“A chief holds his lands under precisely the same tenure, as head of his family, and his personal rights attain only to the land pertaining to his family, in which right every member of his family shares so far as on any portion of the land. But the chief is also head of his tribe, and, as such, certain rights to the whole lands of the tribe appertain to him. The tribe is a family, and the chief is the head of the family.
“The families of a tribe maintain the chief. In war they give him their services, and follow him to the fight. In peace they supply him with food. In this way, the whole tribe attains a certain collective interest in all the lands held by each family; and every parcel of land alienated contracts the source whence the collective tribal support of the chief is drawn. From this complicated tenure it is clear that the alienation of land, however large or small the tract, can be made valid only by the collective act of the whole tribe, in the persons of the ruling chief and the heads of families. Random and reckless land transactions under these circumstances would be simply another seizure of Naboth’s vineyard, for which the price of blood would inevitably have to be paid.”
Another cause of misunderstanding lies in a peculiar attachment which the Fijian has to the soil. When he sells a piece of land, it is an understood thing between the buyer and seller that the latter shall have the exclusive right of working on the ground, that none but he shall be employed to till the ground, or build houses upon it. The white settlers who understand the customs of the natives have accepted the condition, and find that it answers tolerably well. Those who are unacquainted with native ideas have often suffered severely for their ignorance, and, when they have brought a gang of their own workmen to put up a house on the newly purchased land, have been fairly driven out by armed parties of natives.
Mr. Pritchard narrates an amusing anecdote, which illustrates the working of this principle. A missionary had purchased some land according to the code of laws which had been agreed upon by the native chiefs and the colonists; all the natives who belonged to the family having been consulted, and agreed to the purchase. As a matter of course, they expected that the work of clearing the ground and building the house would be given to them. Being ignorant of this custom, the purchaser took some of his own people, but was immediately surrounded by a body of armed savages, who flourished their clubs and spears, and frightened him so much that he retreated to his boat, and made off. When he was well out of range, all those who had muskets fired them in the direction of the boat, as if to show that their intention was not to kill but merely to intimidate.
It will be seen from the foregoing passages, that the whole government of Fiji is a repetition of one principle, namely, that of the family. The head of a family is the nominal possessor of the land. All the members of the family use the land, and support their head, as a return for the use of the land. Districts again are considered as families, the chief being the head, and being supported by the district. The king, again, is considered as the father of all the chiefs, and the nominal owner of all the land in his dominions, and he is therefore entitled to be supported by the taxation which has been described. Practically, however, he has no more right to land than any other head of a family.
From the preceding observations the reader may see that a definite code of etiquette prevails among the Fiji islands. Indeed, there is no part of the world where etiquette is carried to a greater extent, or where it is more intimately interwoven with every action of ordinary life. If, for example, one man meets another on a path, both having, as usual, their clubs on their shoulders, as they approach each other they lower their clubs to their knees, as a token that they are at peace, and pass on. Retaining the club on the shoulder would be equivalent to a challenge to fight.
The leading characteristic of this code of etiquette is the reverence for the chief, a reverence which is carried to such a pitch, that in battle a chief sometimes comes out unhurt simply because his opponents were so much awe-stricken by his rank that they did not dare to strike him. Each superior therefore partakes of the chiefly character as far as his inferiors are concerned, and expects the appropriate acknowledgments of rank.
This extraordinary reverence is carried so far that it has invented a language of etiquette, no one with any pretensions to good breeding speaking in ordinary language of a chief, of a chiefs head or limbs, of a chiefs dress, or indeed of any action performed by a chief, but supplying a paraphrastic and hyperbolical phraseology, of which our own court language is but a faint shadow. The Tama, which has before been mentioned, is the right of a chief, and is therefore uttered by men of inferior rank, not only when they meet the chief himself, but when they come within a certain distance of his village. So elaborate is this code of ceremony that, discourteous as it might be to omit the Tama when due, it would be thought doubly so to utter it on occasions when it was not due. For example, the Tama is not used toward the close of the day, or when the chief is either making a sail or watching a sail maker at work; and if the Tama were uttered on any such occasion, it would be resented as an insult.
Passing a superior on the wrong side, and sailing by his canoe on the outrigger side, are considered as solecisms in manners, while passing behind a chief is so deadly an insult that the man who dared do such a deed would run the risk of getting his brains knocked out on the spot, or, if he were a rich man, would have to pay a very heavy fine, or “soro,” by way of compensation. The reason of this rule is evident enough. The Fijian is apt to be treacherous, and when he attacks another always tries to take him unawares, and steals on him, if possible, from behind. It is therefore a rule, that any one passing behind a superior is looked upon as contemplating assassination, and makes himself liable to the appropriate penalty.
If a man should meet a chief, the inferior withdraws from the path, lays his club on the ground, and crouches in a bent position until the great man has passed by. If, however, the two men should be of tolerably equal rank, the inferior merely stands aside, bends his body slightly, and rubs the left arm with the right hand, or grasps his beard and keeps his eyes fixed on the ground.