4 Leveraging Vanua: Metaphysics, Nature …
67
belonging to the land in space and time (see Ryle 2005, p. 77). For Ryle, vanua
blended with Christianisation, as she writes:
Christianisation entailed the redefinition of vanua, adding the Christian God as supreme
power among the Fijian cosmology of deities, yet retaining most other elements and understandings of vanua as an ancestral shadow-land of place, kinship relations and spiritual power
that exists alongside Christian belief and practice (lotu).
This influence is clearly reflected in the three main ideological pillars in Fijian
society today: ‘Vanua, lotu and matanitu’, broadly translated as “land and tradition,
Church and governance” (Ryle 2005, p. 58; 2010). This metaphysical hybridisation bears the complexities of melding ancient local beliefs with Christian religious
precepts (and of course political interests at the time of colonisation and independence). Christianity proved effective at its missionary work because of its capacity
to absorb traditional practices and acknowledge these within its structure, both theological and liturgical. Here, the ‘message of God’ resonated strongly with Fijian
people in terms of their existing metaphysics of social hierarchy and the derived
notion of the mataqali for land ownership purposes (see France 1966). The latter
was an expression of the military might, underpinning missionary activities that
was used politically by various interests across the archipelago. The predominantly
Fijian/Methodist religio-cultural structure that came into being during the colonial
period (1874–1970) (Ryle 2005) bears testimony to the construction of national or
group identity, along the lines of Benedict Anderson’s (2006) ‘imagined communities’ and, as Ryle suggests, “in people’s minds belongs to a not very distant past and
is an essential part of their cultural and historical sense of identity” (2005, p. 61).
The arrival of Christianity did not just involve a spiritual change but entailed the
contestation of existing metaphysical ideas and rewriting of worldviews. In terms
of spirit, the most significant was the subsumption of animism and polytheism, the
many localised gods and myth-stories, under an overarching monotheism. While
these stories remain, they are being less and less told, and are not seen as efficacious
(mana) though still constitute a strong belief-system (Tomlinson 2009). The older
generations impart these stories rarely to the younger generations, deem them inconsistent with Christian beliefs, and yet they still co-exist—especially the spirits of
Nature in particular places that remain tabu. As Nabobo-Baba so aptly describes it,
Christian perspectives are often associated with Indigenous elements of spirituality
though the latter are less “publicly or loudly declared” (2006, p. 87). Despite their
subsumption these stories hold potential for a better understanding the metaphysical ideas regarding specific phenomena including the origins and authority of social
customs and explaining aspects of Nature itself (Nunn 2001). Indeed, these forms
of spirit seem to adapt to the changing make-up of the community at any one time,
perhaps losing favour and/or mana relative to other temporal actors yet nevertheless
always secure within this cosmology and, in this way, remain the core traditions of
belief that the community may retreat to during crises.
Given the fundamental relation between all three levels (human, spirit and Nature)
in the Fijian metaphysics, the contestation of the understanding of the spirit world
by Christian theology meant a shift in the conceptions of Nature too. For example,
67
belonging to the land in space and time (see Ryle 2005, p. 77). For Ryle, vanua
blended with Christianisation, as she writes:
Christianisation entailed the redefinition of vanua, adding the Christian God as supreme
power among the Fijian cosmology of deities, yet retaining most other elements and understandings of vanua as an ancestral shadow-land of place, kinship relations and spiritual power
that exists alongside Christian belief and practice (lotu).
This influence is clearly reflected in the three main ideological pillars in Fijian
society today: ‘Vanua, lotu and matanitu’, broadly translated as “land and tradition,
Church and governance” (Ryle 2005, p. 58; 2010). This metaphysical hybridisation bears the complexities of melding ancient local beliefs with Christian religious
precepts (and of course political interests at the time of colonisation and independence). Christianity proved effective at its missionary work because of its capacity
to absorb traditional practices and acknowledge these within its structure, both theological and liturgical. Here, the ‘message of God’ resonated strongly with Fijian
people in terms of their existing metaphysics of social hierarchy and the derived
notion of the mataqali for land ownership purposes (see France 1966). The latter
was an expression of the military might, underpinning missionary activities that
was used politically by various interests across the archipelago. The predominantly
Fijian/Methodist religio-cultural structure that came into being during the colonial
period (1874–1970) (Ryle 2005) bears testimony to the construction of national or
group identity, along the lines of Benedict Anderson’s (2006) ‘imagined communities’ and, as Ryle suggests, “in people’s minds belongs to a not very distant past and
is an essential part of their cultural and historical sense of identity” (2005, p. 61).
The arrival of Christianity did not just involve a spiritual change but entailed the
contestation of existing metaphysical ideas and rewriting of worldviews. In terms
of spirit, the most significant was the subsumption of animism and polytheism, the
many localised gods and myth-stories, under an overarching monotheism. While
these stories remain, they are being less and less told, and are not seen as efficacious
(mana) though still constitute a strong belief-system (Tomlinson 2009). The older
generations impart these stories rarely to the younger generations, deem them inconsistent with Christian beliefs, and yet they still co-exist—especially the spirits of
Nature in particular places that remain tabu. As Nabobo-Baba so aptly describes it,
Christian perspectives are often associated with Indigenous elements of spirituality
though the latter are less “publicly or loudly declared” (2006, p. 87). Despite their
subsumption these stories hold potential for a better understanding the metaphysical ideas regarding specific phenomena including the origins and authority of social
customs and explaining aspects of Nature itself (Nunn 2001). Indeed, these forms
of spirit seem to adapt to the changing make-up of the community at any one time,
perhaps losing favour and/or mana relative to other temporal actors yet nevertheless
always secure within this cosmology and, in this way, remain the core traditions of
belief that the community may retreat to during crises.
Given the fundamental relation between all three levels (human, spirit and Nature)
in the Fijian metaphysics, the contestation of the understanding of the spirit world
by Christian theology meant a shift in the conceptions of Nature too. For example,