The Nakorowaiwai killings Part 2
AFTER Koroi i Latikau from Lasakau, Bau was murdered in Vatukaloko, Ra by Vudanakaukau, his right hand which had a tattoo, was sent back to Ratu Seru Cakobau as a proof of his demise.
His death was immediately avenged and the village of Nakorowaiwai became an instant target of anger and retribution. There was an immediate outpouring of support for a "military" response.
While this was going on, a government vessel, the Marie Louise, was within the coast of Ra. It was on its way back from an encounter with angry settlers along the Ba River.
The ship was full of Fijian troops, mostly men from Moturiki, commanded by a Major Fitzgerald.
Ra planters, R. B. Leefe and Warden, then pleaded for intervention from Major Fitzgerald so the Marie Louise was anchored near Togovere Village on the coast.
All the troops got off the boat and marched to Togovere. Here they waited while a messenger was sent inland, requesting the villagers to give up the murderer - Vudanakaukau.
The only reply was a war challenge - the troops would find hot cannibal ovens waiting for them.
Ratu Isikeli Tabakaucoro - the Roko Tui Viwa, Robert Swanston - Cakobau's Minister of Native Affairs and Major Fitzgerald had a war council meeting on board the Marie Louise.
This is what Swanston later wrote in a letter to Cakobau: “It is … our united opinion, should the troops be moved without reducing to subjection the said town of Nakorowaiwai, the lives and property of all the whites in the district will be placed in imminent danger," Swanston wrote.
Mosese Ritova of Navadili, a settlement within Nananu Village boundary, said the people of Nakorowaiwai and Koroi i Latikau himself did not know about the plot by Cakobau.
"Cakobau set up the murder of Koroi i Latikau and used it to justify the attack on Nakorowaiwai," Ritova said, saying this was the version he heard from his ancestors.
"Behind the murder was the plan to forcefully evangelise our people so they could accept Christianity and give up the old religion our ancestors had followed. Because our people did not give in to his
Kingdom of Fiji, Cakobau saw us as rebels needed to be removed from the equation."
But eager to make the onslaught a success, local planters started volunteering to join Cakobau's campaign. Two of them were Tom Burness from Caboni and Georgius Wright, who had recently bought land at Togovere.
On February 26, 1873, in Levuka, Cakobau approved "… the immediate assault and destruction of the town of Nakorowaiwai and the capture of the inhabitants as Rebels-in-Arms against the King's throne and person…"
"…His Majesty also desires all prisoners taken to be sent on to Levuka."
A call for punishment from Bau over Koroi i Latikau's murder was expected, for he was a Bauan.
However, there was outrage and aggression as well among Europeans and therefore the people of Nakorowaiwai were not merely viewed as "disobedient subjects" and "heathen mountaineers" but "rebels in arms" as well.
What happened next can be found in an account by Georgius Wright, one of the vigilante farmers who joined as "volunteers" to help launch an attack against the "rebels in arms".
Wright said Fijian troops, Major Fitzgerald, and European volunteers, marched five miles inland, accompanied by nearly 500 "irregulars" recruited from coastal villages in the province of Ra.
The group left in the afternoon and later pitched a camp on the way. On March 3, they arrived at Nakorowaiwai.
"As the top of the range was mounted, the enemy's position was seen below," Wright said.
"The site of these villages about to be attacked was on a large flat, and consisted of two large towns surrounded by a deep and wide ditch full of water, the inner side of the ditch being surmounted by an embankment of about five feet in height."
The site of Nakorowaiwai is nestled on a flat piece of land at the base of rolling mountains. From the site, one can spot the undulating Nakauvadra range extending far to the east and south.
It is immediately inland from a mountain peak over which the Cakobau's army traversed in their march from the coastal village of Togovere to their vantage point atop Nakorowaiwai.
Ritova said while Cakobau's army was in Togovere, some elders sent a message to Nakorowaiwai warning villagers to flee in order to avoid being attacked. According to a paper in the Journal of the Polynesian Society (JPS) on Battlements, Temples and
the Landscape of Tuka, by Martha Kaplan and Mara Rosenthal, the Nakorowaiwai people underestimated the ability of Cakobau's army.
The paper noted in the 1870s, the Vatukaloko people were a small clan whose territory stretched from their ancestral homestead in the Nakauvadra mountain range down to the coast where Drauniivi Village stands today.
Kaplan and Rosenthal suggested the placement of the two bastions (elevated fortresses) seems to suggest the villagers lacked "familiarity with modern warfare and an inability to defend themselves from the onslaught of European munitions". They said the Nakorowaiwai people were defeated easily because they did not expect an attack from the direction of the high mountain peaks. "Rather, the orientation of the fortification and bastions indicates a construction with an eye towards protection from attacks originating from inland or riverine approach," Kaplan and Rosenthal said. "The fortification of Nakorowaiwai, in configuration and location, conformed exactly to Wright's narrative."
However, there is no evidence of a second village immediately on the plateau as alluded to by Wright.
"Aside from the fortification and immediately surrounding mounds, which were noted as graves by the descendants of those who fought in the battle, no remnant structures or surface features were evidenced on the flat," Kaplan and Rosenthal said.
"Surface pottery was found to be most dense immediately within the confines of the Nakorowaiwai fortification with only very light scatters detected on the remaining surface of the flat."
"It is suggested the second village referred to by Wright may have been, in fact, the site of Vale Lebo, located across the river behind Nakorowaiwai."
Wright said villagers rushed about in Nakorowaiwai while the lali or wooden drums were beaten loudly to challenge the intruders and signal the start of a battle.
Describing the actual fighting, Wright stated the fighting occurred in a single fortified site, adding many of the retreating warriors tried to flee to a second village nearby.
According to Wright: "A helter-skelter rush was made over the stony ground down the hillside, and, with a spring, all of those in the van found themselves up to their waists in mud and water, through which they scrambled as best they could…"
“… after the first village was fired the remnants of the enemy attempted to escape to the other village… but nearly all of them were overtaken by the allies and killed."
Ritova agreed with Wright saying Cakobau's forces moved in on them "from the mountain at Vatunisauka".
"This was done to prevent our ancestors from escaping uphill toward the Nakauvadra mountain range. So from the hills, they set up their guns and bombarded the village and set it on fire."
By midday, the two villages of Nakorowaiwai and nearby Vale Lebo were in ruins. Out of nearly 300 people who were stated to have been there at the time, few escaped.
■ 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 — Editor.