Publication: Oceania
Publication Date: 01-SEP-05
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Abramson, Allen
Article Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
On the evening of the 28th June 1875, at the start of the return leg of his collector's journey to the interior of Viti Levu island, the Baron Anatole von Htigel arrived in the large chiefdom of Serea (Roth and Hooper 1990:39ff.). A chicken was killed for his feast, a warrior-like meke (dance) was organised in his honour, and a huge yaqona (i.e. kava) plant uprooted and brought into the village. The Baron describes how 'the great yaqona root was then carded by two crouching attendants from the back of the house and respectfully laid before me' (Roth and Hooper 1990:41). His herald touched and accepted the yaqona root on his behalf. A semi-circle of young men then masticated bits of the root, handing balls of the substance to an 'officiator' who, then, mixed the yaqona with water. Accompanied by much chanting, gesticulating and bodily swaying, the Baron was served the first drink. His herald was served the next drink, the bowl of which he sent spinning along the mat towards the tanoa (a large serving bowl). All of the men were then served their yaqona in order of rank.
One hundred and one years and one month later, I pitched up in the same chiefdom to carry out my fieldwork. This stay in Serea began with my installation at the sacred top of the yaqona ceremony in the chief's house (Abramson 1993). And, mastication of the yaqona apart, (this being a practice prohibited on hygienic grounds by the former colonial administration), and with the more frequent use of powdered rather than fresh yaqona nowadays, the ritual was to all intents and purposes the same as that held for the Baron in 1875.
On the basis of this observation, it is tempting to conclude that yaqona use in Fiji has remained essentially stable over one hundred years. This conclusion would be erroneous. Rather, in the chiefdoms, farmsteads, hotels and towns of Fiji significant changes in yaqona's meaning and application have occurred. Thus, the chiefly ceremonial described above derives from an older priestly usage, whilst this same chiefly yaqona has itself been adapted over the long term in quite different ways by contemporary sorcerers (purportedly) and by healers (demonstrably). Moreover, throughout the Fijian tourist industry, yaqona ceremonies that bear only a tenuous relation to those organised for the Baron and myself in our respective centuries are regularly put on for tourists. It seems, therefore, that yaqona meaning and use is significantly unstable across a range of contexts in spite of the observation that, in one particular ceremonial context, at least, familiar rites deliver an enduring core of meanings and procedures.
Theoretically speaking, this finding strengthens both of the main anthropological discourses on the history of Oceanic cultural practices: or, at least, lends support to some of their respective elements. Thus, in dwelling upon the purposeful modification of yaqona practices by sorcerers, healers and hoteliers, the observation ethnographically re-captures and re-affirms the creative agency that ethnic Fijians routinely exercise over their Fijianness. Such creativity is often brought to bear symbolically in the 'novel articulation' of forms like Fijian yaqona when it is re-fashioned and used as 'an emblematic custom' (Thomas 1993:868) to culturally counter the objectifying stereotypes of competing ethnic neighbours (Linnekin 1990). This finding also enhances the work of Borofsky (1987), Linnekin and Poyer (1990), Jolly (1982, 1992) and Thomas (1992). In such complex, asymetrical circumstances, ethnic identity and cultural difference are carefully re-invented by Fijians and other indigenous Pacific Island groups as boundary markers and symbolic vehicles of their own defiant autonomy.
At the same time, in recovering from inventiveness a core of enduring meaning, this initial finding also sustains the theoretical premise of the centrality of the longue duree. Sahlins (1981a, 1993, 1994), in particular, has productively elaborated this position in a series of powerful studies, as have, influentially, Toren (1988) and Turner (1997) and, with some considerable originality, Pomponio (1990). This considerable body of research brings out the symbolic continuities and cultural constants hidden--and sometimes not so hidden--within changing traditional practices. And, on the strength of this work there can be little question of under-estimating the degree to which manifestly purposeful and creative processes of change in Oceanic contexts are also heavily shaped and constrained by underlying ontological frameworks.
All of which is to say that, at its most abstract level, like the play of grammar in language, structures of enduring meaning have to be understood in terms of dynamic possibility as well as axiological constraint, and as the inscribed limits to a transforming system of thought rather than as categorically inscriptive habitus. Expressed, for example, by Valeri in relation to the pre-modern Hawaiian kingship, the structured tradition was not a '... mere stereotyped reproduction' but a set of '... past potentialities for the present that could be actualized in many different forms' (Valeri 1990:68). In fact, this Hawaiian past appeared in the present '... as a process which invited and legitimated its creative continuation.' Gambit-like on a chess-board, '... it was possible to creatively select those precedents that best fitted changing situations in the present ...' (Valeri 1990:68).
By the same token, it is important to see that the tactical invention of custom in the cause of modern ethnicity lies at the pulsing heart of a specifically structured world-view as well as in the hands of human autonomy and creativity. Thus, ascendant, if not dominant, in Fijian towns, this emerging world view today tacitly assumes the gradual disconnnection of persons from ancestral powers and the objectification of processes and relations that might otherwise cognitively encompass actors and subject them. Moreover, this is a sphere in which, amidst a repertoire of manipulable objects and relations, ethnic symbols and performances are regularly given to slip and slide about each other, before being politically tied down in emblematic contrast. Here, in spite of much practical entanglement and subjective hybridity, actors recruited to ethnic and religious groupings are pressed to view and position themselves as essentially distinctive, progressively bounded, freely active entities (Thomas 1991). And, in fact, freely expressive of their ethnicity, Fijians drink yaqona as a customary practice rather than an alteration of state, achieving quintessential Fijian-ness against the grain of the complex articulations, entanglements and impingements which criss-cross the lived spaces they co-inhabit with Fiji Indians, Fiji Banabans and others.
Consequently, the account describes two heavily signified pathways of Fijian tradition in which yaqona is routinely drunk, each pathway ascribing to dynamic tradition radically different articulations of persons, objects and Fijian powers. In the older of these pathways, ethnic Fijians look backwards towards ancestral sources, and look transversely across indigenous contexts, strategically deploying yaqona to modify their embodiment of clan ancestors and their relations with the mana of external gods and stranger chiefs. Here, yaqona is drunk for or against mana, to alter familiar states of Fijian-ness as intra-culturally derived. Whilst, along the second of these pathways of tradition, looking backwards to their ancestors and outwards towards other ethnic groups, yaqona is prepared within distinctly modern circuits, transforming contemporary ways of being disconnectedly modern and autonomous into modern ways of being autonomous yet loyal to ancestral tradition.
As a result, the argument in this paper has to be that manifold forms of yaqona use appear within imagined worlds as the creative realization of cultural possibility before they further develop--if they do at all--as the inventive product of tactical reason. This is not to say that the external ethnic relations of Fijian-ness play no part in realizing the ritual logic of yaqona use. They do, as is witnessed by the fact that, for essentially political reasons, ethnic Fijians tend to consider the chiefly yaqona rite to be the 'authentic' ritual and for other less collectivising forms described in this account to be derivative and less traditionally Fijian.
Much, though, has already been written of the circumstances (political, economic, constitutional and legal) in which Fijian traditions have been re-invented and instrumentally pressed into service by Europeans and Fijians (Clammer 1973; Thomas 1992, 1993). Here, by contrast, the specific aim is to show how a key emblem of Fijian existence (yaqona) may indeed become a part of this wider ethnic politics but only in the broader context of other ritual transformations of yaqona that, far from being banished by the invention of new tradition, continue to exceed, underlie and qualify ethnicity's essentialist claims.
YAQONA, ETHNICITY AND THE TRANSFORMATIONAL FIELD OF MODERNITY
Tourism is now the largest industry in Fiji and much of this industry is devoted to catering for the cultural tourist. Most cultural tourists undertake a spot of island hopping, make a visit to a real Fijian village, meet a real Fijian chief, purchase a bula shirt, acquire a supposedly authentic Fijian sword, participate in a real Fijian feast (magiti), and finally, always, participate in an authentic yaqona ceremony. To provide the tourist with this traditional package, entrepreneurs invest in the transfer of material culture from the village chiefdoms to the market place, a transfer that aestheticises powerful ritual mechanisms in the name of Fijian 'culture' and 'tradition'.
A colourful leaflet published by the Sonaisali Island Resort, south west of Nadi, in 1998, takes this transfer very lightly. It reads:
Celebrate Fiji's joyful culture. Traditional Fijian ceremonies are a unique blend of the sacred, the serious and plain fun! Much of the time, Fiji's culture comes to you on Sonaisali--local villagers
entertain in our restaurant and perform Mekes (Fijian song and
dance), followed by an authentic Fijian Lovo Feast [which will include a yaqona ceremony, A.A.]. More sensitive to the possible problem in transferring a sacred ritual to a luxury resort, a brochure of the Fijian Visitors Bureau nonetheless assures visitors that: The yaqona ceremony has great significance in Fijian life but is now considered a social drink as well as a ceremony. Yaqona drinking is common in Fijian villages and it is quite normal to see groups of men gathered around the tanoa swapping stories as the bilo, a half coconut shell, is passed around ... All visitors can try yaqona as a social drink ... The Fiji Visitor's Bureau will be happy to initiate you and present you with a certificate of
membership to the "Fellowship of Fiji Kava Drinkers". Unlike the...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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