Ratu Ifereimi returns home
A welcome ceremony prepared for a chief of Sawani Village in 1985 was not one that would be easily forgotten, an article in The Fiji Times on July 21 that year said.
The event was held to welcome back home 76-year-old Ratu Ifereimi Camaisala Raicebe, who had travelled to Australia to visit his son.
Ratu Ifereimi, however, was unaware of the elaborate ceremony villagers had prepared for him.
Young women in floral dresses ran along a winding road swirling crude flags of red, green, yellow and blue.
About 100 metres behind them, six men raced after them.
The runners were performing the ‘cere’ ceremony to herald the return of their chief.
The rest of the villagers waited patiently under rain threatening skies.
He was scheduled to arrive at the village about 2pm, but his trip was delayed by an hour.
Ushered under a shade draped in coconut fronds, Ratu Ifereimi sat on a chair to accept the traditional welcome.
Overcome with emotion, he said he was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the welcome given to him.
It was the first time Ratu Ifereimi had been away from his village for so many days.
The welcome then continued, and with it began the incessant swishing of the yaqona bowl.
Ratu Ifereimi talked about his trip and of an
“incurable” disease he had caught in Australia.
“No medicine could cure me,” he said.
He was homesick! Some of the women wept as Ratu Ifereimi spoke of how much he missed his people while he was away in Australia.
As village men punctuated the rounds of grog with thudding claps, women from neighbouring villages ran on to the village green to perform a number of meke.
The women, decorated in necklace strung out of the flowers of banana, and bracelets and belts of leaves, swayed in unison to songs floating across the village from a cluster of villagers sitting on the edge of the green.
As one meke came to an end, a colourful scene unravelled from one of the homes of the village green where women clutching a long piece of brightly coloured ‘sulu’ material winded their way to the meke performers and laid it before them as a gift of appreciation for their dance.
The group of performers had come from neighbouring villages to welcome Ratu Ifereimi back.
The villagers were all from one clan.
Throughout the celebrations Ratu Ifereimi sat smiling and over and over said “Vinaka, Vinaka, Vinaka,” as rows of performers kept coming and going from the green.
Yards of material kept unfurling on the green each time a new ‘meke’ was performed.
The occasion had begun as a solemn affair, but the women turned it into a jovial afternoon with all their tittering and giggle during the rejoicing.
As the sun began to set, the villagers prepared for a big feast to end the eventful day.
Of course, the yaqona
bowl swished relentlessly long into the night.