IDNO

P.87254.VH

Description

View of preparations for a magiti or feast involving already partly butchered turtles that have been presented before a chief’s house, with raised, stone-faced yavu and ramps to its doors. Bald-headed Ratu Josefa Celua, brother of Cakobau, sits in the doorway. It is probably Musudroka? sitting at the bottom left of the ramp. The house is unusual for the little “porches” about its doorways, which have not been thatched, exposing expanses of reeded (or in this case split bamboo?) walling. The white man is David Wilkinson, the governor, Sir Arthur Gordon’s, interpreter. Two of the chiefs wear ivauvau, or white barkcloth hair-wrappers. F.H. Dufty photograph, Waikava, southern Vanualevu, 1876.
See P.99727.VH, P.99728.VH, and for further identifications, P.99825.VH. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003, updated JD 25/4/2012]

Cutting up of baked turtles for a magiti or feast at the council of chiefs or bosevakaturaga at Waikava, southern Vanualevu, following their presentation. See P.87254.VH, P.99727.VH and P.99728.VH.
Baron von Hugel has annotated this print with some individual identifications:
“Ratu Meli, (Cakobau’s brother) in the doorway.”
(He refers to the bald-headed and bearded chief, who is one of Cakobau’s brothers (though not called Meli), not to the man perched beside him on the ramp wearing a jaunty hat, shirt and trousers. This man probably ‘Nigger Bill’ or ‘Black Bill’ Berwick from South Africa, is most likely a negro sailor or ship deserter “old hand”, attached to Cakobau’s household, which would explain his disregard for and comparative immunity from Fijian protocol. He dates in that case from a time when vavalagi, being of foreign ancestry, were not expected to conform, and indeed were, besides being novelties, useful for their tabu-breaking propensities, which could circumvent much otherwise tiresome and time-consuming protocol. For this purpose they were attached to powerful chiefly households as a chief’s manumanu - literally “creatures”, but meaning “pets”).
“Ratu Luki, Roko /Tui Nadroga”
(Ratu Luke Nakulanikoro, Rokotui Nadroga, is the bald-headed, bearded chief sitting side on at centre).
“Samesoni”
(Sitting immediately behind Ratu Luke, squinting towards the camera). [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, updated by Fergus Clunie 25/4/2012]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto paper.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; South Vanua Levu; Waikava; Fawn Harbour

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Ratu Josefa Celua; Samesoni; Ratu Luke Nakulanikoro; Ratu Meli; David Wilkinson; ?Musudroka

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

November 1876

Collection Name

von Hügel Collection

Source

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.87222.VH to P.87277.VH were found loose in the Museum’s paper archive envelope, VH1/4/7, which has now been re-numbered C512/.

Named Person: An obituary notice for William Berwick is published in Page 1 Column 4, Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 221, 14 November 1903, Page 1.
"On the 10th October (says the Polynesian 'Gazette') one of Fiji's oldest residents died, in the person of Mr William Berwick, at the age of 86 years. The deceased was born a slave on a plantation in one of the Southern States of America in the year 1817. When quite a lad he ran away, and got aboard a ship bound for Berwick-on-Tweed, whereupon he took the name he bore. He was afterwards engaged on a whaling ship in the South Pacific. This ship was wrecked in the Samoan Group. He left Samoa some 50 years ago and came to Fiji. King Cakobau made a contract with Berwick that he would give him one of his daughters for a wife on condition that he would become his slave for seven years. This contract Berwick fulfilled. On the advent of the cotton-planters he became interpreter in all transactions with English-speaking people. Berwick claimed large tracts of land from the late King Cakobau but the commissioner disallowed a great deal of his claims." [Source: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/, JD 30/4/2012]

Named Person: William Berwick, who married Mariani? Sivawalitu and had one son Samuel Berwick in 1863. [reference [S4026] Fiji General Marriage 1896/45 Berwick and O'Connor.]

MAA Exhibition: The original print was displayed in Chiefs and Grovernors: Art & Power in Fiji, May 2013 - April 2014. [JD 20/04/2014]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [A Nadin, 10/9/2003]