IDNO

P.99736.VH

Description

F.H. Dufty photograph of sotia of the Armed Native Constabulary standing at ease on at the rara square at Government House, Nasova. They are awaiting inspection by Captain Louis Knollys, who is the ghostlike figure who has been painted out of the picture at far right, and Lieutenant Henry Olive, who has been clipped off the edge of the photograph altogether. See P.4109.ACH1 and P.87219.VH for an unexpurgated view.
1875, less likely 1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

“Fiji Policemen at Nasova, Levuka”, 1875.
“The Guard at Government House. Native Constabulary. Major Knollys. Capt. Olive” [Gordon Cumming’s annotation, JD 6/1/2012]
Men of the Armed Native Constabulary stand at ease on the rara or square at Government House, Nasova, awaiting inspection by Captain Louis F. Knollys, the governor’s A.D.C. (in civilian suit) and Lieutenant Henry Olive, on secondment from the Royal Marines. Standing at attention beside them is Sergeant Tevita Madigibuli?.
Apart from Ratu Seru, the ovisa to the right of the front rank, who is distinguished by his tunic, the men wear their blue pullover jersey type shirts and white isulu, most of them with the serrated or “vandyked” edge designed by Lady Gordon and still part of the dress uniforms of the Fiji police and military forces today. They also wear broad white barkcloth waist sashes, some under, some over their cartridge belts. Some wear batinivuaka boar tusk pendants, and have the muscles of their legs above the knee braced by black vesasausauwai wrappings with trade beads strung to their fringes. Behind them is the “beehive” or conical roof of a centre-poled house of the distinctive western Vitilevu type house, indicating that some of the sotia (“soldiers”) came from there. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003, from record P.4109.ACH1, JD 9/11/2011]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

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

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Captain Louis F. Knollys; Lieutenant Henry Olive

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

1875

Collection Name

von Hügel Collection

Source

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.99725.VH to P.99758.VH were in the belted folder now numbered C539/1/. This was formerly kept in paper archive Large Box G; VH1/4/5. It has now been transferred to the photo archive. The lists describing the contents of this box have been returned to the Paper Archive.

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 4/9/2003]