Tribewanted: Vorovoro

I’ve been dancing to the meke for months now and invariable at some point each class a tribie will ask Save, ‘what does it mean?’ Just as predictable as the question, is the answer, ‘I don’t know’. And then the rest of us hazard a guess, perhaps meke one is about planting seeds and bashing down the soil, number five (which until recently was number four {six has been moved back to four and shunted the others forward} must be some sort of introduction and number six (the ex number five) is obviously about spear fishing etc. It was all very vague.

Until now! The other day I saw Save hunting for the Fijian dictionary, which we failed to find, and followed him until he told me what he was up to; translating the meke. I sat down with him and with our powers combined and Te’s passing wisdom we managed to hack some sense out of them.

Translating a meke is like reading Shakespeare for the first time as a twelve year old. Comprehending each word does not equal understanding a paragraph. The mekes are poems, written in what seems to almost parallel ancient English (although every thing I say should be taken with a giant spoon of salt – I write about how it appears to me, my knowledge of Fijian is poor to non existent). It took us hours and many false starts but here’s what we have:

Our mekes one to four are all from the same source and tell one story which fundamentally is the description of a tribe’s migration (hence all the place names). They neither start at the beginning nor finish at the end. Before we begin the tale goes like this: A man in Dawasamu received a message (from the sky rather than in the post) which he had written down. But he couldn’t then translate it. He wrapped it up carefully in a box and set it afloat. It sailed passed the village of Bureiwai but did not stop there. Instead it came ashore in Nabukadra. Here meke one begins.

The people there open the box and are superbly happy that it chose them. They begin to translate it. It’s really difficult but by doing a little bit every day they slowly understand the message. No seeds! The part where we chop left past our eyes is possibly them wiping away tears of joy. The two hands back to the left correspond to lyrics about a book – the classic charades sign. And when we bash up and down on our knee, na siga, na siga, na siga, that is working on and on every day.

Meke two starts to explain the message. It talks to the young men of the village, who should take over the work of their parents; the ‘around the world’ clap perhaps shows that the elders should not be working but just relaxing. Two is hard to explain because it works on both a metaphorical and literal level. It talks of a boat, which represents work, which will cross gentle and rough seas. Our red Indian pose to the left and the right is the wind. The meke says that no matter what you do the sun will set, i.e the day will end, so work right until sun set. This time when we bash our knee at the end it is on the word ‘sitima’ – steamer – as in engine; again referencing the boat but referring to the need to chug onwards, i.e as in number one, to work work work.

Meke three argues the other side of the coin. When we make our eagle flying move it is the sun rising, beautifully, something that could just be watched for hours. The meke is a day, from sunrise to sunset. Vuna in the east (whose headland we show with the James Bond style pointing of our hands) and Kadavu in the west are looked at from a village on the island of Koro. A boat, full of people, follows the sun’s journey. Here the boat represents the need to be a team. In the same way that more than one person is needed to navigate, steer etc, so must humans pull together each day to live well. There is huge emotion when Kandavu is reached, as that is where the sun sets (vaka-loloma is normally a negative emotion, but here the context suggest it should be positive. Perhaps this is a play on words explained by the relationship between Ra, where this meke is from, and Kandavu; they are jokey rivals, always trying to put the other place down). This meke says that life should not be all about slaving away but supporting one another and enjoying each day.

Meke four is a summary of the last two. The narrator asks the men to listen to his message. He already passed on a great deal of wisdom, but has more. If you work all the time you loose track of day and night – we show this by moving our folded arms quickly and identically left and right – tautauvata; they become the same. It ends with the rhetorical question – why is there so much work? It is a question that is answered later on in this meke, but on Vorovoro we end there. Our five and six are from different sources.
Meke five, with a bit of artistic license, is almost possible to translate word for word:

Come and listen while I explain. I will show you my name. I’m a swordfish, the flying eagle and lion. I’m going to kill you.
But it needs putting in context. This is a meke from Tevita’s district, Ra. I asked him why he chose it. He explained that it is about learning the traditional way and protecting Fiji from losing it. He says that if you are a real Fijian – ie like we all try to be on Vorovoro, why he chose it for us – the land itself will help you. In the sea you will be the strongest fish, in the sky the most powerful bird and on land the king of the beasts. Nothing will harm you. But if you do not respect your traditional way of life, if you attack it in some way, something bad will happen to you. You will feel that you are excluded.

Meke six is again a separate meke from another place and the one that corresponds most logically to its movements. We were right about the spear fishing! It is about a man leaning against a lagakali tree as it gets dark, with his wooden spear poised. There is a school of fish below him and he throws it at them, not aiming at one particular one but rather at them all. The meke ends with the sunset and him going home and our dancing finishes there as well.

Vinaka na meke!