IDNO

P.87218.

Description

“Captain Knollys and Native Police Officers, Levuka”.
Captain Louis F. Knollys, 32nd Light Infantry, turaganivalu (“warlord”) and field commander of government forces during the Vitilevu highland war of 1876, with assorted ovisa (officers) and sotia (“soldiers”) of the Armed Native Constabulary, posing by a stack of muzzle-loading Enfield rifles on the rara or square at Government House, Nasova, Ovalau, or possibly at their Waitovu barracks. ?Sergeant Tevita Madigibuli standing at left. The men wear their blue issue pullover jersey type shirts and white isulu skirts with either leather cartridge belts or fringed white barkcloth waist sashes. At least three have the muscles of their legs beneath the knee braced by black vesasausauwai wrappings with beaded fringes, and two wear batinivuaka boar tusk pendants. Their isulu have the serrated or “vandyked” edge introduced by Lady Gordon and still extant in the dress uniform of their successors in the Fiji army and police. Ratu Seru, the ovisa at right, distinguished by his tunic, has a Snider-Enfield breechloader across his knees. In the left background is a centre-poled "beehive" or conically-roofed house characteristic of western Vitilevu, indicating that some of the sotia hailed from there. 1876. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Near Levuka; ?Nasova; ?Waitovu

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Captain Louis F. Knollys; ?Sergeant Tevita Madigibuli; Ratu Seru

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Date

circa 1876

Collection Name

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.87203 to P.87221 were in the Museum’s paper archive envelope, OA2/5/12, which has now been re-numbered C511/.

Related Image: This commercial photograph appears more than once in the MAA Collections. There is no original negative. [JD 30/12/2011]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [A. Nadin, 2/7/2003]