I am i-Taukei Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

I

 am i-Taukei. I am a native of the islands of Fiji, a group that is purported to belong to the Melanesian. Take a walk around our cities, however, and one can quickly encounter various colors of the human rainbow. As diverse as the racial mix are the languages spoken here. You will encounter the Queen’s English, as compared to the local version (“set tiko”), French as well as Hindi, albeit Fiji-Hindi, together with some lesser-spoken dialects. But before I digress, let me give you a brief history of our people.

In the year 1874, our nation was ceded to Great Britain via the signing of the historical Deed of Cession in Levuka, which served as the capital before it was moved to Suva. The young colony quickly tried to adopt a lot of the way of life of its rulers.

Education was introduced via the work of Wesleyan Methodist missionaries who also successfully transcribed (with the help of some locals) the Holy Bible into Fijian and also in the process established the scripts, which were to be the foundation for the Fijian alphabet. The proliferation of education via the Church meant that young men (for ours is a patriarchal society) could learn to read and write and, further, spread the Word of God. Missionary work was not always met with success, however, as is evident from the massacre in Navatusila of the missionary Thomas Baker.

As recently as 70 years ago, tribal wars were common fare for some areas in Fiji and one can find references to cannibalism in our recent past. One has to fully appreciate our dark history to even begin to comprehend the task that the early missionaries were burdened with. They had come in at a time when tribal warfare was still the norm, where it was common to eat prisoners of war, when one could die simply because of a misunderstanding of tribal custom. Yet on they went, risking life and limb on their sojourns into the interior of the main island Viti Levu or into the outlying islands.

So it goes without saying that the nation has a lot to be grateful to the Church for. Firstly, the establishment of the Fijian alphabet, the founding of basic education systems, and also the spiritual awakening of its people.

The advent of ‘civilisation,’ as we know it, mirrored closely the progress of the Church in spreading Christianity and its ideals to the locals. Certain places were harder to convert, with chiefs hesitant to give up their traditional gods for a foreign one. But as is sometimes quoted ‘The only constant thing in life is change’. And change we slowly did.