4 Leveraging Vanua: Metaphysics, Nature …
71
who would profit from it, but also a particular reading of Fijian history by a range
of anthropologists at the time. In particular, Fison held that the voice of the people
(commoners) represented ancient law “made by the ancestors of the people, who
were their gods,” under which all lands were traditionally owned by mataqali and
were, according to this “immemorial” custom, “inalienable” (France 1966, p. 236).
This ‘version’ of history continued despite the fact that the Commission soon found
alienation of land had been a common practice among Fijians before colonisation.
In the late 1880s the Council of Chiefs revealed “complete confusion among the
chiefs as to the names of social divisions and units of ownership.” Nevertheless,
they claimed the mataqali (the clan-level) was a “firm, and ancient, and understood
by everyone” and to prevent disputes within the mataqali these lands were to be
“subdivided into family land, to be held according to hereditary succession, and that
registration of these lands should convey the legal ownership” (France 1966, p. 209).
Metaphysical systems related to land and property were manipulated on all
sides by elite interests: chiefs, planters, and colonial administrators, leading to the
hybridised tradition that underpins the land system that prevails today. In what France
calls (1966, p. 300) “the classical exposition of Fijian social structure,” it was claimed
that the yavusa consisted of the direct agnate descendants of a single ancestor god,
whose sons became the founders of component mataqali. The Fijian ‘paramountcy
of interests’ doctrine that prohibited further sales of land (although it could be leased)
was developed on this basis. Gordan adapted the yasana as an administrative unit to
correspond with traditional matanit¯ u, the major socio-political confederations (see
Routledge 1985). So, the land remained with the clan, under hierarchical chieftainship, though increasingly turned toward commercial usage, shifting from subsistence
agriculture and household production to those more amenable to foreign commercial
and imperial interests. Demarcating ownership through the mataqali meant larger
tracts of land could be leased, something of keen importance to both the planters and
commercial interests of the Crown. Regardless of whether this was in accordance
with traditional Fijian life or not, this view became the bedrock of hybridisation of
land, tradition, and ongoing native title. By 1914, the Governor could threaten that if
mataqali or tokatoka (family unit that are part of a mataqali) did not appear before
the Native Lands Commission it would be considered landless, and land without
such an owner would become government owned (France 1966). In the end, rather
than attempting to discover the ‘traditional’ system of land ownership, the commission simply constructed one by cherry-picking that most suited for its purposes,
and then sought going about recording the mataqali boundaries. This system has
since become “hallowed and sacrosanct,” “a protective device” of the “Fijian ethos”
though it “depends less on its historical accuracy than on its social significance”
(France 1966, p. 312). For Walter (1978, p. 351), this is a dual system, imposed
by a “simplified., administratively modelled organisation… at considerable variance
locally with the pre-existing version”. The fact that the constitutional crises of 2009
reaffirmed this system, only seeking to clarify land boundaries is telling (see Fijian
Government 2010).
To this date, the customary systems of land tenure are perceived as a hindrance
to ‘development’ (economic) championed by neoliberal and Eurocentric logics that
71
who would profit from it, but also a particular reading of Fijian history by a range
of anthropologists at the time. In particular, Fison held that the voice of the people
(commoners) represented ancient law “made by the ancestors of the people, who
were their gods,” under which all lands were traditionally owned by mataqali and
were, according to this “immemorial” custom, “inalienable” (France 1966, p. 236).
This ‘version’ of history continued despite the fact that the Commission soon found
alienation of land had been a common practice among Fijians before colonisation.
In the late 1880s the Council of Chiefs revealed “complete confusion among the
chiefs as to the names of social divisions and units of ownership.” Nevertheless,
they claimed the mataqali (the clan-level) was a “firm, and ancient, and understood
by everyone” and to prevent disputes within the mataqali these lands were to be
“subdivided into family land, to be held according to hereditary succession, and that
registration of these lands should convey the legal ownership” (France 1966, p. 209).
Metaphysical systems related to land and property were manipulated on all
sides by elite interests: chiefs, planters, and colonial administrators, leading to the
hybridised tradition that underpins the land system that prevails today. In what France
calls (1966, p. 300) “the classical exposition of Fijian social structure,” it was claimed
that the yavusa consisted of the direct agnate descendants of a single ancestor god,
whose sons became the founders of component mataqali. The Fijian ‘paramountcy
of interests’ doctrine that prohibited further sales of land (although it could be leased)
was developed on this basis. Gordan adapted the yasana as an administrative unit to
correspond with traditional matanit¯ u, the major socio-political confederations (see
Routledge 1985). So, the land remained with the clan, under hierarchical chieftainship, though increasingly turned toward commercial usage, shifting from subsistence
agriculture and household production to those more amenable to foreign commercial
and imperial interests. Demarcating ownership through the mataqali meant larger
tracts of land could be leased, something of keen importance to both the planters and
commercial interests of the Crown. Regardless of whether this was in accordance
with traditional Fijian life or not, this view became the bedrock of hybridisation of
land, tradition, and ongoing native title. By 1914, the Governor could threaten that if
mataqali or tokatoka (family unit that are part of a mataqali) did not appear before
the Native Lands Commission it would be considered landless, and land without
such an owner would become government owned (France 1966). In the end, rather
than attempting to discover the ‘traditional’ system of land ownership, the commission simply constructed one by cherry-picking that most suited for its purposes,
and then sought going about recording the mataqali boundaries. This system has
since become “hallowed and sacrosanct,” “a protective device” of the “Fijian ethos”
though it “depends less on its historical accuracy than on its social significance”
(France 1966, p. 312). For Walter (1978, p. 351), this is a dual system, imposed
by a “simplified., administratively modelled organisation… at considerable variance
locally with the pre-existing version”. The fact that the constitutional crises of 2009
reaffirmed this system, only seeking to clarify land boundaries is telling (see Fijian
Government 2010).
To this date, the customary systems of land tenure are perceived as a hindrance
to ‘development’ (economic) championed by neoliberal and Eurocentric logics that