Page 30 - IB May 2018 Edition

Culture

Drua rises by the children and grandchildren of the
mataisau and lemaki who built some of
Fiji’s great drua fleets spurred renewed
from the interest in reviving Fiji’s sailing heritage.
Dr Nuttal recognised this and with the
help of then president of the Fiji Islands
grave Voyaging Society (Uto Ni Yalo Trust) presi-
dent Colin Philp, fellow geographer Alison
Newell and traditional voyagers Kaiafa
Ledua and Peni Vunaki, they conducted
Sailors from ‘way back’ a research in 2011 to collect, collate and
archive existing knowledge of the drua
resurrect ancient canoe with funding from the University of the
technology The I Vola Siga Vou in full flight across the Suva harbour. South Pacific’s Oceania Centre for Arts,
Culture and Pacific Studies.
Photo: Ilaitia Turagabeci The research — titled The Drua Files:
This is the final part of a three-part series of a dream to revive ancient canoe technology A report on the Collection and Recording
of Cultural Knowledge of Drua and As-
as a cultural tourism venture. It is a story of wonder and pride and holds the answers to sociated Culture — was presented to Fiji’s
the future. Ministry of Fijian (iTaukei) Affairs in 2012
which now holds it in trust.
All that anger and hurt was buried in It was the first time such an exercise
renewed awe and passion for the ocean had been attempted since the work of ac-
when the Uto Ni Yalo was born. claimed anthropologist Laura Thompson
It gave him the chance to reconnect with in 1940 and the report’s authors believe
the ocean and the culture his grandfather it was also the first time such a data col-
By Ilaitia Turagabeci lection exercise has been undertaken by
had died trying to save.
Paki’s dream of the drua died with him Lauans in their own dialect.
FROM the shade of the mangroves at and his kin at Korova did not attempt to Ledua, who hails from Nayau in Lau,
Korova on the tip of the Suva peninsula build another drua. said the drua was the most important
where Jim Funaki once waited in vain for Their only reminder of the grand plan treasure the people of Fiji had to restore.
his father and grandfather to return home, were buildings skills of the camakau and In 1982, during celebrations to mark
the sight of the I Vola Siga Vou brings bakanawa, small model canoes that chil- the Year of the Indigenous People, the Fiji
bitter-sweet memories. dren used for racing. Government, on the request of the Auck-
The pain of losing his father Metuisela The Uto ni Yalo is part of a fleet of land Maritime Museum, commissioned
Biuvakaloloma at sea while sailing his modern Polynesian vaka moana canoes and funded the building of a drua by the
new canoe from Lau to Suva in 1993 and funded by German anthropologist Dieter Pacific Habour Cultural Centre.
grandfather Jimione Paki on another in Paulman that twice crossed the Pacific to A team which included Taniela Bese, the
2006 in his bid to start a tourism cruise the Americas and back advocating for chief of Fulaga in Lau - whose recollec-
business in the harbour of Fiji’s capital ocean conservation and sustainable sea tions of the grand designs of the different
changed his heart about the ocean his life transportation. drua were included in the 1991 research
revolved around. It allowed Funaki to cross paths with - built the Donu Mata, which is now stored
Paki, who arrived in Suva from Moce, traditional voyagers and fellow Lauans at the museum.
Lau, in the east of the Fiji archipelago in Kaiafa Ledua and master navigators from In 1985, Bese was part of a team that
1991 to resettle his family in the urban across the Pacific used ancient tools, including a stone axe
drift from the islands to development and That encounter became a special train- to build another canoe, Nai Matai, which
better education and give his children a ing on celestial navigation. was used during celebrations to welcome
better life, was never seen again when When the I Vola Siga Vou, a canoe built Pope John Paul II when he visited Fiji the
he set sail from Ogea 350km away on on the design of the only Fijian drua that following year.
the gifted saucoko drua his wife’s people, sits in the Fiji Museum, the Ratu Finau According to the findings of the 1991
whom he regarded as expert craftsmen, built in 1904, and with the backing of research, no great drua of the tabetebete
built. sustainable sea transportation expert Dr design (multi-planked vessels sewn to a
His dream to start a cruise business to Pete Nuttal, that training was put to use scarfed keel and of considerably greater
cater for the growing number of tourists and an ancient war canoe came alive. size than the saucoko, drua and camakau
who disembarked from cruise liners for Once the pride of the islands of Lau, built using a single large hollowed log as
some Fiji cultural experience ended with the major shipbuilding and sailing cen- its base component) has been built in liv-
his disappearance. tre recognised across the Pacific for its ing memory.
No one knows what happened to him. fine craftsmanship, knowledge of the Ledua said the building of the giant
Only that he shared the fate of his son traditional drua culture is fragile with the war canoes phased out when Christianity
when he defied traditional protocol not descendants of the mataisau (traditional arrived in Lau in 1935.
to sail in waters declared taboo as a sign Fijian builders) and lemaki (Samoan spe- Early missionaries opposed the build-
of respect for the fallen paramount chief cialist craftsmen brought to Lau in the late ing of the war drua because of the brutal
of the Tovata confederacy of which Lau 1800s) in old age. ceremonies involved in almost every phase
is a part of. The threat of losing information held of the construction.

30 Islands Business, May 2018