| Description |
The five Cultural Protected Water Body(CPWB) Types in Fiji
A total of five Cultural Protected Water Body types (CPWBs) were found to be practiced to varying degrees in Fiji:
1.Funerary protected area
2.‘‘Conception of eldest child’’, ‘
3.‘Meconium’’,
4.Male ‘‘Circumci- sion’’, and
‘5.‘Chiefly investiture’’.
The five CPWB types in both freshwater and marine systems of Fiji encompass the life cycle of an iTaukei, from conception until death (Fig. 3).
Conception protected area (ConcPA)
Anon (1896), reporting on reasons for the decline in iTaukei population, documented that 50% of first-born children died, and the rate was almost as high for the second and third child. This high mortality rate was attributed to stillbirth, abortion (Hocart 1912; Henderson 1931), ignorance (Deane 1921), and women planting and fishing until the day of birth (Hocart 1912; Thomson 1968). Women of noble birth had privileged treatment (Henderson 1931), where the first born, known as dra tabu, meaning ‘holy blood’ (Tuwere 2002), were pampered starting from conception (Seruvakula 2000). For three to eight months, the expecting mother does not cut her hair or bathe, and is prohibited from all chores so as to prevent miscarriage (Hocart 1912; 1952). On her eighth month of pregnancy, she goes fishing, and the catch was used in a feast known as isilisili ni bukete, or bathing of the pregnant mother (Hocart 1912). Deane (1921), on the other hand, reported that she remained in her house until 100 nights after birth, after which she bathed in the river, followed by a feast. Between these authors, only Hocart (1952) explicitly stated that the river was tabu after birth.
Meconium
During labor, the presence of meconium stained amniotic fluid in the baby’s trachea can be indicative of fetal stress and hypoxia, which in the past would require suctioning to remove as it is known to cause respiratory distress and can be fatal (Ahanya et al. 2005). Historically, an iTaukei baby would be given candlenut juice from the Aleurites mollucana plant to induce vomiting of the ‘‘bad drink while in the womb’’ (Toganivalu 1911; Hocart 1912). Normally, newborns will physically pass meconium within 24 to 48hours of birth. Delays beyond this can be life threatening to the baby’s health (Buonpane et al. 2019), which could be the reason why sighting of first excrement in the past was celebrated with a feast. Other than two districts actively practicing MecPA, 150 (92%) never have, while nine have ceased. An example of the latter is Fulaga island in Lau province (Thompson 1940) where the practice has ceased. From community interviews, an elder in his sixties from Koroalau District in Vanua Levu, reported that MecPA was never a practice, despite Hocart (1952) reporting it as being the case in the past. In Naitasiri Province, an interviewee who was 10 years old in 1975, recalled his father explaining of a MecPA being implemented for their chief’s eldest son. Back then, leaves known as culugi were used for wrapping the Chief’s eldest son’s first excrement before placement at sea. That portion of the sea was then tabu for 100 nights. Since that time, the interviewee has not seen MecPA being implemented. One of the reasons provided was conflicts over chieftainship; the incumbent was not installed traditionally, which negated most rituals customarily accorded to a chief. Conversely, a Naitasiri informant explained that MecPAs are occasionally done today but only by those who have the traditional and financial resources. Where it is done, it is referred to as ‘wai ni dei xx’, or ‘water for xx’s meconium’ where xx is the child’s name.
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| Social and cultural significance |
Literature review showed CPWB use in ceremonial feasts which coincide with five life transition periods. Of the five CPWB types, FPA is the most widely practiced across Fiji (Table 2), which is most likely due to deaths occurring every year, unlike Chiefly investiture, which can be several decades between implementation.On the more urban, western side of Viti Levu, CPWBs are rarely practiced. Where practice has ceased, reasons are likely due to high immigration, tourism, Christianity, and modernization of society (Tengo ¨ et al. 2007). Conversely, greater CPWB diversity and extent of practice is exhibited by rural com- munities on islands other than Viti Levu (Table 2), which can be attributed to greater reliance on food provisioning and cultural ecosystem services from the environment (Govan 2009b).
Enhancing food security and conservation
CPWBs have persisted historically across Fiji, with infor- mants frequently reporting high catch rates during harvest events (Clarke and Jupiter 2010), galvanizing its utility to communities in replenishing resources and enhancing food security through increased catches (Carvalho et al. 2019). This may have led communities to readily adopt larger, longer term CBNRM tabu, resulting in Fiji having the largest area (10 800 km2) under community management in the South Pacific with a cumulative no-take area of 600 km2 (Govan 2009b). Despite local harvesting, indigenous managed areas are known globally to be biodiverse, and can contribute to conservation (Schuster et al. 2019). Al- ternatively, some iTaukei communities ceased CPWB implementation in favor of larger, longer term CBNRM, but harvested the CBNRM tabu when it coincided with a CPWB feast event. These harvests were often made with- out the knowledge of the NGO partner due to exclusion of socio-cultural CPWB practices in CBNRM plans and mismatched community vis-a `-vis NGO goals (Ward et al. 2018), resulting in reduced conservation gains.
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