FIJI, a British colony consisting of an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, the most important in Polynesia, between 15° and 20° S., and on and about the meridian of 180°. The proper name is Viti as in the name of the principal island. The islands number about g5o, of which some 8o are inhabited. The total land area is 7,083 sq.m. (thus roughly equalling that of Wales), and the population was estimated (1933), 193,238. The principal island is Viti Levu, 98 m. in length (east to west) and 67 in extreme breadth, with an area of 4,053 sq.m. Forty miles north-east lies Vanua Levu, measuring 117 by 3o m., with an area of 2,130 sq.m. Close off the south-eastern shore of Vanua Levu is Taviuni, 26 m. in length by 10 m. in breadth; Kandavu or Kadavu, 36 m. long and very narrow, is 41 m. S. of Viti Levu, and the three other main islands, lying east of Viti Levu in the Koro Sea, are Koro, Ngau or Gau and Ovalau. South-east from Vanua Levu a loop of islets ex tends nearly to S., enclosing the Koro Sea. North-west of Viti Levu lies another chain, the Yasawa or western group ; and, finally, the colony includes the island of Rotumah (q.v.), 30o m. N.W. by N. of Vanua Levu.
The formation of the larger islands is volcanic, their surface rugged, their vegetation luxuriant, and their appearance very beau tiful; their hills often rise above 3,00o ft., and, in the case of a few summits, above 4,000, and they contrast strongly with the low coral formation of the smaller members of the group. There is not much level country, except in the coral islets, and certain rich tracts along the coasts of the two large islands, especially near the mouths of the rivers. The large islands have a considerable extent of undulating country, dry and open on their lee sides. Streams and rivers are abundant, the latter very large in proportion to the size of the islands, affording a waterway to the rich districts along their banks. The Rewa, debouching through a wide delta at the south-east of Viti Levu, is navigable for small vessels for 4o m. The Dreketi is the chief stream of Vanua Levu.
With few exceptions the islands are surrounded by barriers of coral, broken by openings opposite the mouths of streams. Viti Levu is the most important island not only from its size, but from its fertility, variety of surface, and population, which is over one-third of that of the whole group. The town of Suva lies on an excellent harbour at the south-east of the island, and has been the capital of the colony since 1882, containing the govern ment buildings and other offices. On the eastern shore of Ovalau, an island which contains in a small area a remarkable series of gorge-like valleys between commanding hills, is the town of Le vuka, the capital until 1882. The chief islands on the west of the chain enclosing the Koro Sea are Koro, Ngau, Moala and Totoya, all productive, affording good anchorage, elevated and picturesque. The eastern islands of the chain are smaller and more numerous, Vanua Batevu (one of the Exploring Group) being a centre of trade. Among others, Mago is remarkable for a subterranean out let of the waters of the fertile valley in its midst. For the geology, fauna and flora, economics and administration, etc., of Fiji, see comprehensive article PACIFIC ISLANDS.
The Fijians are a mixed people of Melanesian (Papuan) and Polynesian (Tongan and Samoan) elements. They occupy the extreme east limits of Papuan territory and are usually classified as Melanesians. Their dark colour and crisp hair, which is bleached with lime and worn in an elaborately trained mop, combine with the handsome features and well proportioned limbs of the Poly nesians. The chiefs are fairer and of a less negroid type than the people. This negroid type is especially marked on the west coasts, and in the interior of Viti Levu. They wear a minimum of cover ing, are strictly decent and more moral than the Polynesians. They are cleanly and particular about their personal appearance, care little for ornament, and only the women are tattooed. A partial circumcision is practised. The status of the women is also somewhat better, those of the upper class having consider able freedom and influence. They are skilful cultivators and good boat-builders, the carpenters being an hereditary caste; there are also tribes of fishermen and sailors; their mats, baskets, nets, cordage and other fabrics are substantial and tasteful ; their pot tery, made by women, is superior to any other in the South Seas.
The Fijians were formerly notorious for cannibalism, which may have had its origin in religion, but long before the first con tact with Europeans had degenerated into gluttony. The Fijian's chief table luxury was human flesh, euphemistically called "long pig," and to satisfy his appetite he would sacrifice even friends and relatives. Human sacrifices were of daily occurrence. On a chief's death wives and slaves were buried alive with him. When building a chief's house a slave was buried alive in the hole dug for each foundation post. At the launching of a war-canoe living men were tied hand and foot between two plantain stems making a human ladder over which the vessel was pushed down into the water. The people willingly met their deaths. Affection and a firm belief in a future state, in which the exact condition of the dying is continued, are the Fijians' own explanations of the custom, once universal, of killing sick or aged relatives. Cross cousin marriage was practised in parts and there are many features of note in the customs of the hill tribes indicating a strong Mela nesian element. Their code of social etiquette is minute and elab orate, and the graduations of rank well marked. These are (I) chiefs, greater and lesser; (2) priests; (3) Mata ni Vanua (Iit., eyes of the land), employees, messengers or counsellors; (4) dis tinguished warriors of low birth; (5) common people; (6) slaves.
The family is the unit of society. The families are grouped in townships or otherwise (qali) under the lesser chiefs, who again owe allegiance to the supreme chief of the matanitu or tribe. The chiefs excel the people in physique, skill, intellect and ac quirements of all sorts ; and the reverence felt for them was very great and of a religious character.
All that a man had belonged to his chief. On the other hand, the chief's property practically be longed to his people, and they were as ready to give as to take.
In a time of famine, a chief would declare the contents of the plantations to be common prop erty. The system of service-ten ures (lala) on which their social and political fabric mainly de pended, allowed the chief to call for the labour of any district, and to employ it in planting, house or canoe-building, supply ing food on the occasion of an other chief's visit, etc. This power was often used with much discernment.
An allied custom, solevu, abled a district in want of any particular article to call on its neighbours to supply it, giving Iabour or something else in change. Although, then, the chief is lord of the soil, the inferior chiefs and individual families have equally distinct rights in it, subject to payment of certain dues; and the idea of permanent alienation of land by purchase was never perhaps clearly realized. By the custom of vase (lit. nephew) the son of a chief by a woman of rank had almost ited rights over the property of his mother's brother or if a chief's nephew over his uncle's female subjects. In time of war the chief claimed absolute control over life and property. fare was carried on with many formalities, and considerable skill was shown in the fortifications. There were well-defined degrees of dependence among the different tribes or districts: the first of these, bati, is an alliance between two nearly equal tribes, but implying a sort of inferiority on one side, acknowledged by mili tary service; the second, qali, implies greater subjection, and payment of tribute.
The religion of the Fijians was a sort of ancestor-worship, had much in common with the creeds of Polynesia, and included a belief in a future existence. There were two classes of gods—the first immortal, of whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who, though far above mor tals, are subject to their passions, and even to death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes and other ancestors. The gods entered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the issue of every enterprise, but they were not represented by idols; certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which sug gest phallic associations. The priesthood usually was hereditary, and their influence great, and they had generally a good under standing with the chief. The institution of Tabu existed in full force. The rbure or temple was also the council chamber and place of assemblage for various purposes. The square house with an occasional rounded variant is in the hill area associated with a Secret Society—the Nanga.
The weapons of the Fijians are spears, slings, throwing clubs and bows and arrows. Their houses, of which the framework is timber and the • rest lattice and thatch, are ingeniously con structed, tastefully ornamented, and are furnished with mats, mosquito-curtains, baskets, fans, nets and cooking and other uten sils. Their canoes, sometimes more than 1 oo ft. long, are well built. Ever excellent agriculturists, their implements were for merly digging sticks and hoes of turtlebone or flat oyster-shells. In irrigation they showed skill, draining their fields with built watercourses and bamboo pipes. Tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans and pumpkins, are the principal crops.
Fijians have various games, and dancing, story-telling and songs are especially popular. Their poetry has well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is said to be always in the major key. For their feasts preparations are sometimes made months in advance. Mourning is expressed by fasting, by shav ing the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family will reward the compliment; sometimes it is done vicari ously, as when one chief cuts off the little finger of his dependent in regret or in atonement for the death of another. See W. H. R. Rivers, History of Melanesian Society (1914) ; A. B. Brewster, Hill Tribes of Fiji (1922).
A few islands in the north-east of the group were first seen by Abel Tasman in 1643. The southernmost of the group, Turtle island, was discovered by Cook in 1773. Lieut. Bligh, approach ing them in the launch of the "Bounty" (see "BOUNTY," MUTINY OF THE) 1789, had a hostile encounter with natives. In 1827 Dumont d'Urville in the "Astrolabe" surveyed them more accu rately, but the first thorough survey was that of the United States exploring expedition in 1840. Up to this time, owing to the evil reputation of the islanders, European intercourse was very limited. The labours of the Wesleyan missionaries, however, who came from Tonga in 1835, must always have a prominent place in any history of Fiji.
About 1804 some escaped convicts from Australia and runaway sailors established themselves around the east part of Viti Levu, and by lending their services to the neighbouring chiefs probably led to their preponderance over the rest of the group. Na Ulivau, chief of the small island of Mbau, established before his death in 1829 a sort of supremacy, which was extended by his brother Tanoa, and by Tanoa's son Thakombau, a ruler of considerable capacity.
At the time of the British annexation the islands were suffering from commercial depression, following a fall in the price of cotton after the American Civil War. Coffee, tea, cinchona and sugar were tried in turn, with limited success. The coffee was attacked by the leaf disease; the tea could not compete with that grown by the cheap labour of the East; the sugar machinery was too antiquated to withstand the fall in prices consequent on the European sugar bounties. In 1878 the first coolies were im ported from India and the cultivation of sugar began to pass into the hands of large companies working with modern machin ery. With the introduction of coolies the Fijians began to fall behind in the development of their country. Many of the coolies chose to remain in the colony after the termination of their in dentures, and began to displace the European country traders. With a regular and plentiful supply of Indian coolies, the recruit ing of kanaka labourers practically ceased.
The constitution, regulated by Letters Patent of Jan. 31, 1914, as amended in 1929, provides for a legislative council consisting of the governor, up to 13 nominated members, six European and three Indian elected members, and three native members. Mission schools for Fijians have existed for nearly a century. In 1916 an official education department was created. In 1926 an education commission published a Report containing recommendations for increased facilities for native and Indian education.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-B. Seemann, Flora Vitiensis (1865) ; and Viti: Bibliography.-B. Seemann, Flora Vitiensis (1865) ; and Viti: Account of a Government Mission in the Vitian or Fijian Islands (186o-61) ; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (i866) ; H. Forbes, Two Years in Fiji (1875) ; Commodore Goodenough, Journal (1876) ; H. N. Moseley, Notes of a Naturalist in the "Challenger" (1879) ; Sir A. H. Gordon, Story of a Little War (Edinburgh, privately printed, 1879) ; J. W. Anderson, Fiji and New Caledonia (188o) ; S. E. Scholes, Fiji and the Friendly Islands (1882) ; A. Agassiz, The Islands and Coral Reefs of Fiji (Cambridge, Mass., U.S., 1899) ; H. B. Guppy, Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific (1896-99), vol. i.; Vanua Levu, Fiji (Phys. Geog. and Geology) (1903) ; Lorimer Fison, Tales from Old Fiji (folk-lore, etc.) (1904) ; B. Thomson, The Fijians (1908) ; W. A. Chapple, Fiji—Its Problems and Resources (1921) ; Government of Fiji The Colony of Fiji (1924).