Na Cava Sara Mada na Vuna E Vola Kina na Fiji Times nai Vola Oqo? Comments in English: For the benefit of our readers who may not understand the Fijian Language written here. Here are our comments in the English language. This article below is one that seem to blame Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, Fijis first Statesman & Soldier that served under the British Adminsitrator during Fijis Colonial era. The questions that is being asked and articulated in the Fijian Vernacular Language are as follows; * Is the story is indeed true that Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna remove these Fijians off their Land, where are details and evidence of him having done that. * What about records kept at NLTB? What does it say? * Is this article written to justify the actions of the regime and/or dictatorship that ran Fiji from post 2006 coup to 2014? * If this is so, is it a way of justifying their actions? Or were the dictatorship trying to appease their followers by giving them land and framing a story as such? * The robbing of Fijians Indigenous of their identity Fijian Race & calling everyone in Fiji a blanket name of Fijian- Is not this the same tactic the Fiji Times is referring to in this story as they have rightly accused Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna of having committing an act that was not ok during that time of 1918 as Fiji Times claims? Can we as Fijian Indigenous now fasttrack this claim and say, Bainimarama & Khaiyum have also done us Fijians Indigenous a dis-favour by stripping us of who we are as Fijians in the spirit of Fijian-ness? Pray tell us Fiji Times or is your article is one that is just so weakly structured that needs an indepth scholarly research and analysis. For the sake of all our readers, we intend to write a formal letter to Fiji Times seeking an explantion to this. Vinaka. Luvei Viti Team Eso na Veika Me Baleti Keda. Ni keda vaka wilika nai talanoa ka toqai toka ena Fiji Times, eda vaka me keda loma tarotaro taka nai tovo ni kenai volai mai nai talanoa oqo. E vaka me leci kina edua vei ira na noda Turaga Bale ni dua na gauna o Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna. Na cava beka nai kenai balebale eda na taroga? Me da veitalanoa sara taka mada na cava nai naki nei koya ka toqa toka mai nai talanoa oqo. Kevaka e dina na veika e volai toka mai na cava sara mada na kenai tini. Esa na biu tale ga nai talanoa oqo ena Luvei Research Centre me rawa ni vaka dikevi mada vaka matai lalai na vu ni talanoa oqo. Kevaka e baleta na veika baleta na nodra a suguraki laivi oira nai taukei ni qele, ia sa vinaka me na vaka keli mai na cava na vuna kei na veika tale e maroroi tu me baleta na tikina oqo. Karua, kevaka e volai mai na i talanoa qoka me rawa kina ni ratou vaka donui ratou vaka taki ratou na dabeca tiko na nonda matanitu o Viti mai na vuaviri 2006-2014 ia me ilovi sara vaka vinaka. Kenai otioti ga, o keda e dodonu me keda taroga, e vaka cava na kenai mai kau laivi vei keda na yaca ni kedai rogorogo oya na Fijian Race, e na rawa beka me keda vaka tautauvata kei na i talanoa e cakava toka mai o la na tabaka nai talanoa qo mai na Fiji Times? O ni sa kerei mo ni soli vakasama mai me rawa ni volai vaka i vola vei ratou na Fiji Times eso nai le ka laurai cake mai ena tikina oqo. Vinaka sara vaka levu, Admin Team Luvei Viti Research Centre/Projects Read more; At home with Radroni Ilaitia Turagabeci Monday, October 06, 2014 FAR from home in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Ratu Sir Josefa Lala Vanayaliyali Sukunas legacy came to an end. It was May 30, 1958. The man regarded as the greatest indigenous leader of his time fell sick and died on the Arcadia on his way to England. The country he had left behind in the hands of colonial rulers was slowly preparing for self-government based on his work which involved the chiefly system and land ownership. His last visit into the mountains of Ra was to Bureloa, whose people he had relocated with those from Draunaleka and Laba from the bush closer to the Kings Rd in the late 1930s. In this part of Ra, regarded the hub of Nakorotubu which the colonial administration and the self-proclaimed king of Fiji, Seru Cakobau, had found so difficult to enter in the previous century, his death was met with a different reaction than in other parts of the country. They did not miss him. This was the place Ratu Sukuna had emptied of its people of the vanua of Tokaimalo, who included the descendants of Radroni, the warrior leader who led the Nakorotubu army to Vanua Levu in 1846, and his younger brother Luke Waqabuli, the hunchback chief who accepted Christianity in 1865 and opened the doors to the outside world. What happened in the years that followed up to the 1930s almost annihilated the inhabitants of the bush at Bureloa. After Radroni was left behind in exile on the qusi ni loaloa given by the then Tui Cakau, Tuikilakila, in 1853, the Nakorotubu warriors returned to their villages in Ra. But life was not the same at Bureloa, where the elder of the home was badly missed. At Dreketi, Radroni could only lament his misfortune in the plot to remove him from his domain. The Bauan canoes had turned to Viti Levu after he and his trusted soldiers were hosted by the Tui Cakau. His agony and misfortune continued down the bloodline with the butu vanua in Somosomo that removed part of his qusi ni loaloa in 1924. This was followed by the removal of the Tokaimalo people from the bush about a decade later by Ratu Sukuna. When the Tui Lau appeared at Saioko Village on the Ra coast, having spent some days at Bureloa, it was the last time he would be seen there. Bureloa and Tokaimalo historian Ilaitia Galu Bale said what Ratu Sukuna went to do in Bureloa after having removed its people from there remains a mystery. While the Tokaimalo people struggled and were abused by the roadside on the land of the people of Dama, their land, their identity, was protected and hidden from sight by the jungle that had enveloped it. Ratu Sukuna trudged through the dense bush that year and rested for some time at a pond named after an old woman, Salau. The tobu ni Salau, according to the people of Bureloa, is the source of the freshwater fish, the vo. Was it for some soul searching, guilt of what had happened to the people there or for some other reason, we will never know, Mr Bale said. We, the descendants of Radroni, feel that Ratu Sukuna knew he had done our people great injustice by removing them from their home and in the process almost costing them their identity. After his death, his body returned home and with pomp befitting his status as soldier, statesman and Tui Lau, Sau ni Vanua o Lau, he was buried at the Vatanitawake, the sau tabu in Tubou, Lakeba, alongside the fallen leaders of Lau. But the final rites of vakataraisulu, held 100 nights after the funeral, was refused by Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba, who succeeded him. It was over a disagreement with Lady Liku Sukuna. It was then that the Tui Cakau, Ratu Josefa Lalabalavu, the head of the Tovata confederacy, offered to host the vakataraisulu in Somosomo. He directed the Tui Yacata and his people to prepare the lalawa ni mate, an intricate piece of artwork made from magimagi, and specially crafted for the vakataraisulu of a high chief. Four years before that event, Radronis grandson, Akuila Turagabeci, the son of Adi Akesa Lewamotu, the eldest daughter of the Tui Yacata, had returned to the qusi ni loaloa at Dreketi, where his father Timoci Galu, had died a sad man having not been able to see the land his father had so often talked of. Turagabeci, named as his father had wished to tell their story, of a chief now downtrodden in a land far from home, had held the title of Tui Yacata before he relocated to Taveuni. The Tui Yacata and his people did all that was necessary to get the lalawa ni mate, built on the supervision of a specialist from Cicia, ready. A week before the vakataraisulu, the Tui Cakaus qase from Yacata boarded the Kadavulevu for the solemn voyage to Taveuni. The Kadavulevu, which was later lost at sea with many lives, anchored at the boto ni yala, the same place Radroni had disembarked on that fateful day in July, 1853. The lalawa ni mate was taken to a newly-built wooden home close to the track where Radroni was buried the previous century. Ironically its owner was none other than Turagabeci, the man whose people Ratu Sukuna had removed from the bush, people the former Tui Yacata had never seen. Long before this event, Ratu Romanu, the daunivucu of Somosomo, had prophesied it. The daunivucu, one who foretells the future in song, told of a newly-built wooden house that Ratu Sukuna would open. Na vale kava vou sa qai tara Me na mai dolava na gone turaga ko Ratu Sir Lala. On the day of the vakataraisulu, the Tui Cakaus qase from Yacata, including Turagabecis mother, Adi Akesa, carried the lalawa ni mate across the stone-bed river from Dreketi to Somosomo. They set it up in the middle of the village green where delegations from around the country were received. It was a great honour for our grandmother, Adi Akesa, and our father to host the lalawa ni mate in our home, said Mr Bale, one of Turagabecis children. Little did we know then of what this great man had been a part of at Bureloa. Our people forced out from home, on the pretext of moving closer to the road, we believe, was part of his motive which was different than that of Cakobau when he left our grandfather behind on Taveuni. While they were different motives, they had the same results, the removal of the Tokaimalo people and their true identity. Its a sad story and one that anyone, even someone with Ratu Sukunas stature and humanity, would have identified. From the events of the 1918 veitarogi vanua to his death, Ratu Sukuna had almost succeeded in destroying the identity of these people. In the end, he left what could be evidence of his regret on the fate of these people. His vakataraisulu was held in high regard by the people of Cakaudrove who had prepared for it for months, but more importantly for Radronis bloodline, who, at that time, had no knowledge of Ratu Sukunas removal of their kin at Bureloa. He had walked their land before death and in death, he had come to the home of their leader who had been tricked into detouring to Taveuni on the way back from the second war they were sent to at Kedekede in Lakeba. In death, how Radronis kin stepped in to give the fallen chief his last farewell seemed to signify all had been forgiven. The Tokaimalo people had once again saved the day for a chief of a different land. * NEXT WEEK: Different eras, two different motives, one result — the ouster of the Tokaimalo line. * The author has maternal links to the yavusa Tokaimalo from Bureloa
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 05:58:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015