One of the historical physical structures that remains on Bau Island today used to be the tallest in the village skyline of olden day Fiji.
It is called Vatanitawake or Navatanitawake.
According to the Fiji Museum, the original Vatanitawake on the island was most probably a bure kalou or spirit house, used by Bauan chiefs, including Ratu Seru Cakobau, during the days of ancestral worship.
The rectangular stone-faced Vatanitawake was a seat of religious and secular power and played an important role in religion before Ratu Cakobau got converted to Christianity.
One of the earlier drawings of the bure kalou on Bau was captured in the book ‘Fiji and the Fijians’ by Reverend James Calvert.
This drawing, from around 1850, shows a killing stone, with a human corpse lying before it.
The stone is depicted on the right of the men of rank sitting at the foot of the building mound.
The mound on which the bure kalou was built still stands on the island of Bau today although the bure kalou itself has long gone.
Bau is a small island in Fiji, off the east coast of Viti Levu.
It rose to prominence in the mid-1800s and became one of Fiji’s most powerful and influential chiefdoms.
One of the most comprehensive studies of the Vatanitawake is found in the research by Aubrey Parke titled ‘Investigations of Vatanitawake: A ceremonial mound on the island of Bau, Fiji’.
According to Parke the earliest recorded settlers on Bau Island were traditional fishermen and seafarers who made up two groups referred to as the people of ‘Levuka’ and ‘Butoni’.
The people of Levuka lived on the hill called Delaikorolevu and were also known as Kai Delaikorolevu while those from Butoni lived on part of the flat land referred to as ‘Naulunivuaka’ and were also referred as ‘Kai Naulunivuaka’.
Abrey said the word Vatanitawake (meaning shelf for flags) was built to worship the deified kalou vu named Ratu Mai Bulu.
The Vatanitawake was the mound on which successive Roko Tui Bau would spread their tawake (sail) to dry after a sailing expedition.
In February 1970, the work on the renovation on the chiefly island was carried out through assistance from government.
Ratu George Cakobau, the great-grandson of Ratu Seru Cakobau, was then the Minister for Fijian Affairs and Local Government.
He was in charge of the renovation, which was overseen by a committee including Ratu Edward Cakobau, Ratu Jone Kikau, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata, Ratu Isoa Gavidi, Ratu Manasa Tikoca and the Commissioner Central Josua Rabukawaqa.
In 1968, the LC, on the motion of the former Leader of the Opposition, A.D Patel, approved that the chiefly island be renovated and preserved as a historical monument.
In 1970, the committee was given $10,000 by the Legislative Council to pay for the work on the island.
By this time, the Vatanitawake had long been the meeting house on Bau and was destroyed by a hurricane in the mid-1960s.
According to The Fiji Times on Wednesday, February 4, 1970, timber for the renovation of Vatanitawake was sourced from Lau while the Public Works Department carried out work with the assistance of traditional builders from.
In an article on Friday, April 24, 1970, The Fiji Times reported that skeletons were found by workmen digging the foundation and rebuilding the Navatanitawake.
Of the 16 poles replaced, skeletons were largely found around the main post, believed to belong to prisoners of war or bokola.
Other skeletons uncovered were believed to belong to high-ranking Tongans killed during the Battle of Kaba and were put in post holes.
Bones were found at a depth of about four feet, surrounded by white coral sand.
This was puzzling then because the normal traditional Fijian practice was to wrap bodies in masi and mats and put white sand on top of the grave not around the bodies.
Two metal bars were found buried with the bodies.
The new supporting pillars were prepared by the men of Namuka and a team of 12 men were taken to Bau Island to shape and dress the posts.
Parke made a number of references to the Vatanitawake.
He said it was a place where the the kalou vu called Ratu Mai Bulu was worshipped, it was a mound on which successive Roko Tui Bau dried their tawake (canoe sail) after an expedition.
Parke said when arrangements were made for the construction of the Vatanitawake, Lasakau fisherfolks went to look for a human body to form the base of the bure’s main post.
They repeated the procedure when the large flat stones were placed around the site.
Using large canoes, the large flat stones that faced the temple were shipped from Sawakasa, over 30 kilometres from Bau.
During a fire in 1837, the god Ratu Mai Bulu’s temple of Vatanitawake was destroyed and in 1840 a new temple was erected on the same foundation by Tanoa and his son, Ratu Seru Cakobau.
After being rebuilt, theVatanitawake was not only the temple of Ratu Mai Bulu but also a place for the deity of war, Cagawalu, Bau’s version of Rome’s Mars.
Parke said it was around this time that the new chief, Vunivalu, had become the paramount chief of Bau, after the former chief, Roko Tui Bau, was forcefully displaced.
The same Vatanitawake was later referenced to by Reverend William Cargill in 1841 and Reverend John Waterhouse in 1866.
Rev. Cargill noted that when the posts of a Fijian temple were erected ‘three, four, ten or as many human beings’ that could be made available were ‘killed, roasted and eaten’.
Rev. Waterhouse said in 1866 that a new god (Cagawalu) was worshipped on Bau ‘to proclaim and accomplish a new dynasty’.
Captain John Elphinstone Erskine during his cruise through the Fiji Islands on Her Majesty’s Ship Havannah, penned a few lines describing the Vatanitawake in the Journal of a Cruise Among the Islands of the Western Pacific.
Captain Erskine’s account of the structure was at a time when Rev Cargill and Rev Richard Lyth took him to have a look at the Vatanitawake.
He said the bure was constructed on an ‘irregular square’ mound and its roof was two or three times higher than the walls and decorated with coconut plait and white cowrie shells.
Capt Erskine said the inside of the temple was ‘a cloth screen covered the sanctuary’ and on the ground lay a few neck pillows and an elephant tusk.
The ivory was given by a trader to Tanoa who in turn placed it in the Vatanitawake.
Parke said the Vatanitawake was razed in 1953 and was rebuilt and may have caught fire again in 1954.
Ratu Cakobau was installed as Vunivalu on July 26, 1853.
Editor’s note:
History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too.
Note: Part 3 next week
