IDNO

P.99825.VH

Description

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 ClunieJD 25/4/2012]

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, from record P.87254.VH, JD 26/11/2011]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

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.99759.VH to P.99825.VH were in the belted folder now numbered C539/2/. 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.

Related Image: This commercial photograph appears more than once in the MAA Collections. There is no original negative. [JD 26/11/2011]

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