarchy of his supporters, the ordinary freeborn men of the tribe gradually ceased to ask for any voice in the disposal of the waste lands. The chief, accustomed to decide questions of appropriation without reference to his people, came gradually to look upon the waste lands as his private estate. The change finally came when fugitives approached the tribe asking for their protection. They came, of course, to the chief, as the tribal representative, and asked for protection, and for the usufruct of land on which to plant their food. He, in the name of the tribe, allotted to them a portion of the _veikau_ on the ordinary tenure of dependants, namely, an annual tribute from the crops grown upon the land. This tribute, presented to the chief, was divided out among his own people, but gradually the annual tribute was supplemented by produce yielded on the chief's demand, whenever he had a feast to make. In making these demands he was no longer acting as a tribal representative, but as an individual. In the course of generations, the origin of tenure faded from the memory of the people, and it was only remembered that the land was held upon the condition of personal tribute to the chief, to be yielded on his demand. He was, in fact, the landlord, they the tenants.

I shall describe in detail various tenancies that arose in this manner.

We are concerned at present with its bearing upon the _veikau_. Among the lands thus granted to dependant tribes were considerable tracts that remained uncultivated. In theory the grant had been only in respect of the land actually used, but in practice it was common to regard the _veikau_ surrounding the plantations as tenanted by the dependant tribe.

This portion of the _veikau_ was held on a different tenure from the main portion claimed by the predominant tribe. In the latter case the chief alone claimed the disposal of it, or of the trees that grew upon it. In the former he rarely gave leave even for the cutting of trees, without first intimating his intention to his tenants. They had in fact acquired rights over it allied to usufruct. They might cut timber in moderation without leave. They could appropriate to individuals of the tribe such portions as they required, but they might not grant leave to cut timber to outsiders without first obtaining the chiefs permission.

The owners of the soil of a conquered tribe are reduced to a servile status provided that their conquerors settle within reach of them. Mere conquest without occupation produces no change in the form of tenure.

Tribute may be paid perhaps for a year or two, but as soon as the conquered tribe feels itself strong enough to repudiate its subjection the tribute ceases, and the tenure of land within the limits of the tribe have from the beginning remained unaffected. It is otherwise where conquest is followed by occupation. In such cases, from free landowners the conquered are reduced at one sweep to the _nkalini-ni-kuro_, or kitchen men, the lowest status known to the Fijian customary law. An instance of this sudden change is to be found in the tribes of Maumi, Ovea and Mokani, who were probably originally owners of the soil on which they live, but who have been reduced by the occupation of the Mbau chiefs to the status of kitchen men. The ceremony of transfer varied in different districts. In Mbau it took the form of the _soro-ni-nkele_ (earth tribute). When the conquered people came to pay their submission, besides the whales' teeth they presented a basket of earth in token that their land was at the disposal of their conquerors. This does not necessarily mean that the land was conveyed to their conquerors, for land, without people to cultivate it, was valueless. They rather conveyed their own bodies with the land on which they lived as being inseparable, and only valuable when in conjunction. Among primitive peoples an act done at regular intervals tends to become a permanent inst.i.tution. There is no legislation among primitive tribes, but custom, however it may arise, tends to become law.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Picking Cocoanuts.]

[Pageheader: OWNERSHIP OF TREES]

We come now to a feature in the rights of property that is very hard for a European, trained in the systems that are based upon the ancient Roman law, to comprehend. The doctrine _ab inferno usque ad coelum_ has no bearing in the islands of the Pacific. As I have already said, land as land had no value. Its value arose only from its potential produce. The thing treated with most consideration among primitive peoples is human labour, and the products of it. In Rome, and therefore of course in modern Europe, if a man plants fruit-trees on another's land, he has no claim to them. They belong to the soil in which they grow; but in Fiji, while you may be wrong in planting cocoanuts upon land which belongs to your neighbour, you do not on that account part with your rights over the product of your labour. The land remains his, but the trees are yours, from the surface of the soil to the topmost frond. You have, moreover, in virtue of your property in the trees, a right of way over his soil to get at your trees. To our minds this seems very unjust, but it must be remembered that in a country where the population is spa.r.s.e, and where cocoanuts have at once a commercial value which land does not possess, cocoanut trees are held in far higher estimation than the soil in which they grow. As a general rule this conflicting form of tenure does not arise through the secret planting of trees. The tree owner or his father has, in almost every case, asked the leave of the owner of the soil before planting his cocoanuts. Where two men are connected through the marriage of their children or by merely personal friendship, this is a very common form of mutual obligation. In the case of chiefs, moreover, it is no uncommon thing for the overlord to pick out the pockets of soil most suitable for the growth of cocoanuts, and to order his va.s.sals to go and plant them there. The tenants still possess their rights over the soil, but they would not dare to claim the nuts growing upon them. The distinction may be best seen by comparing the crops of yams or plantains. The tenants would take the first-fruits to the chief, preserving the rest for themselves, but they would take all the cocoanuts, even after expending their own labour in gathering and husking them. This form of tenure has been a great embarra.s.sment in settling the ownership of land. Now that modern ideas have begun to take root, and that every land-owner hopes to let his land to a European at a fixed annual rent, payable in cash, the owners of the trees confront him at every point with their claims. The result is that the rights in the trees are very often disputed. European notions have been dimly seized upon, and land-owners stand upon their rights as if they had been bred under the English law of Real Property. The only way to settle these disputes is to buy out one of the claimants. Where this is not done, the owners of the trees should be allowed to have twenty-five years'

usufruct of them, after which they and all others they may have planted in the interim should pa.s.s to the owner of the soil.

Tenures in Rewa

Rewa is the most perfect example of a Fijian state known to us. Even its disruption in the great war with Mbau in 1845 has not been able to snap the ties that join the various units to the central power. So intimately is the question of its political const.i.tution connected with the tenure of land that it is impossible to avoid giving it at some length.

The supreme government of the state was vested in the spiritual and temporal chiefs, the Roko-tui Ndreketi and the Vunivalu, who was the head of Nukunitambua. Unlike the system in the rival confederation of Mbau and many other native states, the spiritual chiefs had not yet parted with their executive power, nor had the Vunivalu yet succeeded in reducing them to a position of secondary importance. Before the great war between Mbau and Rewa, every clan had its part to play in the state.

Below the two great families of Narusa and Nukunitambua, the spiritual and the temporal, which divided the power between them, were the six clans that formed the Sauturanga (_lit._ defence of the chiefs). These clans owed the superior chiefs no service but that of leading the army into battle and of conducting ambuscades. They also supplied the _matanivanua_ (heralds or _aides-de-camp_). In order of battle they were the horns of the net--that is to say, while the main body of the army held back in cover, they led simultaneous flanking movements under cover of the gra.s.s or trees, and fell upon both flanks of the enemy at once, driving them into the arms of the main body, who were lying in wait.

They were land-owners, and received _thokovaki_ rent from their tenants, but they supplied no _thokovaki_ produce to the two governing families.

[Pageheader: CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE STATE]