One of the chief forms of mourning for the dead was to lop off the little finger of one of the hands. Few of the older natives can be found who have the fingers of both hands intact; most of them, indeed, have lost both little fingers This act of mourning was confined to the relations of the deceased, unless he was one of the highest chiefs, and the transfer was therefore confined to the limits of the tribe. Like the other customs connected with death, the transfer was irrevocable.
It is to be noticed, therefore, that the only irrevocable transfers were confined to the limits of the tribe. Transfers from tribe to tribe could be redeemed by the ceremony of vakalutu. It often happened, therefore, that the male line of succession did not fail for several generations, and in such cases the original circumstances were forgotten, and the transfer became absolute by prescription. The ceremony of vakalutu was as follows: On a date agreed upon by both parties the original donors came to the house of the transferee
or his heir, and formally presented him with a whale's tooth and perhaps a quantity of native goods in addition, saying, "We have come to make the land (naming it) fall back to us. Akesa ate from it and her children, but now she is dead, and they are dead, and there are none of them left to eat from it. Therefore we would have it fall back." If the representatives of the transferee accepted the tooth, the redemption was complete, but if on the other hand they refused to accept it, the question remained in abeyance until one or other of the parties had brought it before a joint council of the tribe. Under very exceptional circumstances it might even become a casus belli, but as a rule the ground for refusal was, that the property presented was inadequate. For in Fiji, as in Europe, land, like all other commodities, has a commercial value estimable in chattels. The ceremony of vakalutu above described varied to some extent in different districts. In Vatulele and Tailevu, for instance, the symbol of transfer is a basket of earth, and the symbol of usufruct a leaf or a bunch of plantains.
Leasehold (Thokovaki)
HOW RENT AROSE
These holdings were not necessarily farmed by the persons to whom they were granted. There is throughout the Rewa province a remarkable custom of subject tenure known as thokovaki. This tenure is sometimes communal, sometimes individual. It is found throughout the Rewa delta from the Nakelo to the sea, thus including a portion of Tailevu. In the eastern end of Kandavu it reappears again in the form of rent paid by tenants called uraura-ni-vanua. Properly to understand the system it is necessary to glance at the history and political situation of the Rewa people. After the arrival of the Nandoi people already referred to, other tribes came down from the mountains into the delta. Principal among these were the Kai Rewa proper. They settled at first at Mburembasanga, where the land was naturally elevated above the mangrove swamp. They were warriors descended from an older branch of the first Melanesian immigrants, and
they naturally signalized their coming by preying upon the agricultural settlers below them. In this way they imposed upon them the task of contributing to the feasts on ceremonial occasions, and in course of time tradition has it that the Kai Nandoi themselves invited them to cross the river and settle on their lands, so as to spare them the irksome necessity of ferrying quantities of food across the river. By this time there had been intermarriage between the tribes, and land had been transferred to the new-comers under the form of transfer described as dowry. They did not cross the river for nothing. We find the Nandoi lands spread in a deferential semicircle round the holdings of the chief families, showing that the former had been despoiled of all their lands in the neighbourhood of the new settlement. Then the usual process of aggression began. The chief family was strong enough to protect fugitives, and fugitives came to them accepting at once, in return for their lives, the status of kitchen men (adscripti glebæ). Thus probably the most servile form of thokovaki originated. The chief also began to acquire holdings further afield. Like his peers on the highlands of the island, he ordered his newly-conquered vassals to plant him gardens on their own lands, and in process of time as the crops of taro and via succeeded each other in the same soil, the land came to be regarded as set aside for the chief, and as claiming the expenditure of annual labour for the chief's support. Succeeding generations did not stop to inquire how this came about. They had to cultivate year by year a certain plot of land for the chief, subject to their occupation. Another, perhaps the commonest, origin of thokovaki tenure is to be found in reclamation. The swamp was valueless and belonged to every one, but as no stranger could be allowed to settle upon it, the tribe, if they thought of it at all, thought of it as their communal property. The chief had a lien upon the labours of his vassals, provided that he paid them in food, and so it came about that the chief was the author of most of the reclamation. Of the land thus reclaimed he was regarded as overlord, and he could put whom he would upon it as his tenant. We found one piece of land in the very process of
transition. A reach of soil near Mburembasanga was reclaimed by order of the former Roko-tui-ndreketi, and planted regularly by his vassals. In Mburembasanga there was a difference of opinion whether this land was thokovaki, or whether it belonged to the tenants in fee simple. The chief left the question to the tenants, and they immediately chose to have it regarded as a subject tenure, thokovaki. Another origin of thokovaki may be found in the transfer called kete-ni-alewa (forfeiture for adultery). The chief seized the land and allowed the former owners to cultivate it under a subject tenure.
The small coastal islands, being unoccupied for agriculture, were also regarded as the property of the chiefs. These are sometimes found to be tenanted by vassals who tend the chief's pigs or gather his cocoanuts, and this is in a sense thokovaki tenure.
One of the most remarkable features about thokovaki tenure is that the tenants themselves disclaim the actual ownership of the land they cultivate. The chiefs seldom know where their land is. Before the Native Lands Commission the Roko Tui, or some other chief, often asked his tenants for the names and boundaries of the lands over which he was overlord, and if the tenant denied that a particular piece of land was thokovaki the chief asked the commissioners to accept the statement. It happened more than once that tenants gave the name of land for registration in their own name, saying, "We hold the land only on thokovaki tenancy, but the chief has favoured us and says that he will make it over to us absolutely."