August 24, 2013
When you anchor near a traditional village in Fiji, you are obligated to do a sevusevu ceremony. This is a ritual ceremony of presenting kava – the root of a type of pepper tree – to the village chief before being accepted into the village, which in turn will give you permission to anchor, swim and snorkel in their bay and walk onshore.
This ritual entails several steps for the visitor:
1. Dressing modestly and covering your legs, generally with a sarong-like garment called a sulu. Guys can also opt for long pants (although we did see some guys get away with shorts).
2. Bringing 1/3 to 1/2 kilo of kava root to present to the chief. (This is sold in the open marketplaces in the cities and something you need to bring with you when you’re out cruising in Fiji.)
3. Going ashore, beaching your dinghy, and locating someone to serve as your Turaga ni koro (too-ran-ga nee koro): a village representative who will take you to the chief’s hut, make the introduction, and stay with you through the ceremony, helping translate if the chief doesn’t speak English.
4. Removing shoes, sunglasses, hats, etc. and sitting on the floor facing the chief (cross-legged for men, legs to the side for women). The Taraga ni koro or chief will ask you some questions, finding out some basic information about you. The Turaga ni koro presents the kava for you and the ceremony begins, basically with the chief and turaga ni koro doing a sort of chant interspersed by a series of claps. The kava is accepted, and thus so are you.
5. There may be some small talk for awhile, then you will be accompanied and given a tour of the village, or perhaps visit the school. Often you will be given some papaya, and you are welcome to return whenever you like. Depending on the village, you may be invited to someone’s home for tea or even a meal. If it’s near Sunday, you’ll be invited to church.
This is sevusevu in a nutshell, but the islands of the Lau group have an extra step. While they’ve done away with the special permits and big expense to come here, they do charge a fee. In Fulaga, along with the kava, you pay $50, which covers your boat and crew. (In the Northern Lau, you pay a per-person fee).
This would be our first sevusevu, and we were pretty intimated. Curly (the guy who gives the weekly seminar in Savusavu about cruising Fiji) had made this out to be a serious process, saying it’s not a given that you’ll be accepted. It would be pretty tragic to make the 2-day trip to get here and get rejected! We compensated for our insecurity with a large bundle of kava.
He also made it sound like you have to hunt around for a Taraga ni koro to represent you. In retrospect, we’ve found a Taraga ni koro is generally waiting for you when you come ashore. In Fulaga, it’s a bit different in that the village is not within view of the anchorage. Since they don’t see you’ve arrived, you actually do need to go find a representative. It wasn’t a problem, though, as Bob and Linda went with us to show us the way, and along the path we met a nice couple from the village who readily agreed to represent us.
Below a gallery showing the rock formations by the beach, a couple of views of the anchorage from shore, and the walk to the village. (Click to enlarge and scroll). –Cyndi
