Discourse on the Last Descendent: The Chief as a

People and Culture in Oceania, 34: 25-54, 2018

Discourse on the Last Descendent: The Chief as a Constellation of Signs in Contemporary Fiji

Yuichi Asai*

This paper examines the discursive configuration of chief in contemporary Fiji. In doing so, it analyzes a dispute over the long-standing failure of holding a chiefly installation ritual and narratives on the descendent of the chiefly lineage in the Dawasamu district. Thus, it reveals that this dispute over the chieftaincy is a dispute over indexicality of the legitimate chiefliness.

To begin, the paper delineates the history of the chiefly succession in Dawasamu and illustrates how it is conceptualized into 2 familial genealogies; one is “authentic” from the past, the other is “illegitimate” in the present. The analysis in turn highlights one particular person, Adi Litia, who is frequently referred to through the discourse on the history of Dawasamu as the last descendant of the chiefly lineage which existed in the past. Investigating such a discourse surrounding Adi Litia, the paper focuses on 2 particular narratives, which show her as categorically “ambiguous” in regard to the handover of chiefly possessions and the villages where she married and had children. In doing so, it reveals that the chiefdom in Dawasamu is mediated by various “proofs” of chiefliness, i.e., ivakadinadina in Fijian, such as a whale’s tooth, the chief’s drinking cup, the chiefly land, or a specific village site, which are repeatedly mentioned in the narratives on history in Dawasamu.

In such a way, this paper demonstrates that these proofs function as “signs of history,” that is, the chiefly succession issue in Dawasamu, which has been divided against itself, is a dispute over the sign of chiefliness. The paper also illustrates how such signs of history, including Adi Litia as aproper name, are primarily indexical, i.e., “signs in history,” which pragmatically ground the chiefdom to a particular context of discourse and regiment the present political context through the evocation of certain cultural dichotomies. Thus, the paper indicates that chiefdom exists as a constellation of cultural categories evoked by various signs of/in discourse, and in doing so constructs new meanings of the past toward present claims in the political context of Dawasamu.

Keywords: chief, stranger-king, history, discourse, signs, indexicality, semiotics, dichotomy, noun phrase, Fiji

* Division of Language and Culture Studies, Institute of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan.

[e-mail: [email protected]]

26 Y. Asai

1. Introduction

1.1 Stranger-Kings in Fiji

While the Fijian chiefdom has been often represented as a relic from the British colonial era

and a transitional form of political regime toward Western democracy, the presence of chiefs and the

feudalistic aspect of chiefdom have also been prompted emphatically as an “authentic” expression

of Fijian tradition. In fact, during the military coup in 1987, chiefs were expected to be actively

involved in the government, and strong ethnic nationalism, or traditionalism, was asserted in

relation to the chiefs. However, on 14 March 2012, Josaia Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama (the Prime

Minister of the provisional government of Fiji at the time) announced the dissolution of the Great

Council of Chiefs (GCC), which was one of the central political organizations since the British

colonial era in Fiji (1874–1970). The September 2014 elections showed prospects for the restoration

of the chiefs’ authority and their status and role of traditionalism under the Social Democratic

Liberal Party led by the Ro Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa, and such a victory would have most certainly

led to the restoration of the GCC. However, such expectations suffered a significant setback with

the defeat of the Social Democratic Liberal Party by the Fiji-First Party, led by Bainimarama

(Lawson and Lawson, 2015). While at such a turning point today, the Fijian chiefdom still seems to

be rooted deeply in the political contexts of Fiji and social frictions have often generated sparks in

regard to chiefly disputes in indigenous Fijian communities. In the following section, the paper first

provides a brief overview of the studies of chiefs and their analytical transition in Oceanic regions

focusing on the discussion of stranger-kingship.

One of the most renowned classical theorists in Oceania, Marshall Sahlins, discusses the

classification of social and political forms in Melanesia and Polynesia, in which he refers to

Melanesia as a non-hierarchical society with its political leader as a “big-man” and Polynesia as

a hierarchical society with “chiefs” (Sahlins, 1963). Sahlins (1985) later developed an argument

to seize the symbolic, and thus mythic, structure in the Oceanic region, following A.M. Hocart’s

theory on kingship. According to Hocart, the power held by the chief and king is referred to as

mana throughout Polynesia, which generally indicates the superhuman and invisible power held

by gods and spirits,1 and the kingship of Polynesia existed upon one single structural formulation,

i.e., “the king is a god” (Hocart, 1927). With this notion, Hocart elucidated Fiji as a “stronghold

of dualism” with a tendency to reproduce dichotomies at all levels of sociocultural organization

(Hocart, 1970[1936]: 287) and his particular focus on Fiji has been further developed in Sahlins’

work on the structuring principle of 19th-century east Fijian chiefdoms. Sahlins in turn has

1 For the ways in which the concept, mana, is referred to and circulates in discourse evoking and acquiring its new contextual meanings in contemporary Oceania (Tomlinson and Tengan, 2016).

27Discourse on the Last Descendent in Contemporary Fiji

elaborated the land-sea distinction in the all-encompassing relations between people of the land

and sea. He portrayed the land–sea dichotomy as representative of a dual system in which “sea”

stands for the authority of foreign, sacred rulers and their genealogies, while “land” represents the

executive power of the autochthonous king-makers. He also described the Fijian chiefly installation

ritual as a structured event process in which “foreign invaders” from the sea are symbolically killed,

but also invested with power over the land (Sahlins, 1985). That is, in the chiefly installation rite

in Fiji, chiefs drink yaqona (kava2) given by lewe ni vanua (people or owners of the land), so that

the chiefs’ old-self disappears and the mana as the spirit of immortality is drawn into their bodies,

thus allowing them to be reborn and become the chief as a god. Hence the chief, as stranger-king,

consumes the land and appropriates its reproductive powers (Sahlins, 1985: 75). Incorporating

the discussion on Cook’s voyage to Hawai‘i, Sahlins in turn aimed to establish the structural-

historical theory (culture-as-history and vice versa) through his argument known as mytho-praxis

by elucidating how culture and history, that is, structure and event or myth and practice, in Oceania

are intersected, employing the Lévi-Strauss concept of “binary opposition”: a synthesis of stability

and change, past and present, diachrony and synchrony (Sahlins, 1985: 144).3

Such structural analysis, however, was later criticized in subsequent discussions along with

post-colonialism focusing on the historical and transformational nature of culture and tradition.

For example, Martha Kaplan argued that the discussion of stranger-king could only be applicable

to the eastern part of the Viti Levu island of Fiji, where a migration myth had spread. She asserted

that it does not necessarily conform to the western part, where the creation myth is more dominant

and the authority of people of the land is maintained (Kaplan, 1988). She also equates “sea” with

a top-down hierarchy and “land” with its counterpoint, a “bottom-up” egalitarian ethos. Likewise,

Christina Toren indicated the insufficiency of the structure of myth proposed by Sahlins, in which

the king originates from overseas and is represented as male domain, who is in turn received

by people of the land represented as female domain (Toren, 1990). She emphasizes a dualism

in paramount values: the hierarchy inherent to the “sea” denomination counterbalanced by the

equality implied by the “land” denomination in a manner indicative of the inherently hierarchical

relations among parallel kin vs. the equal relations between cross-cousins. These arguments shed

light on the contextual diversity of chieftainship within Fiji, which is not necessarily applicable to

Sahlins’ formulation of stranger-kingship. In spite of such criticisms, however, Sahlins’ structural

analysis has never been entirely refuted. On the contrary, they have seemed to strengthen Sahlins’

2 A drink made from dried roots from the Piperaceae plant (Piper methysticum). In Fijian, it is called yaqona.

3 Sahlins has recently reformulated the discussion of stranger-kingship in Austronesian societies using concepts of alterity and autochthony (Sahlins, 2012).

28 Y. Asai

structurism by supplementing it with various examples as its “footnotes,” as it were. This can be

partially attributed to its “semiological” theorization of cultural signification in Sahlins’ structurism.

Although Sahlins aimed at revealing and theorizing the “interconnectedness” between culture

and history, i.e., structure and event, his ultimate focus was put at a structural level as his argument

exclusively pays attention to the event as seemingly “historic,” such as James Cook’s visit to

Hawai‘i, which would have had explicitly enormous impact to cosmologically re-configure people’s

cultural conceptualization. Sahlins explained how the cultural structure transforms and reproduces

realities by examining that the Hawaiian chiefs for whom “King George” of England is the model

of celestial mana, or who disported themselves in Chinese silk dressing gowns and European waist-

coats, in chambers decorated with fine teak furniture and gilded mirrors, are no longer the same

chiefs, nor in the same relation to his people (Sahlins, 1985: 155). The point here is that this is how

the very “connecting” work between myth and event was done in Sahlins’ structural-historical

anthropology. This was most likely because Sahlins’ theorization was based on a semiological

framework advocated by Ferdinand de Saussure through Lévi-Strauss, but not based on semiotics

of Charles S. Pierce (cf. Caton, 1987).4 He explained as follows:

Verbs signify just as well and as much as nouns, and the structural order can be worked

as well from one direction as the other. All societies probably use some mix of those reciprocal

modes of symbolic production. (Sahlins, 1985: 27–28)

That is, culture and history are understood as 2 different dichotomized realms, so that how

structure is inherently discursive, or indexical, to use the Piercean semiotic term, was not well

analyzed. Thus, such dichotomy of culture and history still seems to remain “unconnected” in

Sahlins’ structurism after all. In contemplating recent transition of the analytical focus, from

structural to historical or pragmatic process for examining chiefs, there is an increasing number

of studies on chiefs in the Pacific, which focuses on the categorical emergence as a discourse

(Lindstrom and White, 1997).

Instead, we examine contemporary constructions that draw from multiple types and

categories, indigenous and foreign, local and global. More significantly, it is important to

recognize that each of the opposed terms in dualisms such as local/global or indigenous/foreign

is contingent on the other. […] The focus, then, is not on political types, but on discourses that

4 According to Steven Caton, there is no more fundamental contribution of structural linguistics than the notion of system, in light of which Saussure’s whole torturous discussion of “value”—so influential to the ideas of Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, and many others—must be understood (Caton, 1987: 226).


work to construct, validate, and empower local leaders as traditional or customary. To study

chiefly discourse, then, is to locate chiefs in history, to see their status as subject to ongoing

revision in response to changing circumstances. (Lindstrom and White, 1997: 6)

With such recognition, Stephanie Lawson, for instance, examines the way in which the

generalized value of tradition in Fijian life is held up against a notion of the “modern,” which in turn

clearly implies “Western” (Lawson, 1997: 110). Henry Rutz focuses on the discursive politics of

the coup era and examines 3 different contending visions on the foundation of Fijian culture and the

character of threats to it, rather than the general propriety of hierarchy and privileges of chiefship

within Fijian communities or the propriety of ethnic Fijian paramountcy in Fiji’s civil order (Rutz,

1995). Norio Niwa diachronically describes the history of conflicts that Fiji has experienced from

1987 to the 2000s and examines how the ethnically nationalistic category “Fijian” was referred to

and transformed in relation to the existence of Indian immigrants (Niwa, 2013). He also ascertains

how the geospatial and cultural category such as “West” in Fiji was foregrounded as a category that

explicitly indexes a specified group in response to the coup that occurred in the eastern part of the

Viti Levu island (Niwa, 2016).

This is a rather brief chronological review of research in Oceania including Fiji, but

recognizing such analytical context, this paper aims to shed light on the pragmatic process through

which the contrastive pairs of cultural categories emerge. That is, not reducing the history to

structure as a whole, but being based on the pragmatic level, the paper examines the discursive

process that the dichotomies of cultural meanings are indexed and emerge in here and now

employing a semiotics concept, indexicality.

1.2 Signs of/in History

Alongside such analytical focus on discourse, this paper will further examine the details of the

discourse process and articulate the discursive configuration of chiefdom by highlighting discourse

in regard to the genealogy of chieftainship and the chiefly installation ritual, which was held in

2010 in the Dawasamu district of Fiji.

In doing so, the paper draws on Parmentier’s theorization of history (Parmentier, 1987, 2016).

Parmentier (1987) documents a particular category of historicizing signs in Palau called olangch,

meaning “commemorative or historical marker.” These markers include personal names and titles,

gravestones and anthropomorphic stones, exchange valuables and money, ritual prerogatives and

social routines, that function as cultural shifters by articulating the organizational diagrams in

contexts of social action and experience. Olangch are permanent signs that are present evidence of

a significant past, but having been created in certain contexts in the past, they continue to undergo

30 Y. Asai

strategic manipulation in the present. Thus, Parmentier divides the functioning of these symbols

into “signs of history” and “signs in history:” Signs of history represent the past as history in the

sense of providing an explicit classification; signs in history are signs of history that become objects

of social interest and action because of their value as reified embodiments of historicity (Parmentier,

2016: 23). For example, if a gravestone is a “sign of history,” to deface the gravestone is to create a

“sign in history.” Here, the act of defacing a “sign of history” necessarily seizes on the sign of the

past to create or entail a new meaning about the past that is usable toward present claims. “Olangch

look in these 2 directions, toward the typifying role of schema and toward the sedimenting role of

practice” in Palau (Parmentier, 1987: 308).

Parmentier’s theorization is made based exclusively on the semiotic notions by Pierce,

especially the notion of indexicality. As defined by Pierce, indexicality is a relational notion: it is

the kind of relationship between a sign and its signified object that is characterized by contextual

contiguity or connectedness, as opposed to contextually perceived “resemblance” (iconicity) or

potentially decontextualized “convention” (symbolicity). For example, one may say that the mode

of reference through pointing gestures is predominantly indexical, insofar as pointing gestures

typically fail to refer to things if the former is not directionally contiguous with the latter. Similarly,

if a certain style of speaking, gesturing, eating, or any other kind of action is perceived to indicate

the sociocultural identity, status, or category of the one who performs it, the action showing that

style is an indexical sign, insofar as (1) what is signified is the identity or status of the performer,

who is obviously contiguous with the action; and (2) the perceiver of the signifying act must have

been in contact with the events in which the linkage between the fashion of act and the social

category has been established. In this sense, indexicality can be rephrased as dependency on context

of communication (cf. Parmentier, 1994; Lee, 1997).5

This semiotic notion has been applied to systematically classify the nature of noun phrases,

known as Noun Phrase Referential Hierarchy. Noun Phrase Referential Hierarchy is a hierarchy

of grammatical categories discovered in the first half of the 1970s (Silverstein, 1976). It indicates

the grammatical hierarchization for the various types of noun phrase categories in the order: (1)

first person and second person pronouns; (2) anaphoric pronouns; (3) demonstrative pronouns;

(4) proper nouns; (5) kinship nouns; (6) human nouns; (7) animate nouns; (8) concrete nouns; and

(9) abstract nouns. This hierarchy is based on a concept known as indexicality. Hence, the Noun

Phrase Referential Hierarchy is a linguistic/semiotic framework that systematically presents the

relationship between the context of the communication, in which a referential act is carried out,

i.e., here and now, and the subject referenced by the noun phrase, i.e., there and then, based on the

5 As for the detailed explanation for the trichotomies of signs in Piercean semiotics and the notion of indexicality, see also Parmentier (1994) and Lee (1997).


principle of signification, or the degree of indexicality (cf. Kripke, 1972; Putnam, 1975).6

Following such theorization on history based on the principle of indexicality, this paper

sheds light on various “proofs” referred to in discourse as signs of/in history, including linguistic

and physical artefacts, which evoke a specific historical context in connection with chiefs of the

Dawasamu district, and shows how the signs of/in history are primarily indexical in their force.

In particular, the analysis highlights one particular person, Adi Litia, who is frequently referred to

as the last descendant of the past chiefly lineage of the district, and examines 2 peculiar narratives

about her: (1) the particular villages she married into; and (2) the commemorative objects she

handed over to certain figures. It further reveals that these narratives represent Adi Litia as

categorically “ambiguous” in regard to the chiefly succession in the Dawasamu district, evoking

various dichotomies of cultural categories, and illuminates that these dichotomies of cultural

categories are mediated by discursive (physical and non-physical) objects or “proofs” of chiefliness

(such as whale tooth, land, or particular person or village), i.e., ivakadinadina in Fijian, which is

repetitively mentioned in the narratives. The paper also shows that this ambiguity occurs as the sign

of legitimate chiefliness and has been divided against itself. In such a way, the paper demonstrates

how these objects, including Adi Litia, exist as “signs of history” or indexes of legitimate chiefliness

to pragmatically identify and locate “Dawasamu” as a particular historical context in the course

of chiefly discourse and also pragmatically function as “signs in history” to ground chiefdom as a

political system in discourse and regiment historical context evoking the dichotomies of cultural

categories at here and now. Thus, the paper indicates that the dispute in relation to chiefdom in the

Dawasamu district is a dispute over indexicality.7

2. The History of Chiefs in Dawasamu

2.1 Dawasamu District

The Fiji Islands are made up of 322 volcanic and coral islands centered around 2 large islands:

Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. The Dawasamu district (hereafter called Dawasamu) is located in

Tailevu province (or Tailevu North) in the north-eastern part of Viti Levu and has an area of up to

80 km², and is adjacent to the Bure district of Ra province in the western part of Fiji. There are 2

symbolic mountains in Dawasamu: one is located in the northern part, called Tova (646m), and

the other is located in the southern part, called Korosarau (738m). The geographical features of

6 Indexicality as a semiotic notion is also well employed and prevalent in (post-)analytic philosophy (Kripke, 1972; Putnam, 1975).

7 All data analyzed in this paper was collected during a total of 2 years of my fieldwork in Fiji based in the Dawasamu district, which took place between 2008 and 2011. The narratives were recorded using a pocket-sized IC recorder.

32 Y. Asai

Dawasamu can be sharply divided between the east and the west from the boundary line connecting

Mt. Tova and Mt. Korosarau. The west side is at the foothills of the coastal area, while the east side

is situated around steep mountainous areas.

One of the most important social and political units in Fiji is the Yavusa (clans), a group of

people who all trace their origins to a single ancestor god. There are perhaps 1,000 Yavusa in the

whole of Fiji, and each Yavusa is frequently associated with a separate village. Within each Yavusa

there are several Mataqali (lineages): a Mataqali consists of a number of Tokatoka (families); a

Tokatoka consists of a number of related families. A group of multiple Yavusa is linked together into

a Vanua (literally “land”),8 but can refer both to a social confederation and to the territory which

the Yavusa occupies. Dawasamu used to consist of 7 clans living in 5 villages (Nasinu, Silana,

Nataleira, Driti, and Delakado) and 23 lineages. Although the village of Vorovoro is located close to

Dawasamu and has close relations of kinship with its clans, it is classified as a part of the Sawakasa

district. In addition, the village of Luvunavuaka is classified as being in the Namena district.

However, in terms of kinship relations with other clan groups, today Dawasamu often includes

Vorovoro and Luvunavuaka and the following settlements: Natadradave and Nabualau (Lasaqa,

1984: 19–22).

According to Ai Tukutuku Raraba (oral histories of Fijian groups recorded in past centuries by

Figure 1. Location of Dawasamu on the Viti Levu Island (Based on Walsh, 2006)

8 Vanua is a Fijian word that usually denotes land, but it refers to many subjects depending on the context of its use, such as people of the land, the land and the coast, traditional community, the chiefly system, specific places covering a wide area, and so forth. It is also a noun that indicates concepts such as tradition and culture (Kaplan, 1995: 27). “The people of the land” has often been explicitly indicated with the metaphor known as lewe ni vanua (the flesh of the land).


the Native Lands Commission)9 and the elders’ narratives in Dawasamu today, most of the villages

used to be located in the west mountainous area, where their yavutu or dela ni yavu (original

settlements) still exist. After repeatedly relocating, they ended up establishing their present villages

in the eastern coastal area, and today each village and settlement consists of approximately 200 to

400 residents. People in Dawasamu have traditionally belonged to the Methodist Church, but some

lineages of the Delai clan in the Nataleira village are Catholic. In addition, some people, especially

the young, tend to belong to the recently founded Pentecostal denomination of Christianity, such as

Assemblies of God or the Church of All Nations.

Isireli Lasaqa, who researched landholdings in Dawasamu in the 1960s, charted the relation

of allegiance among the paramount chief (Ratu) and other clans (Yavusa) as shown in Figure

4 (Lasaqa, 1963: 11). According to Lasaqa, in terms of seniority the 7 clans are placed in the

following order: Dawasamu, Voni, Delai, Navuniseya, Taci, Tova, and Nagilogilo. He mentions

that this is what the official records indicate and it implies an authoritarian and rigid traditional

9 The Native Lands Commission recorded oral histories in the process of establishing a register of land holders’ rights, titles, and customs. Today, the veracity and accuracy of these records are often questioned, and that was a primary source of the dispute in Dawasamu on chiefly installation in 2010.

Figure 2. Map of Dawasamu (Based on Lasaqa, 1984)

34 Y. Asai

structure, but even in 1959, this chain of clan succession was not always adhered to, particularly by

the younger generation to whom this traditional structure was fast becoming obscure (Lasaqa, 1984:

19). As the paper discusses below, this structure of tribal allegiance seems to exist in Dawasamu,

partly forming an undercurrent of political dispute over chiefly installation today.

Figure 3. The Location of Dawasamu in the Tailevu Province (Based on Fraenkel and Firth, 2007)

Table 1. Clans and Residential Villages

Clan Village1 Yavusa Tai Luvunavuaka2 Yavusa Dawasamu Driti3 Yavusa Voni Driti Delakado4 Yavusa Wailevu Delakado5 Yavusa Delai Nataleira Delakado6 Yavusa Navunisea Silana Nataleira7 Yavusa Lau Silana8 Yavusa Tova Nasinu9 Yavusa Nagilogilo Nasinu10 Yavusa Nabuto Vorovoro


2.2 The “Naked” Land

First, I would like to present an overview of the debate that developed in Dawasamu

concerning the paramount chief installation ritual, which was held in April 2010. The narrative

below is from an elder of the Voni clan, Nacanieli Lagilagi, on 6 April 2010, in the Delakado

village. The Voni clan, which Nacanieli Lagilagi belongs to as a senior elder, has been traditionally

recognized as Sauturaga, i.e., the kin group that is hereditarily supposed to install chiefs, or the

chief-maker clan. Nacanieli strongly advocated holding the chief installation ritual, which had

repeatedly failed to be held over the last 30 years. Upon deciding to hold the ceremony, this elder

from the Voni clan took a leading role in the installation ritual.

We thought that we should not leave the vanua (land) luvawale (naked). We must hold

the ritual for a chief’s enthronement, and newly make this vanua into vale sui (a house with

bones). That is the fate this vanua follows prepared by the gods. Time has come to bati ni boto

(the edge of the boat), to bati ni waqa (the edge of the ship). This land is spreading tevoro

(devils). If the ritual of chiefly installation cannot be realized, it will nurture tevoro. It will be

possible for the tevoro to control this land. (Nacanieli Lagilagi, pers. comm.)

This elder understands the state of Dawasamu without a paramount chief for a long time as

vanua (land) being “naked” or “a house without bones,” and thus attracting tevoro (devils), which

Figure 4. Tribal Allegiance in Dawasamu (Based on Lasaqa, 1963)

36 Y. Asai

he refers to as the source of various misfortunes in the land. In addition, he asserts that installing

a paramount chief is to follow the guidance of Kalou (god), which is the only way to emancipate

the land from the demonic force and remodel it along the appropriate order. In fact, the ritual for

enthroning the chief was held from 15-17 April 2010, taking place in 2 villages (Delakado and

Figure 5. The Interview with the Elder of the Voni Clan


Driti), after the year-long dispute over who should be in charge of presiding over the ritual in order

to put an end to the long absence of a paramount chief. An interview with Nacanieli Lagilagi also

appeared in The Fiji Times (FT).

As this interview with FT shows, Nacanieli insisted that one lineage group from the Voni clan

used to conduct the chiefly installation ritual for a long time in Dawasamu, although they do not

have a legitimate status as Sauturaga. As a result of this, he believed that the district, which was

the ground where the relatives of the chiefs passed away unexpectedly one after another, had been

cursed for the past hundred years. In fact, there exist 2 lineages within the Voni clan: one is called

Naboro and the other Namaralevu. Nacanieli belongs to the former and believes that his lineage is

the senior (first-ranked) lineage as the legitimate Sauturaga of the Voni clan. However, according to

governmental records, Ai Tukutuku Raraba, the Namaralevu lineage is written as the senior lineage.

Nacanieli and other elders in the Naboro lineage believe that this hierarchy of the 2 lineages written

in the document was somehow fabricated by the Namaralevu lineage, so it does not reflect the “truth”

or “true past” of the land. Hence, they insisted that instead of Namaralevu, the Naboro lineage—

who they believe is the rightful chief-maker lineage, Sauturaga—must take the initiative to hold the

chiefly installation ritual. In other words, Nacanieli claimed that the Namaralevu clan is not able to,

and thus should not, hold the ritual after all, and if no one fulfills such duty of the land, then they as

tamata dina (true people) of the land should take back the duty of the land.

In the following subsection, I shall look at the genealogy of chieftaincy in Dawasamu.

2.3 The Genealogy of Chiefs

In Dawasamu, the yavusa Dawasamu is understood as the chiefly clan that supplies chiefs

(Table 1). The present chief is ❸ Peni Waqa, Jr., whose father was the previous chief, ❷ Sevanaia

Veilave, and whose grandfather was ❶ Peni Waqa, Sr. (Table 2). After the death of ❷ Sevanaia

Veilave, a person named Tuliasi Delai, from another tokatoka (family) undertook the position of

decision-making for the district as a provisional chief, but he only temporarily took charge until

someone more suitable to be chief was identified. In Dawasamu, this lineage (mataqali Nasaqiwa)

of 3 generations10 (❶–❸) is believed to be originally from Ra province. The reason why this

family succeeded the chiefdom after ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna is that the chiefly lineage that used to

have their origin in the inland district, Vunidawa, in the Naitasiri province had died out, and they

were chosen as the kawa (familial line) to succeed the chiefly status.

10 It is believed that this family migrated to Dawasamu because of some political conflicts in their original residence in Ra province. Thereafter, they were given the itavi (responsibility) to take care of the paramount chief in Dawasamu by the Voni clan; their contributions as caretakers for the chief were acknowledged and they formed a family, which was registered as members of the Dawasamu clan.

38 Y. Asai

As Table 2 shows, there exists a divide between the 2 genealogies of chiefs. Another elder in

2010 from the Voni clan discusses the transition of chiefdom from ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna, who was

the last chief from the Vunidawa line, to ❶ Peni Waqa (Sr.). The narrative examined below is from

the elder of the Voni clan, Levi Vere, who led the chiefly installation ritual with Nacanieli in 2010.

After Chief Jonasa Delaitubuna was enthroned, his child was still very little. Therefore,

Peni Waqa (Sr.) was asked to receive the chiefly status in order to wait for the next chief to be

chosen. And then, the elders of Dawasamu were summoned and Peni Waqa (Sr.), who had the

same name as Peni Waqa (Jr.), was asked to receive the rank of chief of Dawasamu, with the

statement, “As my child is still little, until she grows up, I will pass over the chiefly status.”

(Levi Vere, pers. comm.)

According to this narrative, ❶ Peni Waqa (Sr.) was chosen by ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna and

the elders of Dawasamu, to take over the chiefly lineage from Vunidawa (the Ratu lineage). Since

then, the chiefly lineage of Vunidawa, which is regarded as the original and “authentic” lineage of

the paramount chief of Dawasamu, came to an end, and a different lineage (the Nasaqiwa lineage),

which originated from Ra province, succeeded and continued the chiefdom up to present day. In

the next section, I would like to focus on this particular child, who is frequently mentioned in the

Table 2. Genealogy of Chiefs in DawasamuPresumed Years

of ReignChief’s Name(Date of Birth) Origin Clan, Lineage,

FamilyUnknown Nacou Vunidawa UnknownUnknown Koli Vunidawa UnknownUnknown Manasa Rakula Vunidawa Unknown

Unknown ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna VunidawaDawasamu,Ratu,Nabukebuke

-1940 ❶ Peni Waqa, Sr.(born in 1876) Ra

Dawasamu,Nasaqiwa,Nasaqiwa

1940-1960 ❷ Sevanaia Veilave (born in 1910) Ra (the eldest son of Peni Waqa, Sr.)


1960-1980 Tuliasi Delai(born in 1893) Ra

Dawasamu,Nasaqiwa,Naburevoroga

1981- ❸ Peni Waqa, Jr.(born in 1937) Ra (the eldest son of Sevanaia Veilave)



discourse of history in Dawasamu as the last descendant of the chiefly lineage from Vunidawa.

3. The Last Descendant

3.1 Chiefly Succession from Adi Litia to Peni Waqa

The narrative related to the chiefly lineage of Dawasamu shows a clear categorical dichotomy

between the past and the present lineages of chieftaincy. It also shows that the former is valued

as the authentic chiefly lineage and the latter is recognized as the one which merely received the

chieftaincy from the former. What is peculiar in this narrative is that there is one woman, known

as Adi Litia, who is repeatedly mentioned in relation to the historical discourse of Dawasamu and

is shown as categorically “ambiguous.” Here, I shall further examine the narratives related to the

transition of the chiefly status from the past lineage to the present day in Dawasamu, specifically

focusing on how this personal noun, Adi Litia, appears as a “sign of history” with categorical

ambiguity. The narrative examined below is from the same elder of the Voni clan, Levi Vere, in

2010.

The daughter of Jonasa Delaitubuna left as a small child was Adi Litia. She married

into the Nabulebulewa clan and spent time alongside them, but she was expected to return to

Dawasamu, so that the chiefly lineage of Dawasamu would not be lost. The chiefly lineage, in

which Peni Waqa, Sr. took over from Jonasa Delaitubuna, was received by his son, Sevanaia

Veilave, after his death. After that, Peni Waqa, Jr. was chosen to take over the lineage. As such,

Peni Waqa, Jr. is the one who should become the chief. (Levi Vere, pers. comm.)

As mentioned here, the descendant of ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna, who was the last chief who

originated from Vunidawa, was Adi Litia, his only daughter. However, as she married into a family

in Qoma Island (the Nabulebulewa clan), which is located in the Namena district (Figure 3), the one

who succeeded the chieftaincy after the death of ❶ Peni Waqa (Sr.) was his eldest son, ❷ Sevanaia

Veilave. After Tuliasi Delai’s reign, ❸ Peni Waqa (Jr.) was chosen as chief. This is how Peni Waqa

(Jr.) is considered as the rightful chief of Dawasamu today. As for Peni Waqa’s succession of the

chieftaincy, this narrative continues as follows in relation to Adi Litia:

We held the banquet for commemorating Peni Waqa, Jr.’s succession to the chief, and

let all the elders of the land of Dawasamu know of that, and then had the feast with all the

clans together. This took place in 1981. We held the banquet here, and people of Dawasamu

were summoned. This was the succession from Adi Litia, who was the last descendant of the

40 Y. Asai

chief from Vunidawa. She was in the Qoma Island. We visited and requested her to return to

Dawasamu and take over the chiefly seat. Then, Adi Litia said, “All of you, my precursors,

please, I am already an old woman with grandchildren and it is meaningless for me to succeed

to the chiefly status. I will go to choose a single person, so all of you please wait.”

According to this narrative, Adi Litia was asked by the Voni clan (the Naboro lineage) to

resume the authentic chieftaincy of Dawasamu derived from the past chiefly lineage. She, however,

rejected it and decided to appoint one person to accede.

So, we waited here, and Adi Litia came. She brought a single kamunaga11 and we

watched over her as she raised the kamunaga. She said to Peni Waqa, “Peni, this is my chiefly

status. I will hand over it to you and your family.” And we heard her words: “This belongs to

you and your family.” After that, Adi Litia returned to the family which she married into in

Qoma Island. Then, we summoned people of the land of Dawasamu. This is the reason why

Peni Waqa is our chief.

As this narrative shows, Peni Waqa (Jr.) was chosen to succeed the chiefly status from

Adi Litia, the last descendant of a chief from Vunidawa. This chiefly status from Vunidawa is

considered the “authentic” genealogy of chiefs, but the one from Peni Waqa (Sr.) to Peni Waqa (Jr.)

is understood as simply inherited from the chieftaincy derived from Vunidawa. As such, a common

statement often mentioned among elders in Dawasamu with regard to the genealogy of chiefs is, “The

genealogy of chiefs has already come to an end a long time ago (Sa oti makawa sara),” or, “It is

already changed (Sa veisau).” This shows that the political regime of Dawasamu is sharply divided

into 2 contrastive categories of geography: one from inland Vunidawa and the other from coastal

Ra, meaning the authentic genealogy of chiefdom and the inherited order of the chiefdom from the

former, respectively.

3.2 Marriages Outside of Vanua

In addition to the categorical divide of the chiefly genealogy between the past and the

present or the inland and the coastal, what is also peculiar in the above narrative is the discourse

surrounding Adi Litia’s marriage. According to the elders of Dawasamu, Adi Litia married into a

clan in the Qoma Island. However, prior to this, she was married to a chief from a different clan

in the village of Vorovoro, which was located in the Sawakasa district (Figure 3). One elder from

11 Kamunaga is a register to indicate tabua (a whale tooth) in ritual speech.


the Delai clan, Isireli Ratei, who lives in the Nataleira village, recalled her first marriage in the

interview conducted in June 2010 as follows:

The chiefly lineage of Dawasamu has already been ended. If Adi Litia had registered

one of (her) 2 sons in Dawasamu, either Chief Sakiusa Coci or Chief Jonasa Delai, who were

born in the Nabuto clan, the chiefly lineage and the bloodline (dra) would have continued.

However, both her sons were born in Vorovoro village, and both of them are registered as

the sons of the chief in the Nabuto clan. Yet, when these 2 sons visit the chief’s residence in

Dawasamu, they are guided and seated to a place of honor, as they are the sons of Adi Litia.

Regardless of who the chief of Dawasamu is, and their status as chiefs of the Nabuto clan, they

are also treated as chiefs here too in Dawasamu. This is because their mother Adi Litia was a

central figure of the chiefly lineage in Dawasamu. (Isireli Ratei, pers. comm.)

As previously discussed in subsection 2.1, Vorovoro village, where Adi Litia married the chief

of the Nabuto clan, is adjacent to Dawasamu, but according to administrative classifications, it is a

village enclosed in the Sawakasa district. After marrying into Vorovoro village, Adi Litia gave birth

to 2 sons (Sakiusa Coci and Jonasa Delai), but she did not register them as her sons in Dawasamu;

therefore, they became members of the Nabuto clan. Thus, neither of her sons were legitimately

able to succeed the chiefly lineage of Dawasamu. Isireli Ratei continues his narrative about her sons

below:

The chief of the Nabuto clan, whom Adi Litia married, passed away. After that, she

married the chief of the Nabulebulewa clan (Tui Nabulebulewa), who came from Qoma Island.

When the chief of the Nabulebulewa clan in Qoma Island passed away, she was already an

elderly woman, and at that time the chief of Dawasamu was the father of Peni Waqa (Jr.). His

name was Sevanaia. (Isireli Ratei, pers. comm.)

After Adi Litia’s husband from Vorovoro village (the chief of the Nabuto clan) passed away,

she married the chief of the Nabulebulewa clan from Qoma Island and had several children there.

However, for the same reason as in the case of Vorovoro village, these children could not succeed

in chiefly status in Dawasamu. Unlike Vorovoro village, Qoma Island is located over 10 km away

from Dawasamu, and thus there is a clear geographical gulf between Dawasamu and Qoma Island.

Yet, it is largely known that a part of the Nabulebulewa clan formed their own settlement called

Nabualau in Dawasamu (Figure 2). It is believed that the residents of Nabualau previously lived in

Driti village, which is the chiefly village of Dawasamu, and used to serve the chiefs as their kai wai

42 Y. Asai

(fishermen).

In fact, on the page [No. 621]12 of yavusa Nabuto, mataqali Nacovu, tokatoka Nacovu (Nabuto

Clan, Nacovu Lineage, Nacovu Family) in the iVola ni Kawa Bula,13 which was compiled on 30

June 1930, it shows that there exist 2 men registered as Sakiusa Coci (born in 1922/No. 27) and

Jonasa Delai (born in 1928/No. 26), and both of them are recorded as having the same father

(tamana), whose name is written as Mesake Solikenabuka (born in 1897/No. 2). In addition, in

the column for his wife (watina), there is the number “3/584,” and the person who came under

this number in the iVola ni Kawa Bula is “Adi Litia Marama” (born in 1903/No. 3) of yavusa

Dawasamu, mataqali Ratu, tokatoka Nabukebuke (Dawasamu Clan, Ratu Lineage, Nabukebuke

Family) [No. 584].

Additionally, one of the sons Adi Litia gave birth to in the village of Vorovoro was registered

with the name “Jonasa Delai.” Considering the Fijian custom of naming grandchildren after their

grandparents, the fact that her son is named “Jonasa Delai” also strengthens the possibility—or

possibly confirms—that Adi Litia’s father was “Jonasa Delaitubuna,” who is always referred to

as the last chief of Dawasamu from Vunidawa district. Furthermore, in the section for yavusa

Dawasamu (the Dawasamu clan) [No. 584] from the iVola ni Kawa Bula, Adi Litia is registered

as “Ratu Lineage, Nabukebuke Family,” not as “Nasaqiwa Lineage” of the Dawasamu clan. In

addition, in the column for her father (tamana), an “x” is written and there is no such person named

“Jonasa Delaitubuna” in the pages for any group. In other words, her father, Jonsa Delaitubuna,

who is supposed to be the last chief of the Vunidawa line, was presumed to have already passed

away when this registry was created in 1930. In this sense, these narratives on the chiefly genealogy

related to Adi Litia in Dawasamu are highly consistent with this colonial-time registry book.

Considering the narratives on Adi Litia’s 2 marriages, it could be suggested that this particular

person (proper name) functions as a sign of history in these narratives, which pragmatically

locates or historicizes “Dawasamu” in a specific social context, diagrammatically visualizing its

geographical and cultural boundary. As she is from Dawasamu, but married outside of Dawasamu,

belonging to both sociocultural categories, this shows her as categorically ambiguous in narratives.

4. Commemorative Objects for Chieftaincy

As described in the previous section, the history of the Dawasamu district with the genealogy

12 These numbers written as [No. ----] here signify the page numbers in iVola ni Kawa Bula.13 iVola ni Kawa Bula is a genealogical register of Fijian owners of native land. This genealogical record

was developed by the Native Lands Trust Board, but later transferred to the Native Lands and Fisheries Commission. It contains updates of registered agnatic family members at multiple social levels.


of the chiefdom has been dichotomized into 2 categories temporally, geographically, and culturally.

This dichotomized historical context of Dawasamu is evoked through the proper name, Adi Litia,

who is a figure of ambiguity. In this section, I would like to highlight another narrative about her,

regarding the commemorative objects she handed over to 2 figures or families, which further

strengthens the dichotomization of categories with regard to history and the genealogy of chiefs in

Dawasamu.

4.1 Bilo

Although Peni Waqa was designated by Adi Litia as the rightful person to succeed the chiefly

status of Dawasamu in 1981 after Tuliasi Delai died, the chiefly installation ritual for him was

not held for a long time. This is why Peni Waqa was officially chosen as the successor of chiefly

status and became publicly known as the paramount chief among the people of Dawasamu, but

the legitimacy of his chiefly status was kept ambiguous after all. Nacanieli Lagilagi told me that

“succeeding to the chiefly status means going through the ritual of enthronement and drinking

yaqona.” He asserted that in order to be “officially” installed as the chief, one must not simply

succeed to the status, but have the installation ritual held and drink the yaqona given by the “people

of the land.” When the chief passes away, the next chief must be enthroned with the same ritual

procedure. That means one cannot become a chief without going through the ritual (cf. Eräsaari,

2013).14 In iVola ni Kawa Bula, Peni Waqa is registered as “TT” (Turaga ni Tikina), i.e., the

paramount chief of the district.

To become the chief in Dawasamu it is generally understood that drinking the yaqona given by

the itaukei ni vanua (owners of the land) is a part of the chiefly installation ritual. One reason why

the installation ritual for Peni Waqa was not held goes back to an issue regarding objects as proofs

of chiefdom that were handed over by Adi Litia when Peni Waqa succeeded to the chiefly position.

Here is the narrative between another elder, Vuniani Naitau (N), and myself (A), which was carried

out in April 2010.

14 Matti Eräsaari shows a similar dispute between the chiefly clan and the Sauturaga clan in Verata as below:

　　The current Komai Naloto, Leone Dabea, is the fifth since the death of Ratu Waisea Waqa, who was the last installed chief in Naloto; the last Ratu—since his time, the chiefs have been “just komais.” “Nowadays there is only one Ratu in Verata, in Ucunivanua,” says an elderly member of the Nause clan who used to look after the chiefs’ bodies. He thinks the installations ceased when the installing clan—Sauturaga—lost the paraphernalia required for installations. However, a senior member of the Sauturaga clan insists that the installations ceased when the chiefly clan started choosing the chiefs themselves—that they tried to disregard the kingmakers’ right to elect the successor to the chieftaincy. “The Sauturaga and the Matanivanua are born into their stations, the Komai is not,” he said to emphasize the fact that the paramount is supposed to be “made” (buli) instead of just succeeding to the paramount title (Eräsaari, 2013).

44 Y. Asai

N: Adi Litia was brought here to be the chief.

A: Chief?

N: To be the chief. And she said, “I cannot drink yaqona of Dawasamu because I’m already

old. I ask you all to allow me to give the bilo.” Then, she gave 2 solisoli (gifts), she held

the tabua, and gave it to Peni Waqa. So, he is Ratu (the chief) here. Peni Waqa, his father is

Sevanaia.

A: OK.

N: Holding the yaqona with Dawasamu, “You drink.”

A: He drank it.

N: She said, “You drink it.”

(Vuniani Naitau, pers. comm.)

In 1981, Peni Waqa received one tabua from Adi Litia as a commemorative possession, i.e.,

ivakadinadina as known in Fijian, for his succession to the chiefly status. In Dawasamu, this whale

tooth given to Peni Waqa is generally called bilo, and now it is hung at the center on the wall of the

living room in the chiefly house. Bilo is a Fijian word which refers to a container, usually made of

coconut shell and used for drinking something.

This is not the actual tabua inherited from Adi Litia, but an item I photographed in a ritual during my fieldwork.

Figure 6. Tabua (Photo by Author)


Since the ceremony, where chiefs drink yaqona using the bilo given by the people of the land,

is considered to be a significant part of the ceremony to place someone on the chiefly seat in the

installation ritual, this ceremony is often used as a pronoun for the chief installation ceremony itself

as soli ni bilo (the handing over of the container) or veivagunuvi (exchanging drinks). Therefore, the

whale tooth which Peni Waqa received from Adi Litia exists as a metonymy of such a drinking cup

for the yaqona in the ritual. That is, this whale tooth is a “sign of history” that projects the indexical

chain of the bilo passed down from chief to chief, placing its owner in a historically legitimate

succession of chiefs15 from generation to generation.

4.2 Qele vakaRatu

Next, I would like to focus on another object that Adi Litia handed over. As discussed in

subsection 4.1, Adi Litia had Peni Waqa inherit the whale tooth called bilo, which shows proof

of the chiefly status. However, she also offered another item as proof of chiefly succession, qele

vakaRatu16 (the land for the chief) to a person whose name is known as Levani Vueti. Here is

another excerpt of the conversation between Naitau (N) and myself (A).

N: He (Peni Waqa) recieved it (bilo). Then, she (Adi Litia) also gave the solisoli again, another

Ratu, solisoli of qele vakaRatu.

A: Qele vakaRatu.

N: Ratu.

N: …The land for Ratu, “You, Levani, you will receive the qele vakaRatu, for yours.”

N: …There was no land for Peni Waqa at that time, it was right if she gave it to Peni Waqa,

“I give you the bilo with the land.” But she was wrong. This is the vu ni leqa (the origin of

the problem) which exists in this land. She gave it to Ratu, but did not give it with the land.

She left it to another place. So, they both stood up like this. Because this is mataqali Ratu,

yavusa Dawasamu.

N: … This old lady divided it into two (waseya rua), this is the vu ni leqa here.

(Vuniani Naitau, pers. comm.)

15 In fact, the focus of the debate concerning the legitimacy of holding the installation ritual in Dawasamu was about where this bilo came from and how it came to Dawasamu, who its “owner” was, and who “first” gave it to the first chief.

16 Qele means “the land” and vakaRatu means “for the chief” in Fijian.

46 Y. Asai

According to iVola ni Kawa Bula, Levani Vueti belonged to a different lineage (Mataqali

Ratu) in the same clan (Yavusa Dawasamu). In other words, Adi Litia divided the commemorative

object of being a chief, i.e., the index of chiefliness, between 2 people, (1) a whale tooth (bilo) to

Peni Waqa; and (2) the land for the chief (qele vakaRatu) to Levani Vueti. Thus, there appeared a

situation, which allowed more than 2 individuals or groups who could assert themselves as rightful

chiefly successors.

Here, I would like to summarize this rather complicated situation, which occurred in the

succession of chieftaincy in Dawasamu. In the iVola ni kawa bula, Adi Litia is registered in the

“Ratu lineage” in the Dawasamu clan. Her father, ⓪ Jonasa Delaitubuna, also belonged to the Ratu

lineage. However, as Adi Litia was still a child when her father passed away and later married into

clans from other districts, the chiefly status of Dawasamu was succeeded by the “Nasaqiwa lineage”

(❶ Peni Waqa, Sr. => ❷ Sevanaia Veilave), which was originally designated as the lineage of the

chief’s matanivanua (spokesman). In 1981, Adi Litia was summoned back to Dawasamu17 and

was requested to take over the chiefly status again. However, considering her age, she rejected the

request and decided to pass it down to ❸ Peni Waqa, Jr., who was the son of Sevanaia Veilave

(Table 2). In such a context, Adi Litia might have thought of solving the dispute over the succession

of chiefly status by waseya rua na ivakadinadina (splitting the proof into two) of the paramount

17 This was when Tuliasi Delai, who was the provisional chief after Sevanaia Veilave, died.

Figure 7. Location of the Qele vakaRatu in Dawasamu (Shaded with Diagonal Lines) (Photo by Author)


chief (whale tooth and land for chief) and maintained the power balance between the 2 lineages in

the Dawasamu clan. Rusiate Nayacakalou has reported a similar case of long-term failure to install

chiefs, Tui Tavuki, in Kadavu:

The situation was that although Ratu Nagatalevu was senior in descent to all members of

the Nacolase clan living in the village, his claim to the title Tui Tavuki had not been formally

acknowledged by a ceremony of installation. Although he normally acted in the capacity of

Tui Tavuki, he never pressed the point too far, for if he did, the other members of the clan were

entitled to refuse to recognize his authority. The position of the man who was supposed to

exercise the traditional authority of the village was, therefore, very awkward. (Nayacakalou,

1975: 63)

According to elders in Dawasamu, this incident of chiefly possession has been recognized as

the origin of the problem in recognizing the rightful chief for the district. Thus, if Peni Waqa passes

away without being officially installed as chief through the installation ritual, the legitimacy of his

chiefly status could be left ambiguous, which would allow other groups to claim their succession

to the chieftaincy. Adi Litia’s decision to split the symbol of the chiefly status ironically created

potential conflicts with regard to chiefly status within the Dawasamu clan.

The narrative of the “legitimate” Sauturaga role within the Voni clan, which I mentioned in

section 2.3, is also related to this issue. According to the elders in Dawasamu, the Namaralevu

lineage of the Voni clan is originally from the Nabukadra district of Ra province. The explanation

given to me was that the Namaralevu lineage came to live in Dawasamu, escaping from familial

conflict in Ra, and the Voni clan, one of the most dominant tribes in Dawasamu, accepted and

granted them status as component members of their clan to look after the paramount chief.

The Voni clan used to live in the Driti village as Sauturaga with the Dawasamu clan (the

chiefly clan of Dawasamu). However, when the Noboro lineage found that they were ranked as the

second lineage of the Voni in Ai Tukutuku Raraba, the leader of the Naboro lineage felt so upset

that they left the Driti village and moved to the Delakado village. In fact, while the Namaralevu

lineage lives close to Driti village, the Naboro lineage lives in the Delakado village today. For these

reasons, the Namaralevu lineage has had a close relationship with the Dawasamu clan, and thus

they are deeply associated with the political situation related to the issue of who should be officially

installed as the paramount chief within the Dawasamu clan. The reason why the Namaralevu

lineage was reluctant to install the present paramount chief relates to multiple factors, but this is

surely one of the most likely reasons why they did not agree with the Naboro’s claim to officially

install Peni Waqa.

48 Y. Asai

Thus, since 1981, the chiefly installation ritual has not been held, and the district was without

a paramount chief for about 30 years until 2010. This prolonged absence of an “officially installed”

paramount chief had led to people in Dawasamu condemning the current sociopolitical state of

the district as deviated from the “authentic” past of the land. This is recognized as the cause for

drawing in devils which bring about misfortune and disaster to the land, as noted in subsection 2.2

(Figure 5). Such context in turn prepared the situation which allows the Naboro lineage to insist

that the ultimate cause of vitalizing the demonic spirits (tevoro) in Dawasamu is not because of the

Namaralevu’s procrastination of officially installing the chief, but of their existence as Sauturaga as

written in the colonial document.

Examining masu sema (chain prayer) by groups of Christian Methodists on the island of

Kadavu, Matt Tomlinson also points out a similar mentality that the various historical difficulties

experienced in contemporary Fiji, such as conflicts between Indian descendants and Fijians,

disputes concerning political leadership among Fijians, and relations between the Christian churches

and indigenous chiefs, are created in relation to a “what has been lost,” or “the past.” In addition, he

states that the present has been conceptualized as a “powerless” space-time which has fallen from

the great, but lost the past or ancestors. All such phenomena, including political leadership without

legitimacy, complicated and forgotten family relationships, and disputes regarding land ownership

up to present day are hypothesized under the absence of power which existed in the past.

Figure 8. Nacanieli Lagilagi, Vuniani Naitau, and Peni Waqa (Photo by Author)


[…] chiefs are no longer installed and have not been for well over a century. This

continuing failure to invest a political leader with legitimate authority has created a strong

sense that power is gone from present-day society. Fijian public discourse is suffused with the

theme of a fall from a golden age of power. Indices of lost power include perceived illegitimate

political authority, disordered or forgotten kinship relations, and disputed land ownership, as

well as a general sense that ancestors were bigger, stronger, and harder working that people in

the present. (Tomlinson, 2004: 7)

4.3 The Discussion of the Chiefly Installation Ritual

Such discussion for holding the chiefly installation ritual as analyzed above was initiated

around 2008 by Nacanieli, who comes from the Naboro lineage. As they found it problematic for

Dawasamu to continue without the installed chief for a long time, Nacanieli first went to discuss the

issue of chiefdom with Peni Waqa and his matanivanua (spokesman) of the Dawasamu clan, which

is the chiefly clan for supplying chiefs for the district. However, they did not agree with Nacanieli’s

proposal to hold a chiefly installation, and even requested that he discuss this with the headman of

the Namaralevu lineage of the Voni clan. Accordingly, Nacanieli had several opportunities to talk

with the Namaralevu lineage and the Dawasamu clan and tried to persuade them to hold the ritual;

however, no one among them agreed with his idea.

Failing to persuade the chiefly clan and the Namaralevu lineage of the Voni clan to hold the

installation ritual, the Naboro lineage led by Nacanieli started to discuss this with the heads of the

other clans in Dawasamu from around 2009. In these discussions, the Naboros claimed that the

reason why the land of Dawasamu had remained without a chief for an extended time was not due

to the procrastination of the Namaralevu lineage of the Voni clan, but rather that the Namaralevu

are not originally or legitimately Sauturaga. In other words, Nacanieli insisted that the Namaralevu

clan is not able to, and thus even should not hold, the ritual, and if no one fulfills such duty of the

land, then they as tamata dina (true people) of the land should take back this duty. Gradually, the

other clans started to support Naboro’s claim and they came to form the majority. They in turn

started to hold meetings from time to time to negotiate how the ritual should be held. Four meetings

were held between 2009 and 2010 in the Delakado village and were monitored by an assistant to

Roko Tui of Tailevu. Meanwhile, the person who was supposed to be the chief, Ratu Peni Waqa,

also agreed to officially become the chief through this installation ritual.

On 6 April 2010, following a series of meetings on the installation ritual, the heads of clans

and lineages of Dawasamu, including the matanivanua, the spokesman for Peni Waqa, and the head

of the Namaralevu lineage, gathered together at Dawasamu Primary School with Roko Tui Tailevu

50 Y. Asai

to determine whether holding the chiefly installation ritual was appropriate as a concensus in light

of the tradition for the land, i.e., lewa vakavanua. As mentioned above, the Naboro’s claim in this

meeting was that the rightful role as chief-maker in the district is held by the Naboro lineage of the

Voni clan, Nacanieli explained the reason behind holding the ritual as legitimate to Roko Tui, and

most of the clans agreed with continuing with the ceremony. Thus, they decided to perform the

chiefly installation, even though some lineages, especially from the Dawasamu clan and the Voni

clan, continued to resist holding the ritual.

5. Discussion

5.1 Proper Names and Evocation of History

What is prominent in these narratives is that this proper name, Adi Litia, indexes various

contrastive cultural categories, and thus dichotomies, which create “Dawasamu” as a historical

space-time. That is to say, Adi Litia was the last descendant of the past chiefly genealogy, but she

married into 2 different villages, and in both cases she did not have children who could legitimately

succeed to the chiefly status of Dawasamu. Moreover, she passed down the proofs of chiefdom

between 2 different lineages. In analyzing these narratives with regard to Adi Litia and the 2

villages, Vorovoro and Qoma, I would first like to refer to Noun Phrase Referential Hierarchy.18

In light of a Noun Phrase Referential Hierarchy, a proper name is a kind of noun phrase

in which the subject of reference has a relatively high degree of context dependency in

communication. To explain it, for example, while the subject of reference denoted by the first

and the second person pronouns or demonstrative pronouns are highly contextualized to the

place in which the communication takes place, the concrete nouns or abstract nouns are relatively

independent from the context, and thus highly “symbolic.” Proper nouns,19 however, are located

in between these nouns, so that they (a) refer to the socio-culturally specific subject in a particular

context of communication, while at the same time (b) tend to be symbolic, thus historically well-

known, objects. In other words, just as those physical objects, i.e., bilo and qele vakaRatu, a

particular person’s name (or proper noun), Adi Litia,20 (a) tends to become a discursive object of

legitimate chiefliness, i.e., ivakadinadina, which functions as a “sign of history” in Dawasamu

through discourse. The succession issue in Dawasamu is a dispute over indexicality as the chiefly

possessions have been given to Ratu Peni Waqa, but the associated land has been given to (Ratu)

18 As for the Noun Phrase Referential Hierarchy, refer to subsection 1.2.19 A proper noun indicates a specific subject based on historical or contextual continuity, i.e., indexicality,

from the pragmatic and ritualized act of “naming.”20 Adi is also a title which is used by Fijian women from chiefly rank. They are namely female members of

chiefly clans. It is the equivalent of the Ratu title used by male chiefs.


Levani Vueti. The sign has been divided against itself. On the other hand, these artifacts, including

village names, such as Vorovoro and Qoma, (b) ontologically function as a nexus, that is, “signs in

history,” to pragmatically anchor their historical context to the present place of communication to

regiment the current political context by evoking certain cultural dichotomies. That is, the signs in/

of history here are primarily indexical in their force. For the residents of Dawasamu, especially for

the elders who are familiar with the discourse relating to the history of its chiefly genealogy, the

proper noun Adi Litia exists as an index of legitimate chieftainship that strongly evokes specific

cultural context,21 which is made up as a constellation of a variety of dichotomized categories

mediated by other linguistic and physical signs of history, and thus tends to become the central

subject matter in historical discourse of Dawasamu. In other words, the discourse of history in

Dawasamu exists as discourse on Adi Litia, the last descendant of the past chiefly lineage. This

personal name is also associated with other objects in the discourse, through which the historical

context for Dawasamu is categorized into various contrastive pairs of cultural concepts. First,

(1) it is sharply divided into 2 temporal categories as “the past” and “the present,” which clearly

corresponds with (2) two geospatial categories as “inland” and “coastal,” i.e., Vunidawa and Ra.

(3) It is also categorized into the geospatial categories as “inside” and “outside” of Dawasamu,

the boundary of which is delineated with particular sites such as Vorovoro and Qoma, into which

she married and had children. (4) This also corresponds with contrastive pairs of cultural value,

legitimate and illegitimate, authentic and invalid, or powerfulness and powerlessness.

5.2 The Chief as a Constellation of Artefacts of/in History

This paper examined a dispute over the longstanding failure of holding a chiefly installation

ritual with a focus on the narratives about the last descendant of the chiefly lineage in the

Dawasamu district. In Dawasamu, the politics surrounding the chiefly succession occurred

through a collision of indexicality for the legitimate chief. Adi Litia, who was the last descendant

of the legitimate chiefly lineage, was asked by the Voni clan as Sauturaga to resume the throne of

Dawasamu. However, instead of accepting the request from the Sauturaga, she chose Peni Waqa to

succeed her chiefly title and gave him her bilo. In addition, she chose Levani Vueti to receive the

qele vakaRatu. Therefore, the proof, or ivakadinadina, of chiefliness in Dawasamu was divided,

which in turn created a situation in which at least 2 people could potentially claim the legitimate

chiefly status in the Dawasamu clan. Hence, this incident has been understood as the vu ni leqa (the

source of problem), which created ambiguity over who should officially be installed as the chief of

Dawasamu.

21 This means that the proper name becomes an emblem or a totem, i.e., collective representation, which was proclaimed by Émile Durkheim.

52 Y. Asai

On the other hand, the issue of chiefly succession also exists as a discourse regarding the last

descendant of chief to present politics. That is, narratives of Adi Litia evoke various contrastive

pairs of cultural categories, and thus it pragmatically recreates or is ideologically utilized to

reconfigure the present political context of chiefdom enabling the chiefly installation ritual to

take place here and now. This ideological, and thus indexical (or semiotic) process of chiefdom

seems to be the aspect that Sahlins’ structural-historical (or semiological) anthropology could not

capture well. That is, the politics surrounding chiefdom do not exist just as an example of the myth

structure, but rather it exists in the here and now, ideologically mobilizing such palpable structure

of cultural categories. In such a way, the ranking between the 2 lineages of the Sauturaga clan,

which was written in Ai Tukutuku Raraba, was reorganized in Dawasamu through this process over

holding the ritual. In other words, Adi Litia as a proper noun, including the chiefly properties and

the village names, emerging as a sign of mythological past, thus functions as an indexical force for

reanimating the political context of chiefdom in the pragmatic present by indexing the relatively

palpable structure of cultural categories. Accordingly, such discourse also nurtured the social

tendency to condemn or demonize the present state of the land as being covered by tevoro (devils)

and misfortunes, which produces the future state as embodying the “authentic” past, i.e., the golden

age of power.

Acknowledgements

This paper is a revised version of a part of a discussion from the book titled Semiotics of

Ritual: Linguistic Anthropological Study on Myths/Poetic Texts in Melanesia, Fiji (in Japanese)

published in 2017. It also incorporates feedback received from an invited presentation for the

9th meeting of the Religious Anthropology Study Group, which took place at Rikkyo University

in February 2018. Based on this feedback, the theoretical viewpoint has been elaborated upon,

with further narrative data added since the publication of the book. I am particularly grateful to

anonymous PCO reviewers for their helpful advice and criticism for revising this paper.

References

Asai, Y. (2017) Semiotics of Ritual: Linguistic Anthropological Study on Myths/Poetic Texts in

Melanesia, Fiji. Tokyo: Sangensha. (in Japanese)

Caton, S.C. (1987) Contribution of Roman Jakobson. Annual Review of Anthropology 16: 223–260.

Eräsaari, M. (2013)“We Are Originals”: A Study of Value in Fiji. Unigrafia: University of Helsinki.

Fraenkel, J., and S. Firth (Eds.) (2007) From Election to Coup in Fiji: The 2006 Campaign and its


Aftermath. Suva: IPS Publications, University of the South Pacific.

Hocart, A.M. (1927) Kingship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hocart, A.M. (1970[1936]) Kings and Councillors: An Essay in the Comparative Anatomy of

Human Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Kaplan, M. (1988) Land and Sea and the New White Men: A Reconsideration of the Fijian Tuka

Movement. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago.

Kaplan, M. (1995) Neither Cargo nor Cult: Ritual Politics and the Colonial Imagination in Fiji.

Durham: Duke University Press.

Kripke, S. (1972) Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lasaqa, I.Q. (1963) Dawasamu-Bure. N.E. Viti Levu: Fiji. Master dissertation, Auckland University

Library.

Lasaqa, I.Q. (1984) The Fijian People: Before and After Independence. Canberra: Australian

National University Press.

Lawson, S. (1997) Chiefs, politics, and the power of tradition in contemporary Fiji. In G.M. White

and L. Lindstrom (eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial

State, pp. 108–118. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Lawson, S., and E.H. Lawson (2015) Chiefly Leadership in Fiji: Past, Present, and Future (SSGM

Discussion Paper Series). Canberra: Australian National University.

Lee, B. (1997) Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of Subjectivity.

Durham: Duke University Press.

Lindstrom, L., and G.M. White (1997) Introduction: Chiefs today. In G.M. White and L. Lindstrom

(eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State, pp. 1–18.

Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Loanakadavu, S. (2010) Vanua installs Waqa. The Fiji Times. Available from: http://www.fijitimes.

com/story.aspx?id=144593

Nayacakalou, R.R. (1975) Leadership in Fiji. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Niwa, N. (2013) The chain of coups in Fiji: The future of coexistence with native Fijians. In N.

Niwa and D. Ishimori (eds.), Conflicts in Contemporary Oceania: From the Fields after

Decolonization, pp. 123–149. Kyoto: Showado. (in Japanese)

Niwa, N. (2016) Between integration and disintegration: Coup in 2000 and movement for

establishing the government of the western Fiji. In N. Niwa (ed.), Comparative Ethnography

on “Conflicts”: Violence, Ethnic Feud, and Political Disarray of Oceania in Globalization,

pp. 205–238. Yokohama: Shunpusha. (in Japanese)

Parmentier, R.J. (1987) The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau. Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press.

54 Y. Asai

Parmentier, R.J. (1994) Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.

Parmentier, R.J. (2016) Signs and Society: Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press.

Putnam, H. (1975) The Meaning of “meaning.” In H. Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality

(Philosophical Papers 2), pp. 215–271. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rutz, H. (1995) Occupying the headwaters of tradition: Rhetorical strategies of nation making in

Fiji. In R. Foster (ed.), Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melanesia, pp.

71–93. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Sahlins, M. (1963) Poor man, rich man, big-man, chief: Political types in Melanesia and Polynesia.

Comparative Studies in Society and History 5(3): 285–303.

Sahlins, M. (1985) Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sahlins, M. (2012) Alterity and autochthony: Austronesian cosmographies of the marvelous (The

Raymond Firth Lecture, 2008). HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2(1): 131–160.

Silverstein, M. (1976) Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In R.M.W. Dixon (ed.), Grammatical

Categories in Australian Languages, pp. 112–171. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal

and Torres Straits Islander Studies.

Tomlinson, M. (2004) Ritual, risk, and danger: Chain prayers in Fiji. American Anthropologist

106(1): 6–16.

Tomlinson, M., and T.P.K. Tengan (2016) New Mana: Transformations of a Classic Concept in

Pacific Languages and Cultures. Acton: Australian National University Press.

Toren, C. (1990) Making Sense of Hierarchy: Cognition as Social Process in Fiji. London: The

Athlone Press.

Walsh, C. (2006) Fiji: An Encyclopaedic Atlas. Suva: The University of the South Pacific.

Documents

Discourse on the Last Descendent: The Chief as a