My previous post, Volcanoes and Legends: Part 2, linked volcanic activities on Vanuakula Island, west of Dravuni, to its own legend of Ravouvou and Raluve iVanuakula. My narration of the legend is contained under Legends. The legend has it that when Naitotokowalu’s waqa titi (sailing craft) arrived back on Dravuni, after Naitotokowalu (the vu of…
Category: Dravuni History
Volcanoes and Legends: Part 2
My second posting under ‘Legends’ is: The Tale of Ravouvou and Raluve iVanuakula. Like my first legend, this too, has a connection to volcanoes and aspects of climate change. Vanuakula Island, like all other Astrolabe Islands, is volcanic.[1] The southeast coast of the island, for example, represents the steeper inner wall of the original caldera…
Volcanoes and Legends
I have written about the legend of Tanovo and Tautaumolau (see Legends). The legend has attracted scholastic interest. Two scientific papers available to me[1] have treated the legend as a narrative, conceived by early ancestors (of Ono and Nabukelevu) to explain, in their own way of seeing, knowing and imagining a volcanic eruption of Nabukelevu…
Like the three-tailed comet, the lila balavu also left its impact on oral history
In a previous post entitled, Three-tailed Comet Marked an Unprecedented Early 1800s in Fiji, I demonstrated the connection between major events in the country and their representation in subsequent oral/traditional history. In this case, it was the appearance of a three-tailed comet influencing visual art by way of a masi design in Cakaudrove. The unusual comet…
Solo Lighthouse: Beams light to ward off mariners from its treacherous rocks; hides secrets from the past
Solo Lighthouse was built in 1888. The lighthouse stands on a massive rock surrounded by the circular Solo Reef, also known as the North Astrolabe Reef, adjacent to the Great Astrolabe Reef and Lagoon. The Solo Reef is actually the crater of a distinctive volcanic system, now extinct, and the massive rock in its centre…
Three-tailed Comet Marked an Unprecedented Early 1800s in Fiji
In The village site changed with Time, I discussed “the most infamous cargo brought in by the crew of the ‘Argo’ – being the Asian cholera, which became known as the ‘wasting disease’ or lila balavu to the Fijians. I added that: “The lila balavu reached Dravuni, like it did in many parts of Fiji, and…
Re-Framing ‘My Origin Story’
In my blog: “Re-visiting My Origin Story”- posted on 13.02.17, I had reflected on the speculative nature of the Kaunitoni Migration story that links the settlement of other parts of the Fiji Group back to movements of people from Nakauvadra which is linked further back to Veiseisei and the Vuda landing of the early Fijians….
Re-visiting ‘My Origin Story’
‘My Origin Story’ narrates the first settlement of Dravuni Island by Ravuravu and his clan members. Ravuravu and his entourage started their long journey of land/island settlement from the foothills of the Medrausucu Range in what is part of Naitasiri Province today. My Origin Story does not proceed beyond that point. It ends there. As…
Re-visiting earlier blog post: ‘Livai Veilawa (Senior) joined Fiji Labour Corps – 1917-1919
This is a statement of intent (SOI) to re-visit an earlier blog post: “Livai Veilawa (Senior) joined Fiji Labour Corps (FLC) – 1917-1919” – published on 03/11/11, for the following reasons, viz: (i) to commemorate the hundred years of the FLC that left Fiji for Calais on 19 May 1917; (ii) this exercise is to…
To See a World in a Grain of Sand
The picture of ‘Children on the beach’ used in this blog’s ‘About‘ section carries the additional caption: “Their natural playground and the biggest sand pit at their leisure.” The corresponding text below it tantalizingly introduces the reader to two related experiences that the sand, sand pit and the beach in general conjure up in the…
Dravuni’s Chiefly and Clan Structural Systems in Disarray
New content has been posted to the History page. Dravuni’s Chiefly and Clan Structural Systems in Disarray The shenanigans of the 1931 ‘veitarogivanua’, when the chiefly title was hotly disputed and which echoed the same antics of the earlier ‘veitarogivanua’ (in about 1906), had contributed directly to the re-configuration of the formal ‘icavuti’ (form of…
Livai Veilawa (Senior) joined Fiji Labour Corps – 1917-1919
On an earlier History page entitled: “The unstoppable march of Christianity”, I flagged the return of grandfather Livai Veilawa from France and Italy in September 1919, having joined and participated in Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna’s Fiji Labour Corps or Fiji Labour Detachment. Ratu Sukuna was a great Fijian chief and leader who died in 1958….
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