CHAPTER IV

CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY

Chiefs--The Growth of the Confederation--The Confederation in Decay--Lala, Communal and Personal--Community of Property through Kerekere.

The principal authority upon the state of society among the Fijians when Europeans first came into contact with them, is the Rev. Thomas Williams, a man possessing intelligence and observation and the instinct of anthropological research without the training necessary for systematic inquiries. Belonging to the pre-speculation period, he described what he found and not what he wished to find, and in this respect he is a valuable witness, but, like other missionaries, he used a loose terminology in describing Fijian society, making the word "tribe" serve any group of men from a family to a state. His manuscript fell upon evil days. His scientific instinct of accuracy and detail was ludicrously out of keeping with the spirit of the missionary publications of those days, in which any customs that did not suit the English middle-class notions of propriety were either passed over as heathen wickedness too deplorable for description, or set forth (with a rich commentary of invective) in an obvious spirit of exaggeration to show the subscribers at home how perilous were the lives of missionaries, and how worthy the labourer of his hire. In his simple love of truth, Mr. Williams had forgotten to point the usual moral, and when Mr. Calvert brought home his manuscript in 1856, the Missionary Society decided that it must be edited with vigilance. A Bowdler was found in the person of a Mr. George Stringer Rowe, otherwise unknown to fame, who re-wrote most of what was supplied to him, he apparently having no special knowledge of the subject. "But here," says this maiden-modest editor, whenever the outspoken Williams dares to touch upon the marriage laws, "even at the risk of making the picture incomplete, there may not be given a faithful representation."

[Pageheader: SINISTER FATE OF WILLIAMS' MS.]

The manuscript has long disappeared, and now we can never know exactly what was Williams and what was Rowe. In respect of its scientific accuracy, it may be questioned whether it did not find in Rowe a worse fate than the "Scented Garden" met at the hands of Lady Burton. Fortunately for science the loss of Williams's manuscript is not as irreparable as a distinguished anthropologist would have us believe. Mr. McLennan, in rating Mr. George Stringer Rowe for his meddlesome editing, remarks, "The natives were speedily converted first, and slowly extinguished afterwards. Comparatively few of the natives remain, and our chance of knowing well what were their laws and customs is perhaps gone for ever."[33] Upon this curious assumption, he treats "Fiji and the Fijians" as modern Biblical critics treat the Pentateuch--namely, as an obscure treatise whose loose terminology can only be read by the light of internal evidence. Had he taken the trouble to ascertain that the Fijians, so far from being extinguished, still number more than two-thirds of their strength when Williams wrote, and maintain their old tribal divisions and some of their social organization intact; had he cared to look through the mass of evidence collected since the cession of the islands in 1874, he would have spared his readers a lengthy commentary, and himself a number of errors which go far to explain his unscientific attitude in his great controversy with Morgan on the classificatory system of relationship.

The key to the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor-worship. Just as every act in a Fijian's life was controlled by his fear of Unseen Powers, so was his conception of human authority based upon religion. Patriarchy, if not the oldest, is certainly the most natural shape into which the religious instinct of primitive man would crystallize. First there was the family--and the islands of the Pacific were probably peopled by single families--ruled absolutely by the father with his store of traditions brought from the land whence he came. His sons, knowing no laws but those which he had taught them; planting their crops, building their huts and their canoes under his direction, bringing their disputes to him for decision, have come to trust to him for guidance in every detail of their lives. Suddenly he leaves them. How are they to believe that he whose approval they courted, and whose anger they feared but yesterday, has vanished like the flame of yesterday's fire? His spirit has left his body; yet, somewhere it must be watching over them still. In life he was wont to threaten them with punishment for disobedience, and even now, when they do the things of which he disapproved, or withhold their daily offerings of food at his tomb, punishment is sure to follow--the crops fail; a hurricane unroofs the hut; floods sweep away the canoe. Thus they come to propitiate the spirit armed with such powers to harm, and, in response to their prayers, victory is given them over their enemies. When they are beaten back, he is frowning upon them: when the yams ripen to abundant harvest he is rewarding their piety.

In this most natural creed was the germ of government. Each son of the dead father founded his own family, but still owed allegiance to the earthly representative of their deified father--the eldest son--on whom a portion of the father's godhead had descended. Generations came and went; the tribe had increased from tens to hundreds, but still the eldest son of the eldest, who carried in his veins the blood of the common ancestor in its purest form, was venerated as the head of the tribe. The ancestor was not forgotten, but he was now translated into Kalou-vu (lit. Root-God) and had his temple and his priests, who had themselves become a hereditary caste, with the strong motive of self-interest for keeping his memory green. His descendant, the tribal chief, is set within the pale of the tabu: his will may not be disobeyed, nor his body touched without incurring the wrath of the Unseen. The priests and the chief give one another mutual support, the one by threatening divine punishment for disobedience; the other by insisting upon regularity in bringing offerings to the temple.

[Pageheader: RISE OF THE CHIEF'S POWER]

Had there been no war in Fiji the power of the aristocracy would have been limited. Among the mountain tribes of Vitilevu, who seldom extended their borders by conquest, the chief, while enjoying some measure of religious veneration, can issue no important order without the consent of the council of elders. He can exact no truckling homage where every member of the tribe is a blood relation. But for conquest, Fiji would have been a country of tiny independent states, no larger than a single village could contain. From conquests sprang the great confederations. The chief of a conquering tribe rose to be head of a complicated social body; the members of his tribe an aristocracy supported by the industry of an alien plebs composed of tribes they had conquered and fugitives from other conquerors. These too had had their tribal gods and tribal chiefs, but what have men, reduced to open slavery, to do with such dignities? A generation of ill-usage sufficed to wipe out the very memory of independence. For god and chief alike they had their suzerain, upon whose indulgence their lives depended.

Besides the fortune of war, the chiefs owed much of the enormous increase in their power to their system of land tenure. The land boundaries of the tribe were telescopic. Every tribe owned as much land as it could defend against the encroachments of its neighbours. There was, as will presently be explained, individual ownership of land actually under cultivation, but all waste land was held, theoretically, in common. And, since the mouthpiece of the tribal will was the chief, the waste lands were at his disposal. So long as he gave it to his own people to use he gained no power, but as soon as fugitives, driven out by other conquerors, began to run to him for protection, and were granted land on which to settle, he found a body of tenants springing up who regarded him as their personal overlord. It was to him that they paid their rent in kind and in labour; it was to him, and not to the tribe, that they gave feudal service in war. The chief of a great federation had thus two distinct classes of vassals--serfs conquered in war, and feudal tenants.

Before the advent of Europeans and the introduction of firearms, the confederations were never very large. Tribe fought with tribe on equal terms; the besieged had an advantage over the besiegers. Every tribe had a natural stronghold, stored with food and water for many weeks, into which it would retire in times of danger. If they did not carry it at the first assault, by surprise, or by treachery from within, the besiegers went home to await a better opportunity, for the slow starvation of a garrison by organized siege had never occurred to any native leader. The largest confederations known to us by tradition--Verata and Thakaundrove--controlled less than ten miles of coast line. With the introduction of gunpowder in 1808 native wars became far more destructive. The powerful chiefs immediately doubled their power, and yet Thakombau, the head of the most powerful confederation of all, even in the zenith of his power, never ruled directly over more than fifteen thousand people, though, undoubtedly, he could bring influence to bear upon half the group.

The development of autocracy followed certain well-defined lines. At first the chief was priest and king after the order of Melchisedec of the Ammonite city, Jebus--that is to say, he received divine honours while wielding the temporal authority. But as the tribe grew the temporal power became irksome to him. The tradition of the founding of the temporal line in Tonga about the beginning of the seventeenth century throws the clearest light upon the origin of the spiritual and temporal lines. A king of Tonga had goaded his people into assassinating him; and his son, after avenging his murder, sought to put a buffer between himself and his rebellious subjects by delegating his executive power to his younger brother, reserving to himself all the solid advantages of his high station without any responsibilities. Safe from popular outbreak, he began to enjoy increased veneration owing to the more rigid tabu that hedged him in. In another case preserved by tradition the temporal power was founded by the indolence of the supreme chief. In order to rid himself of the cares of government, he constituted his brother his hereditary minister, and bequeathed to his descendants an ornamental and dignified retirement. The Mikado and the Shogun are analogues of the Roko Tui and the Vunivalu.[34]

[Pageheader: ORIGIN OF SPIRITUAL CHIEFS]

In Fiji, the process of scission was found in every stage of evolution. Among the Melanesian tribes of the interior it had not begun; in Rewa the spiritual Roko Tui still wielded the temporal power; in Mbau and Thakaundrove he was beginning to lose even the veneration due to his rank. Just as the coast tribes had begun to adopt the Polynesian gods in addition to their own ancestral mythology, so they were more ready to follow the Polynesian example of separating the temporal from the spiritual chiefs.

The constitution of Mbau may be taken as a type of the Fijian constitution. First in rank was the Roko Tui Mbau (Sacred Lord of Mbau). His person was sacred. He never engaged personally in war. He was the special patron of the priests, who, in return, were unstinting in their insistence upon his divinity. He alone might wear his turban during the kava-drinking. It was tabu to strangle his widow, though the widows of no other chief were exempt from paying that last honour to the dead. At his death no cry of lamentation might be uttered, but a solemn blast was sounded on the conch-shell, as at the passing of a god.

Next in rank came the temporal chief, the Vu-ni-valu (Root of War, or Skilled in War), who was at once Commander-in-Chief and executive Sovereign. He never consulted the Roko Tui Mbau in temporal affairs, and he enjoyed tabu privileges little inferior to those paid to his spiritual suzerain. The Vunivalu always belonged to the Tui Kamba (Lords of Kamba) sept, and the Roko Tui Mbau to the Vusaratu ("Chief sept").

The Tunitonga, the hereditary adviser and spokesman of the chiefs, ranked next. He was the state matchmaker, and disposed absolutely of the young chief girls, whose natural guardian he was.

The Mbete (priests) and Mata-ni-vanua (Royal messengers, _lit._ Messengers of the land) were next in consequence, though the chiefs of the Fisher septs wielded influence in proportion to their force of character.

Each sept had its own quarter of the town, the heralds at its eastern extremity, next the Vusarandave (hereditary soldiers), and the fishermen nearest to the mainland. Across the narrow straits were the planting lands of the subject tribes, who might be seen at every low tide, wading across the ford with contributions of food.

The Confederation in Decay.

The first effects of foreign interference was to strengthen the power of the chiefs; the second, to destroy it. For more than two years Mbau enjoyed a monopoly of muskets, which enabled her almost to double the extent of her territory. To the eastward the kingdom of Somosomo swallowed up the whole of Taveuni and the eastern portion of Vanua Levu, while the Tongan immigrants under Maafu first conquered the Lau group, and then threatened the independence of Mbau itself. The immediate effect of subjugation was to blight the traditions and religion of the conquered tribe, for independence is as necessary to their life as light and air to the life of a plant. It is astonishing how quickly the status of a Fijian is reflected in his bearing. In an assemblage of Fijians an unskilled eye can pick out the members even of tribes who were subdued within the memory of men still living, by their slinking gait, their shifty eye, and the humble curve of their spine. A few years have changed them from warriors into beaten curs. Their chief, a hewer of wood like themselves, ceases at once to inspire respect; they approach him now without crying the _tama_, the prerogative he used to share with the gods themselves; they keep the _tama_ for their alien conqueror and his gods; of their own they pretend to have forgotten the very name, nor dare they any more to claim _tauvu_ relationship with any cousin-tribe that has preserved its freedom. They have dropped out of the social fabric, and chief and subject alike spend their lives in weaving ignoble plots to alleviate the squalor of their servitude.

[Pageheader: INFLUENCE OF CONQUEST]

Far otherwise the conqueror. He who, but a generation back, would have sweated in the yam-field with his men, now grew fat upon the contributions of his tenants and the toil of his kitchen-men. His harem was crowded with the daughters of allied chiefs, and the fairest girls from every conquered village. Panders and sycophants flocked to him; dwarfs and negroes and renegade Europeans were in his train; buffoons told dirty stories over his evening kava bowl; poets forged heroic genealogies for him, and when he went abroad men squatted on the ground with averted faces and _tama_'ed. Every vessel that he used was sacred, and brought death to any lowborn man that touched it. Every member of his tribe swam upon the tide of his prosperity. His village became a village of chiefs, with serfs of their own to plant food for them, where the youths were trained to the chief-like exercises of war and seamanship and dancing, and the old men spent their nights in feasting and concocting plots for extending their dominion. As for the Roko Tui, the Sacred Chief among the conquered tribes--there being no place for such rank among serfs--he was fain to surrender his sanctity; among the conquerors he degenerated into an ornamental symbol of the powers divine.

The chief was seen at his best among those tribes that had preserved their independence without seeking to extend their borders. Among the Melanesian tribes in the western half of Vitilevu, in a number of isolated islands, such as Vatulele and the Yasawa islands, the chief was veritably the father of his people. Neither his dignity, nor the sanctity of his person depended, as with us, upon any adventitious barriers between himself and his subjects. Familiarity bred no contempt. Like them, he wore nothing but the _malo_; with them he plied the digging-stick at planting time. And yet, though any might approach him, none forgot the honours due to him. When Roko Tui Nandronga worked himself into a drunken fury over the accidental burning of his kitchen, his whole people, chiefs and all, besmeared themselves with ashes, and crawled to his feet to sue forgiveness; and when the Colonial Government threatened to deport him for unjust exactions levied on his people, the very people who had suffered from his extortions implored the Governor to reinstate him, saying that they loved him as a father. "Can we picture," asks Teufelsdröckh, "a naked Duke of Wellington addressing a naked House of Lords?" Had the sage seen a Fijian chief among his people he would have marked how the naked brown skin may be clothed in a divinity that needs no visible garment to lend it dignity.

The first blow at the power of the chiefs was struck unconsciously by the missionaries. Neither they nor the chiefs themselves realized how closely the government of the Fijians was bound up with their religion. No sooner had a missionary gained a foothold in a chief village than the tabu was doomed, and on the tabu depended half the people's reverence for rank. The tabu died hard, as such institutions should die. The first-fruits were still presented to the chief, but they were no longer carried from him to the temple, since their excuse--as an offering to persuade the ancestors to grant abundant increase--had passed away. No longer supported by the priests, the Sacred Chief fell upon evil days. Disestablished and disendowed, he was left to subsist upon the bounty of the temporal chief, whose power and dignity had, as yet, suffered no eclipse, for it was not the interest of the Europeans who were now crowding into the group to attack it. The chiefs guaranteed their lives and property, the chiefs sold them land, and protected them in their occupation of it; the chiefs levied contributions to pay for the contracts they had made with them; and, in return, the white men were always ready with muskets and ammunition to help them to keep rebellious vassals in check.

[Pageheader: SIR A. GORDON'S NATIVE POLICY]

The temporal chiefs sounded the death-knell of their privileges when they were persuaded to cede their country to the British Government. Had they realized the consequences they would have preferred the danger of conquest by Maafu and his Tongans, or bullying by American commanders, as more than one has since confessed to me. But Thakombau was weary of bearing the brunt of European aggression, and when Thakombau persuaded, who was strong enough to hold aloof? The British Government began wisely enough considering the information at its disposal. Sir Arthur Gordon (now Lord Stanmore), the first governor, was gifted with a rare sympathy with native modes of thought. With the experience of the disastrous native wars in New Zealand before his eyes, he realized the importance of governing the country through its own strong native government. To deprive the chiefs of any of their privileges, to deny them all share in the government of their people, would have been to convert, not only them, but their people into enemies. To accept and improve the native system was at once the most just, the most safe and the most economical policy. His expert advisers were Sir John Thurston and Mr. David Wilkinson, the former deeply versed in native politics, and the latter in native customs, if not in customary law. With their help he set about enclosing the natives as it were within a ring fence. The islands were divided into provinces coinciding roughly with the boundaries of the existing confederations as he found them. The ruling chiefs were made lieutenant-governors under the title of _Roko Tui_, borrowed from the Sacred Chiefs who had no longer any use for it; the province was sub-divided into districts under chiefs with the title of _Mbuli_ ("Crowned"); the system of village councils was extended to the province, and to the high chiefs themselves, who met once a year to make recommendations to the Governor. War and cannibalism were of course put down, and polygamy, which had long been forbidden by the missionaries, was discountenanced, but otherwise the existing native customary law was embodied in a code of regulations passed expressly for the natives to be administered by native magistrates under European supervision.

Lala

It was here that the first mistake was made. The chiefs' privileges were well understood; their limitations had never been studied. It was known that the chief could command the gratuitous service of his subjects, provided that he fed them while they were working for him. It was not understood that each confederation had its own system of privileges. Mr. David Wilkinson, the Native Commissioner, had a most complete knowledge of the Confederation of Mbua, and he seems somewhat hastily to have assumed that the Mbua system prevailed _mutatis mutandis_ throughout the group. Nor does he appear to have clearly understood the difference between the chiefs' personal privileges and his right to impose taxation for the good of the commune.

In the native mind the distinction is very clearly marked. There are, in fact, two distinct kinds of _lala_. The first, which I will call "personal _lala_" was the payment of rent in the form of tribute or service to certain powerful chiefs by the tenants settled upon their land. The second, which is best described as "communal _lala_" was taxation in the form of tribute or service on behalf of the commune.

[Pageheader: LEVY BY _LALA_]

It is necessary to draw a clear line of distinction between communal and personal _lala_, because while the former was universal throughout Fiji, the latter was limited to those confederations in which the chief had private rights in the land, and also because the two forms of _lala_ originated in totally different institutions, which are by no means confounded in the native mind. By Europeans, both official and "anti-official," they seem always to have been confounded. To the critics of the Colonial Government the word _lala_ is synonymous with "authorized oppression," or, as a recent writer chooses to call it, "legalized robbery"; to the framers of the Native Regulation No. 4. of 1877, the two were so confused that they are enumerated haphazard without any attempt at classification. In that regulation _lala_ is limited to house-building, planting gardens, road-making, feeding strangers, cutting and building canoes, and turtle fishing. By Regulation No. 7 of 1892, the communal aspect of _lala_ was extended by giving any resolution of the Provincial or District Council that had received the written assent of the Governor the force of law. The exercise of _lala_ was limited to the Roko Tui of the province, or the _Mbuli_ of a district, and the penalty for disobedience to their lawful commands was a fine not exceeding 2s., or fourteen days' imprisonment in default, with a slightly increased penalty for a subsequent offence.

Now, of the limitation set forth in the Native Regulations, house-building, canoe-building, planting gardens and fishing turtle belong to personal _lala_, though they may occasionally be applied for communal purposes; while road-making, feeding strangers and complying with resolutions of the Native Council are certainly exercised for the good of the commune. And yet the Regulation, put into the hands of a number of official chiefs, by no means entitled them to personal privileges that were only due from tenants to their landlord.

Communal Lala

In its communal aspect _lala_ is the axis of the primitive commonwealth. A native cannot by himself build his house, or dig his plantation, and he has no money with which to pay others for doing so. Accordingly, he applies to the chief, who, acting as the mouthpiece of the commune, summons all the able-bodied men to come to his assistance. In return he must provide food for them, and he must take his turn in helping each of them whenever his services are required. Both in the larger confederations and the miniature republics of the inland tribes, this kind of _lala_ is applied by the chief of sept or chief of village with the consent of the council of elders.

Communal _lala_ is also indispensable for the performance of all public works, such as road-making, bridge-building; the erection of public meeting-houses, such as the church or _Mbure-ni-sa_, and it was also legitimately applied to such quasi-communal services as the repair of the chief's canoe or house, the planting of food and catching fish, for the entertainment of strangers coming to trade with the tribe. In this respect the _lala_ corresponds closely with our system of local rates. When exercised by the supreme chief to levy contributions for the equipment of an army or an embassy, it may fitly be compared with public taxation. Without it, the condition of the natives' houses, already bad, would become worse; their crops, already diminished, would become insufficient for their support; their villages, often now neglected, would become unfit for habitation, and the purchase and maintenance of boats and vessels become impossible. Where it has been abolished, as in Tonga and the Tongan community settled in Fiji, the necessity for combination is so keenly felt that the people have evolved a substitute of their own. Men and women voluntarily form themselves into clubs called _Kabani_ (company) under various fanciful names, which are called together under the direction of an elected president to build houses, plant gardens, and do other combined work for one another. Disobedience to the order of the president is visited by a money fine, or by expulsion. A person who belongs to no club can obtain no assistance from his fellows.

I am not sufficiently acquainted with the history of the _corvée_ in Egypt or the _rajakarya_ of Ceylon to say whether they, like the _lala_, were instituted to meet the necessity of combination among a primitive people. The _rajakarya_, we know, was abolished because the high chiefs much abused it, but they did not begin to do so until the law of custom had begun to decay, owing to intercourse with Europeans. We had the _lala_ ourselves up to the thirteenth century, or the magnificent churches of the Norman and Gothic periods would never have been built by people who were content to live in thatched hovels: in Scotland it survived until much later.

[Pageheader: LIMITATIONS OF THE _LALA_]

The communal _lala_ has suffered far less decay than the personal. The chief had no selfish interest to tempt him to push it to excess; the people felt it no injustice, though they were compelled to supply extravagant contributions of food and property for the frequent _solevu_. Nor do they grumble at being compelled to contribute a sum of some £5000 annually for the purchase and repair of vessels owned in common, for these exactions, burdensome as they are, minister to their natural vanity. It was when the government applied the principle of communal _lala_ to sanitation that they began to cry out, for this was a clear infraction of the law of custom. Their fathers did well enough with a road twelve inches wide, with bridges formed of a single slippery log, with village squares unweeded save on the occasion of some great public function. When the chief orders the widening of roads and bridges, he is not voicing the want of the commune but the will of the foreigners.

It is worth noting as an illustration of communal _lala_ that for the first few years after annexation the communal vessels usually belonged to the province. The people who contributed the purchase money did not grumble, because they regarded the collection as a personal levy by their chief. The vessel was at the disposal of the _Roko Tui_, who regarded it as his private yacht. But as soon as the people grasped the idea of owning a vessel in common, they began to subscribe for district and village boats, in which they enjoyed an ample return for their money. The government exercises a wise control over such collections. No money may be levied until the resolution of the Native Council has received the sanction of the government, and sanction is never accorded when the levy is likely to put an undue burden upon the people. And here again is an instance of how one cannot tamper with native customs without letting loose a pack of unforeseen evils. The collection of money for the purchase of vessels is a useful spur to activity; it maintains a profitable colonial industry without putting any strain upon the natives. But with increased facilities for travelling there is growing up a practice on the part of both men and women of wandering from island to island on the village boat, billeting themselves upon the people they visit, and leaving their families to take care of themselves.

Personal Lala

If there had been but one system of land tenure throughout the group, the loose limitation of the personal _lala_ enacted by the government would have worked well enough, so long as the hereditary chief had been the holder of the government office. But among no primitive people in the world, perhaps, is found so great a diversity of institutions relating to land as among the Fijians. The group being the meeting ground of the Polynesians, whose ruling aristocracy claimed special rights in the soil, and the Melanesians, whose institutions are republican and who hold their waste lands in common, there is every grade of land tenure ranging from absolute feudalism or serfdom to peasant proprietorship. And the systems are further complicated by the natural peculiarities of the soil; in river deltas where cultivable land is continually shifting and but little labour is required to reclaim fields from the mud flats, ownership becomes necessarily individual, and a regular system of transfer springs up.

For several years it did not occur to any one that the right to personal _lala_ was merely a property in land. For the first few years after annexation the government had enough to do in settling the land claims of Europeans without touching the thorny question of native titles. The Lands Commission established the fact that the chiefs had no right to sell land without consulting the wishes of their people, but it was outside the scope of the inquiry to define what their interest in the land really was. That the government had a suspicion of the truth is shown by Section 4 of Regulation No. 5 of 1881, in which it is provided that 40 per cent, of the rent of lands leased to Europeans is to be given to the Turanga i taukei--a status that exists in all the large confederations, but which is unknown among the tribes of Melanesian origin in western Vitilevu.

[Pageheader: PERSONAL _LALA_ IS RENT]

It was not until 1890 that the government found leisure to attack the native boundaries, and then the truth came out. By that time the natives had come to regard land from a new point of view. The principal commodity of old Fiji was food. Land had no value except in so far as it produced food, and, therefore, the mere possession of it was not coveted unless there were inferiors living on it as cultivators. But as soon as it was realized that land, when leased to Europeans, produced money, the earth-hunger of the chiefs increased a thousandfold. They now laid claims to lands which, twenty years before, they would not have accepted as a gift, and tried to prove their case by quoting instances in which the resident cultivators had done them _lala_ service. The rival claimants would as eagerly assert that the services in question were given in token of gratitude for protection, or out of mere neighbourly feeling in times of scarcity--for anything, in short, but rent, and would allege delicate shades of distinction in the ritual employed. But all alike admitted that a chief's interest in land would be established if he could prove an ancient right to order gardens to be planted by subject tribes, or to demand services from them in house-building, fishing or contributions for the entertainment of visitors. In few cases did the chiefs claim an absolute proprietorship in the soil; they admitted that the land was vested in the people living upon it, subject to the usual tribute.

Personal _lala_, then, was a landed interest. The chiefs of the large confederations had acquired it partly by appropriating the common lands of the tribe, and partly by the conquest or protection of the weaker tribes that made up their confederations. And if this seems to be but a slender title to so enormous a privilege, let it be remembered that the large landed proprietors in Europe have come by their property in no more regular or legitimate a fashion. Until the establishment of the Copyhold Commission some of the landed interests in England were quite as divergent from modern ideas as _lala_. Yet, among those who advocate that property in land should be transferred from the landlord to the State, there are few who propose to make the change except upon the basis of fair compensation to the landlords. It is a recognized principle of modern legislation that whenever a class has acquired certain rights by prescription, no measure injuriously affecting such rights shall be enacted without fair compensation. Policy as well as justice made it incumbent upon the British Government to confirm in their ancient rights the chiefs who had voluntarily ceded their country.

But the attempt to reduce these rights to written law was most unfortunate. Chiefs who were landlords were, at a stroke of the pen, given the right to exact personal _lala_ from tribes who were not their tenants; and throughout quite half the group, the right to personal _lala_ was conferred upon chiefs who were not landlords at all, and had no claim to it whatever. Confusion became worse confounded when the hereditary chiefs were expelled from office for misconduct, and persons of inferior rank were appointed to succeed not only to their official duties, but to their private rights to personal _lala_. Had the question been understood it would have been easy to frame a regulation of limiting the exercise of personal _lala_ to those chiefs entitled to it by ancient usage, allowing each disputed case to be decided on its merits, and to limit the holders of government offices of _Roko Tui_ and _Mbuli_ to _lala_ for communal purposes. It says much for the tenacity of customary law that the chiefs took so little advantage of the ignorance of the government--an ignorance that may be compared with the mistakes made by the Indian government in the matter of the Ryots. The chiefs of the miniature republics of western Fiji have never attempted to claim personal _lala_, and even chiefs, such as _Roko Tui Ra_, who were brought from other provinces by the government to be _Roko Tui_ over people who had never been federated under a paramount chief, have used their powers very sparingly, although they were placed in the false position of having to maintain large establishments on very insufficient salaries.

[Pageheader: _LALA_ RECEIVES LEGAL SANCTION]

The Colonial government has been bitterly attacked by certain European critics for permitting _lala_ to exist at all. Insufficient knowledge of the subject has betrayed them into expressions as inaccurate as they are intemperate. "Slavery," and "Legalized Robbery," are not the strongest terms that have been applied to _lala_, and the people have been described as sunk in apathy and despair under the exactions of their chiefs. Let us see how far these charges are borne out by facts. The native regulations that defined the _lala_ also provided that--"If any town shall desire to commute its _lala_ work due to any chief for a fixed annual payment in money or in kind, and such chief shall have accepted such commutation with the Governor's sanction, the right of _lala_ cannot again be resumed by him. A record of all such commutations shall be kept in the Native Affairs Office." Although many native communities now receive large incomes from rents and surplus taxes, from which commutation could be paid, there has been no single instance of an application to commute the _lala_ during the thirty-one years in which the Regulation has been in force. If the people felt the _lala_ to be oppressive they would not have hesitated to tender the trifling annual payment that would free them from it. There is no doubt that the _lala_ has been pushed beyond its legitimate uses, but always by the chiefs of the confederations. Personal _lala_ cannot be legitimately applied without the reciprocal obligation of providing the workers with food (_vakaotho_), and when the chief neglects this obligation, or uses the _lala_ in the execution of work for Europeans, the _lala_ at once becomes, not legalized robbery, for it is illegal, but oppression. An instance of this occurred before annexation, when, as already related, the American Government had fined king Thakombau £9000 for the destruction of Vice-Consul Williams's house in a fire that was probably accidental. The people of the Tailevu coast were ordered to fish _bêche-de-mer_ for sale to Europeans in order to meet the American claim, but they refused, though they knew that refusal might cost them their lives. For Thakombau they would cheerfully have stripped themselves of all they had, but to collect produce destined for a foreigner was an infringement of the law of custom.

The instances of oppressive _lala_ nearly all came from one province--that of Thakaundrove--governed by a young chief who, having been educated in Sydney, wished to live in European style beyond his means. For abuse of the _lala_, especially in levying goods for sale to Europeans, he was punished more than once by the government. The people who complained against him were those over whom the hereditary right to _lala_ did not exist, and not those who were the natural tenants of his estates. It is a significant fact that although the people have largely lost their fear of lodging complaints against their chiefs, most of the complaints that are made allege wrongful division of money or land, while very few indeed are based upon abuse of the _lala_. The commission appointed in 1893 to inquire into the causes of the decrease of the natives went very fully into these charges, and reported that throughout the largest portion of the group, no real discontent existed, and that in those provinces where the chief had influence enough to abuse the _lala_, the reported discontent was rather in the nature of grumbling at the inexorable regularity of the call for tax and communal work than at the chief's _lala_, for punctual recurrence is peculiarly abhorrent to the desultory mind of the Fijian. These murmurs, which are not thought worthy of being formulated in complaints, naturally reach the ears of the resident Europeans, to whom they are given as excuses for broken promises, and for disinclination to work. The fact is that _lala_ by a hereditary chief, unless pushed to great excess, is not considered a hardship by a Fijian. And seeing how lately the chiefs enjoyed absolute power, and how the temptations laid in their way by the introduction of money have increased, it is surprising how little they have abused their power. It is unreasonable to expect from them an entire freedom from errors which are not unknown in our own civilized society, where the rich take advantage of the poor, the strong of the weak, the shrewd of the simple.

[Pageheader: SPOLIATION SANCTIONED BY CUSTOM]

Defects are common to all social systems, and at the most the legal recognition of the so-called communal system and the government of the chiefs was a temporary compromise intended to last only until the people could walk alone. The hostile critics of the system have viewed the question solely by the light of modern civilization, holding the belief that whatever fails to coincide with that system must be forcibly dragged into line with it. They have forgotten that no social system is perfect, that in civilized society there are many who own more property than they can profitably use, while others have scarcely enough to maintain existence. Our own system is in a process of transition. Our upper classes, formerly basing their claim of rank upon the purity of their descent, now rely upon the possession of wealth. The relations of master and servant having passed from slavery to wage-earning, are now in the first stage of evolution from wage-earning to profit-sharing. The system may some day reach perfection, perhaps in the direction of state socialism, but it is not in its present state a model upon which the Fijian should be made to mould itself.

Two examples of spoliation recognized by customary law should here be cited, because though they are "robbery" legalized by the law of custom (albeit unlawful in the eye of the government), it has never occurred to any one of the victims to seek redress. The first was exercised by what is known as the right of the _vasu_ which has its origin in the peculiar marriage laws of the Fijians. Every Fijian was said to be _vasu_ to the clan of his mother, and in theory had a lien over all the property of her family, but of course only the sons of women of high rank would dare to claim such a right, though low-born _vasus_ could always count upon a welcome at the hands of their cousins. To the rights of the _vasu levu_ (great _vasu_), _e.g._ the son of the reigning chief's daughter or sister who was royal on both sides, there was practically no limit. He might ransack the houses, sweep the plantations bare, kill the pigs and violate the women without a murmur from the unfortunate dependants of his kinsmen. In this way villages are occasionally swept of everything of value. I do not think that in former days the people felt anything but honour in being so singled out for plunder, and even now, when they are fully aware of their legal right to refuse, the ties of custom are stronger than their new-born love of independence. They give their property with an outward show of good-humour, and vent their mortification in grumbling among themselves, and to the neighbouring Europeans. I remember Mbuli Malolo, who, as chiefs went, had a high reputation for care of the welfare of his people, taking his ten-year-old daughter, just recovered from sickness, for a tour round the poverty-stricken islands of the Mamanutha group. The little girl was led from house to house to point out every article of clothing and furniture that happened to take her childish fancy; and, everything she chose being swept up and carried instantly to her canoe, she left a trail of destitution behind her. Though the poor people knew that I had power to redress their grievance, they made no complaint; they only mentioned the matter to account for their abject poverty. In 1887 I offered to interfere on behalf of certain natives of Koro, thus despoiled by one of the Mbau chiefs, but the natives themselves begged me to take no action, saying that it was their custom to give whatever their chiefs asked, and that their grumbling to Europeans who had given me the information was not to be taken seriously. In this they could not have been actuated by fear of the chief's resentment, for he belonged to another province, and had no official relations with them.

[Pageheader: NATIVES MAY COMMUTE _LALA_]

The other example is the curious custom arising out of the tie of _vei-tauvu_, which, though not due to the influence or authority of chiefs, has also sometimes the effect of stripping a village of all movable property. As already explained, the people of two villages, who, though now widely separated, worship the same god--that is, trace their origin to a common source--are said to be _vei-tauvu_, and have the privilege, when visiting one another, of killing the domestic animals, stripping the food plantations and appropriating all chattel property belonging to their hosts. A remarkable instance of this occurred in 1892. The formerly influential, but now quite insignificant, island of Nayau, on the eastern confines of the group, contrived, with the utmost difficulty, to raise a hundred pounds for the purchase of a cutter. In due course the people came to Suva to take over their little vessel. On the first night out, whether by accident or design, they dropped anchor at the chief village of the tribe of Notho. Under ordinary circumstances they would have behaved themselves as befitted persons of their insignificance, but, no sooner had they anchored than a deputation of the Notho chiefs put off in a canoe to bid them welcome as brothers of the _tauvu_. In the speeches of welcome allusion was made to the old tradition of the origin of the Notho tribe, how, in times long past, a princess of Nayau had been swallowed by a monstrous shark, and how a Notho chief having slain and ripped the monster, rescued her and took her to wife. Her rank being superior to his, her children worshipped the Tutelary God of Nayau, which was a shark, and the two tribes became _vei-tauvu_--that is to say, of common origin. In these poverty-stricken islanders the men of Notho were now to recognize the elder branch of their family. It took a little persuasion to convince the visitors of the full extent of their good fortune, but when they were convinced they made ample amends for their neglect. While the men of Notho sat passive in their huts, they ran riot through the village, tearing down the cocoanuts and plantains, rifling the yam stores, and slaughtering every pig and fowl that did not escape by flight. They destroyed, indeed, far more than the hold of their little vessel could contain, and they left their dear brothers of the tauvu with nothing but complimentary speeches to console them for the famine they would have to face.

Unlike the _vasu_, the _vei-tauvu_ was used reciprocally. The Notho clan cherishes the intention of visiting Nayau, and exacting from their brothers an eye for an eye. But the custom, like the tie of relationship in which it is founded, is already in decay, being incompatible with the growth of modern ideas of property. Had it been frequently exercised the government would long ago have put a stop to it.

The Commission of 1893 recommended the government to encourage the chiefs' tenants to commute the obligation of personal service. In Tonga, on the abolition of the personal right of _lala_, the chiefs were compensated by being made Lords of the Manor over large tracts of land which yielded a fixed rental from every native occupying them, and from every European settler to whom the landlord chose to lease land. The Crown collected all rents and paid them over to the landlord, who, however, had no right of eviction. The tenants held their land on hereditary tenure, and default in payment of rent was visited with distraint instead of eviction. This system was possible in Tonga, because in ancient times the land there was regarded as the property of the spiritual chief, the Tui Tonga, who could thus be made to grant manors to his inferior chiefs without doing violence to native ideas: but in Fiji, where the rights of the Crown have never been insisted on, and the land is for the most part vested in the commune, such a scheme would be impracticable.

In Fiji the time has come for adopting one of three schemes, for the tendency towards the sub-division of the communal land among individuals is growing so rapidly that unless something is done immediately, the government will find itself face to face with a very serious difficulty. Either the tenants should be induced to buy out their chiefs' interests for a sum down to be invested for the chief by the government, or an annual money compensation in lieu of all personal _lala_ should be fixed by the native land court; or in those districts in which land is likely to be leased to Europeans, portions of the communal land should be vested absolutely in the chief in lieu of all personal _lala_, with the power to lease, but not to sell, his holding. The economical aspect of this latter arrangement would be to throw open to settlement on easy terms considerable areas of native land in various parts of the colony, for the chief would eagerly welcome tenants who would yield him an income in money in lieu of the services of his people. While many of the chiefs would gladly accept such commutation, it is doubtful whether the people, superabundant though their land is, would voluntarily part with any portion of it for an equivalent, so slender in their estimation is immunity from personal service. Yet, so tenacious is the law of custom, that for some time after they had commuted their obligation it is probable that the people would continue to give their services voluntarily to their chief, whose prestige would be in nowise affected by the legislative restrictions imposed by foreigners.

At the end of 1898, however, a step was taken towards compelling obedience to the Native Regulations in the appointment of four European travelling inspectors who divide the group between them, and go from village to village, persuading, exhorting, and, in the last resort, threatening with prosecution persons who neglect to comply with the Native Regulations concerning sanitation and the planting of food. It is too early to look for any tangible results from this measure, of which the success must chiefly depend upon the tact of the persons selected for the appointments. But, in so far as it is a recognition of the fact that the people cannot govern themselves, and that it is safe to substitute Europeans for native agents now that the powerful chiefs of confederations are passing away, leaving a mere tithe of their power to degenerate descendants, it may be a step in the right direction.

[Pageheader: COMMUNISM THROUGH _KEREKERE_]

Community of Property through Kere-Kere

The Fiji commoner reckons his wealth, not by the amount of his property, but by the number of friends from whom he can beg. There is no time in the history of the Fijians when literal communism obtained. The tribal waste land, it is true, was held in common, but the land actually in cultivation for the time being, and the cocoanut and other fruit trees were the recognized property of the man who planted them and of his heirs. Poultry and pigs were held individually, and the ownership was jealously guarded, the poultry being marked in various ways to secure identification, and native manufactures of all kinds were the individual property of the makers.

But, while individual rights were thus far recognized, the claims of the tribe and of relationship were so strong as to constitute a lien upon all individual property. A man who would regard the theft of his pig as a deadly injury, and who would resent a stone thrown at his pig as an insult offered to himself, would not feel aggrieved if called upon by communal _lala_ to provide food for visitors to the village, even though they were unwelcome, nor would he think of refusing any of his possessions to a fellow-townsman who begged them of him, consoling himself with the reflection that the gift affords him a claim upon the borrower at some future time.

What the _solevu_ was between tribes, the _kere-kere_ was between individuals--a mere substitute for trade by barter. A man had more salt in his house than he wanted; his more needy neighbours begged it of him. He in his turn, wanting yams for his daughter's marriage feast, has a claim upon each one of them. And so the system works out to a balance. It may be the first stage in evolution from the state in which the proprietary unit was the tribe, or more probably it is the most ancient of all laws of property, and dates from the day when Palæolithic man first found a bludgeon that balanced to his liking. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how primitive society could exist without some such custom as communal _lala_ and _kere-kere_ within the limits of the tribe. So long as there was but one standard of industry and all men worked alike, the system answered well enough; but, as soon as each individual became free to indulge his natural indolence, having no longer the stimulus of fear, the custom was mutilated. The industrious had no longer any incentive to industry, knowing that whatever they accumulated would be preyed upon by their more idle relations. Fear of public opinion still prevents the richer native from refusing what is asked of him, though he knows very well that the recipient of his bounty is too idle and thriftless ever to be in a position to yield him an equivalent.

[Pageheader: THE FATE OF A REFORMER]

_Kere-kere_, which was formerly the pivot of native society, now wars unceasingly against the mercantile progress of the people. One might multiply instances of the resentment shown by Fijians against any of their number who tries to improve his position, or accumulate property, by braving the ridicule of those who would beg of him. In the few cases in which Fijians have shown sufficient independence to defy the importunities of their friends, they have been made the victims of a kind of organized boycott well calculated to deter others from attempting to follow their example. There is the case of Tauyasa of Naselai on the Rewa river, who had a banana plantation and paid coolies and Fijians to work for him. His industry prospered so that he was able to buy a cutter and a horse, and furniture for his house. To the chiefs who flattered him, and the host of idle relations who wanted to live upon him, he turned a deaf ear, obstinately refusing to part with his property. They retaliated by circulating infamous stories about him, and by ridiculing him with the taunt that he was aspiring beyond his station, and was trying to ape his superiors, the reproach that is of all the hardest for a Fijian to bear. The worry of this petty persecution preyed upon his mind so grievously that he took to his mat, and foretold the day of his death. But not even his memory was allowed to rest in peace, for the native teacher who preached on the Sunday following his death, cried, "Who shipped China bananas on the Sabbath?" and then in the pause that followed, he whispered hoarsely, "Tauyasa!" Again he shouted, "Where is Tauyasa now?" and slowly twisting his clenched fist before him he hissed between his teeth, "He is squirming in the everlasting flames."

A native of Ndeumba, who used to make a net income of £250 a year from his banana plantation, and had money deposited in the bank, asked not long ago whether the government would not make the custom of _kere-kere_ illegal, so as to furnish him with an excuse for refusing to give money away. He could only keep his profits to himself by depositing them in the bank and saying that he had none, and who knew whether the bank might not some day stop payment as he had heard banks had done in Australia? If the government would only make begging between relations illegal, he said he would have a valid excuse for refusing to give; otherwise he would always be ashamed to refuse money to importunate relatives. When this was mentioned to some Mbau women of high rank without the disclosure of the man's name, they at once identified him with Sakease, whose niggardly spirit appeared to be notorious.

Occasionally Fijians of the lower classes show real strength of character in their thirst for progress. The province of Mba in Western Vitilevu, having no paramount hereditary chief of its own, had been, for administrative purposes, placed under the control of a _Roko Tui_, artificially created by the government, and one Sailosi, a well-educated man of inferior birth and quite unconnected with the province, was appointed provincial scribe--an office of small pay but great responsibility, for the scribe is not only the official adviser of the _Roko Tui_, but also treasurer for the large sums of tax-money and rents that have from time to time to be distributed. This man did his work very well, and was proportionately unpopular in the province. Surrounded by enemies who desired his downfall, he contrived to acquire property and to live as far as he could in European comfort. He filled his house with furniture and cultivated a flower garden. After several abortive conspiracies to deprive him of his post by false accusation and of his life by witchcraft, incendiaries burned down his house and all it contained while he was absent on official business in Suva, and on his return the people pressed forward with pretended expressions of sympathy to enjoy his discomfiture. He surveyed the ruins of all he possessed without a sign of emotion, and then he said, "It is well; I have always wanted a larger house, and now you will have to build me one." And they