Fiji village study
pp. 39-40 · Read in the full issue
highlights speed of change
Tradition and Change in the Fijian Village. By Dr Rusiate Nayacakolou. Published by the South Pacific Sciences Associ ation, with the Institute of Pacific Studies. University of the South Pacific, Suva. Edited by Ron Crocombe and Asesela Ravuvu. 162 pp. No price or ISBN provided.
The Fijian people followed a life based on subsistence agricul ture for many years, with grad ual change, right into the 19505.
Then, in the space of only about 20 years, inflation caught up with them, making it necessary
for them to adapt much more rapidly to the ways of the Western world.
The late Dr Rusiate Nayacakolou (he died in 1972) based this work on time spent in three Fijian villages on the main island of Viti Levu in 1954, when the basic wage was about £3 (nominal equivalent of $6 today).
As so much has happened so fast since those times, with the Fijians adopting a much more progressive and aggressive role in the affairs of the country, the book is, in effect, a work of history, although many of the
customs of which the author writes still apply today and long may they do so.
Custom has certainly held back the ‘development’ of the Fijians although it is highly questionable whether all that the ‘developed’ Western world has to offer is really the best thing for the Fijians.
But there is no turning back the clock: the Fijians today are really starting to make a great leap into the 20th century.
Of the three villages studied by the author, two lived largely on a subsistence-agriculture basis, while the third earned some cash from sugarcane.
A comparison of life in these villages with contemporary Fiji dramatically highlights the spread of the cash economy.
Better communications have brought many villages within fairly easy reach of the main centres of employment, and more and more men from the villages catch a bus in the morning for places like Suva, Nausori, Lautoka, Nadi, Labasa, and so on, and return home in the evening.
Their pay packets help to sustain life in the villages, where much of the work the younger men used to do now, in their absence, falls on the women and older men.
Many wage-earners consider that, in the changed circum stances, they should be relieved of their traditional village du ties and, surely, with some justification.
The Fijian traditional society - although appearing ‘back ward’ to those of Western upbringing was, in fact, well organised to meet the people’s needs. Overall, the network of customs made for ordered liv ing, respect for one’s fellow man, and respect for village authority.
It was a life without the ‘mod cons’ considered so vital today.
But it was a life from which, in many respects, the outside world could well learn.
Dr Nayacakolou’s work will stir many memories in people who knew the Fiji of the period.
Mrs Erelia Nayacakolou, the author’s widow made the manu script of this work available to the Institute of Pacific Studies following publication of his
doctoral thesis.