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UNDERSTANDING
OCEANIA
CELEBRATING THE UNIVERSITY OF THE
SOUTH PACIFIC AND ITS COLLABORATION WITH
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Copyright © 2019. ANU Press. All rights reserved.
Understanding Oceania : Celebrating the University of the South Pacific and Its Collaboration with the Australian National
UNDERSTANDING
OCEANIA
CELEBRATING THE UNIVERSITY OF THE
SOUTH PACIFIC AND ITS COLLABORATION WITH
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
EDITED BY STEWART FIRTH

AND VIJAY NAIDU
PACI F I C SE R IE S
Published by ANU Press
The Australian National University
Acton ACT 2601, Australia
Email: anupress@anu.edu.au
Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au
ISBN (print): 9781760462888
ISBN (online): 9781760462895
WorldCat (print): 1101142803
WorldCat (online): 1101180975
DOI: 10.22459/UO.2019
This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The full licence terms are available at

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
Cover design and layout by ANU Press
This edition © 2019 ANU Press
Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
1. Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Stewart Firth
2. A Commentary on the 50-Year History of the University
of the South Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Vijay Naidu
3. The Road from Laucala Bay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Brij V. Lal
Part 1: Balancing Tradition and Modernity

4. Change in Land Use and Villages—Fiji: 1958–1983 . . . . . . . . . . 59
R. Gerard Ward
5. Matai Titles and Modern Corruption in Samoa: Costs,
Expectations and Consequences for Families and Society. . . . . 77
Morgan Tuimalealiʻifano
6. Making Room for Magic in Intellectual Property Policy . . . . . . . . 91
Miranda Forsyth
Part 2: Politics and Political Economy

7. Postcolonial Political Institutions in the South Pacific

Islands: A Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Jon Fraenkel
8. Neo-Liberalism and the Disciplining of Pacific Island States
—the Dual Challenges of a Global Economic Creed and
a Changed Geopolitical Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Claire Slatter
9. Defending the Inheritance: The SDL and the 2006 Election . . . 179
Alumita Durutalo
Part 3: Reimagining
10. Re-Presenting Melanesia: Ignoble Savages and Melanesian
Alter-Natives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Tarcisius Kabutaulaka
11. Man versus Myth: The Life and Times of Ratu Sukuna. . . . . . . 229
Steven Ratuva
12. All Saints’ Primary, Labasa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Christine Weir
Part 4: Rethinking Development

13. Development Assistance Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Vijay Naidu
14. Breaking Fiji’s Coup Culture through Effective
Rural Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Joeli Veitayaki
15. Urban Land in Solomon Islands: Powers of Exclusion
and Counter‑Exclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Joseph D. Foukona and Matthew G. Allen
Part 5: Into the Future

16. The Ocean in Us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Epeli Hauʻofa
17. The ‘New Pacific Diplomacy’: An Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Sandra Tarte and Greg Fry
18. Niu Mana, Sport, Media and the Australian Diaspora . . . . . . . . 381
Katerina Martina Teaiwa
Afterword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Stewart Firth
Acknowledgements
Books are the work of many people and this one is no different. The
editors owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Kathryn Skorkiewicz in
the Department of Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University
(ANU). Kathryn was responsible for organising the copyediting, checking
the permissions and for making a reality of one reviewer’s suggestion—
one we accepted—that we not only provide biographical information
about contributors but also give them the opportunity to describe their
personal academic journey at the University of the South Pacific (USP) and
ANU. We would also like to thank the copyeditors Cathy Johnstone and
Sarah Jost for their careful work in rendering the collection publishable
on a number of platforms by ANU Press. And we pay tribute to Emily
Hazlewood at ANU Press for seeing our collection through to publication
with her characteristic high standards and attention to detail.
Finally, this collection would not have been published without the
financial support of the Department of Pacific Affairs through the
Australian Government’s Pacific Research Program and the personal
support of Nicole Haley, Program Convenor.
vii
Acronyms
ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific

ADB Asian Development Bank
AIDAB Australian International Development Assistance Bureau
AKA Aelon Kein Ad
AOSIS Alliance of Small Island States
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
AusAID Australian Agency for International Development
AV alternative vote
CAMV Conservative Alliance–Matanitu Vanua
CCF Citizens’ Constitutional Forum
CDF Commodity Development Framework
CIS Centre for Independent Studies
DAWN Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
DECRA Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
DWFN distant water fishing nation
ECP Enhanced Cooperation Programme
EIMCOL Equity Investment Management Company Limited
FDB Fiji Development Bank

FFA Forum Fisheries Agency
FLNKS Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste
FLP Fiji Labour Party
FSM Federated States of Micronesia
GATS General Agreement on Trade in Services
ix
Understanding Oceania
GNI gross national income

HRPP Human Rights Protection Party
IAS Institute of Applied Sciences
ICT information and communications technology
IGC Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property,
Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore
IMR Institute of Marine Resources
IOE Institute of Education
IPR intellectual property rights
IPS Institute of Pacific Studies
IRETA Institute of Research, Extension and Training
in Agriculture
JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency
MIRAB migration, remittances, aid and bureaucracy
MSG Melanesian Spearhead Group
NCDS National Centre for Development Studies
NFL National Football League
NGO non-government organisation
NRL National Rugby League
NSC National Sports Council
NZAID New Zealand Agency for International Development
NZMFAT New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
ODA official development assistance
ODT Oceania Dance Theatre
PACER Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations
PaCE-SD Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable

Development
Pacific TAFE Pacific Technical and Further Education
PacLII Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute
PANG Pacific Network on Globalisation
PIAS-DG Pacific Institute of Advanced Studies in Governance
and Development
Acronyms
PICs Pacific Island countries

PICTA Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement
PIDF Pacific Islands Development Forum
PIF Pacific Islands Forum
PNA Parties to the Nauru Agreement
PR proportional representation
PSIDS Pacific Small Island Developing States Group
RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
RNZAF Royal New Zealand Air Force
RPCR Rassemblement pour la Calédonie dans la République
SDL Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua
SGDIA School of Government, Development and
International Affairs
SNTV single non-transferable vote
SVT Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei
THA temporary housing area
TOL temporary occupation licence
UDP United Democratic Party
UNDP United Nations Development Program
VLV Veitokani ni Lewenivanua Vakarisito
VP Vanua‘aku Pati
WHO World Health Organization
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
xi
Contributors
Matthew G. Allen is a professor of Development Studies at the

University of the South Pacific. He is a human geographer with over 20
years’ experience working in the Melanesian Pacific. His diverse research
interests include natural resource governance, rural development, state–
society relations, and peace, conflict and development. In addition
to his scholarly research, Matthew has undertaken advisory work for
the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, AusAID/DFAT and
the government of Solomon Islands. He previously held a number of
academic appointments at The Australian National University (ANU)
and was an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow from 2014 to
2017. Matthew has published several books and around 50 peer-reviewed
articles, chapters and reports. His most recent book is Resource Extraction
and Contentious States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
Alumita Durutalo (25 January 1960 – 8 October 2018) was the coordinator
of the Pacific Studies Programme at Te Tumu, School of Māori, Pacific
and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago. She was a graduate
of the University of the South Pacific (USP) and The Australian National
University (ANU). She taught Politics at USP 1997 to 2001, gained her
PhD from ANU in 2006, and returned to USP to become Acting Director
in Politics in the Diplomacy and International Affairs Programme.
From 2006 to 2009, she was a Commissioner on the Fiji Public Service
Commission. She was the author of a number of publications on Pacific

Islands politics and her research interests included political parties,
foreign policy, elections and democratisation in the Pacific Islands states;
indigenous leadership and development in the Pacific Islands; and
indigenous languages, culture and identity amongst Pacific Islands
migrants in the First World. She possessed a dignity, empathy, generosity
and modesty that is much missed.
xiii
Stewart Firth is a research fellow at the Department of Pacific Affairs,

College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University (ANU).
He was a professor of politics at the University of the South Pacific, Suva,
1998 to 2004 and greatly enjoyed the experience. He co‑edited From
Election to Coup in Fiji: The 2006 Campaign and Its Aftermath (2007),
Politics and State-Building in Solomon Islands (2008), and The 2006
Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to End All Coups? (2009), all published
by ANU E Press. He is the author of Australia in International Politics:
An Introduction to Australian Foreign Policy, 3rd edn (Allen & Unwin,
2011). He is chair of the Pacific Editorial Board for ANU Press, and he
co-teaches an ANU undergraduate course on Pacific politics. His research
focuses on the international relations of the Pacific Islands.
Miranda Forsyth is an associate professor in the School of Regulation
and Global Governance (RegNet) in the College of Asia and Pacific at
The Australian National University (ANU). The broad focus of Miranda’s
research is investigating the possibilities and challenges of the inter-
operation of state and non-state justice and regulatory systems. She
also works on the issue of how best to localise or vernacularise foreign
legal norms and procedures. In July 2015, she completed a three-year
Australian Research Council Discovery–funded project to investigate
the impact of intellectual property laws on development in Pacific Island
countries. Prior to coming to the ANU, Miranda was a senior lecturer
in criminal law at the Law School of the University of the South Pacific,
based in Port Vila, Vanuatu for eight years. Miranda is the author of A Bird
that Flies with Two Wings: Kastom and State Justice Systems in Vanuatu
(ANU E Press, 2009) and co-author of Weaving Intellectual Property Policy
in Small island Developing States (Intersentia, 2015). Miranda is currently
working on a multi-year research project investigating ways to overcome
sorcery accusations and related violence in Papua New Guinea.
Joseph D. Foukona is a lawyer and has considerable experience in his
chosen field of land legislation and reform in the Pacific. He has been
a lecturer at the School of Law, University of the South Pacific since
2004, and obtained his PhD at The Australian National University
(ANU). His research focus matches closely his keen personal interest in
finding solutions to the seemingly intractable problem of the alignment
in Melanesia between customary land tenure systems on one hand and
state legislation, land administration and commercial demands on the
other. He has worked with non-government organisations and local
communities and consulted for international and regional organisations.
xiv
Contributors
He was educated in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea,

New Zealand and Australia, with a PhD on land law reform from ANU.
He continues to be involved in ANU projects in the Pacific.
Jon Fraenkel is a visiting fellow with the Department of Pacific Affairs,
College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University
(ANU), and a professor of comparative politics in the School of History,
Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria
University of Wellington. He was formerly a senior research fellow based
at ANU (2007–12) and taught at the University of the South Pacific
in Fiji (1995–2007). He is Pacific correspondent for The Economist
magazine. His research focuses on the politics of the Pacific Islands
region, institutional design in divided societies, electoral systems, political
economy and the economic history of Oceania.
Greg Fry is an honorary associate professor in the Asia Pacific College
of Diplomacy in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at
The Australian National University (ANU). He is also currently an adjunct
associate professor in the School of Government, Development and
International Affairs at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He was
formerly Academic Co-ordinator of Graduate Studies in Diplomacy
and International Affairs at the USP from 2011 to 2015. Prior to that,
he was for 23 years the Director of Graduate Studies in International
Affairs at the ANU. In 1981, he taught politics at USP in the School
of Social and Economic Development. Greg’s research focuses on the
geopolitics and international politics of the South Pacific region, conflict
and conflict resolution in the Pacific Island states, and the politics of
regionalism and regional diplomacy. He is co-editor of Australia’s Regional
Security, Contending Images of World Politics (with Jacinta O’Hagan; Red
Globe Press, 2000) and Intervention and State-Building in the Pacific
(with Tarcisius Kabutaulaka; Manchester University Press, 2008). His
most recent publication, The New Pacific Diplomacy, was co-edited with
Dr Sandra Tarte of USP and published by ANU Press (2015).

Epeli Hau‘ofa (7 December 1939 – 11 January 2009) was born of
Tongan missionary parents in Papua New Guinea and gained his PhD on
the Mekeo people of Papua at The Australian National University (ANU)
in 1981. He was head of the Department of Sociology at the University of
the South Pacific (USP) from 1983, and later head of the School of Social
and Economic Development. In 1997, he became the founding director
of USP’s Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture, which quickly became
xv
a hub of Pacific artistic expression and intellectual activity. He and his

wife Barbara made Fiji their home. As the late Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi
wrote of Epeli, he ‘was a larger than life figure. His beard and genial visage
were reinforced by an ever-present twinkle in his eye. He had a boundless
capacity for humour, as well as an understated tongue-in-cheek manner’.
More than any other Pacific Islander of his generation, he offered a new
and positive conceptualisation of Pacific development and identity,
emphasising the way in which the ocean connected rather than separated
Pacific peoples.
Tarcisius Kabutaulaka is currently the director of the Center for Pacific
Islands Studies (CPIS) at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. He is
a political scientist with a PhD from The Australian National University
(ANU) and undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of
the South Pacific (USP). He joined the CPIS in 2009. Prior to that, he
worked for six years as a research fellow at the East-West Center’s Pacific
Islands Development Program. Before moving to Hawai‘i in 2003, he
taught history and political studies at the USP in Fiji. Over the years,
Kabutaulaka has also done consultancy work for governments and
regional and international organisations. He is the editor for the Pacific
Islands Monograph Series and the founding editor of Oceania Currents.
He is also a member of the editorial board of The Contemporary Pacific.
Kabutaulaka comes from the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal in Solomon
Islands.
Labasa-born Brij Vilash Lal went to the University of the South Pacific
(USP) in 1971 on a government scholarship to prepare for a career as
a high school teacher of English and history. Instead, in 1974 he became
USP’s first-ever graduate to do postgraduate studies overseas—at the
University of British Columbia. He returned to teach briefly at USP
before going to The Australian National University (ANU) to do a PhD.
He returned to USP for three years before accepting an appointment at the
University of Hawai‘i in 1983. He joined ANU in 1990 and retired from

there as professor of Pacific and Asian history in 2016, receiving along
the way many honours and awards for his scholarship and contributions
to the humanities, including Australia’s Centenary of Federation Medal,
Fellowship of the Australian Humanities Academy, and Member of the
Order of Australia. He remains ever grateful to USP for the great start
he got there from fondly remembered inspirational teachers.
xvi
Contributors
Vijay Naidu’s future was moulded by the establishment of the University

of the South Pacific (USP). In 1974, he completed his bachelor’s degree
with a ‘cafeteria combination’ of sociology, politics, geography, history
and economics. He then began tutoring in Foundation Politics and
Advanced Pacific History courses. On a part-time basis, he completed his
master’s degree in political sociology. In 1989, he completed his doctoral
degree in the sociology of development at the University of Sussex, UK.
Over the last 44 years, he has worked at USP as tutor, lecturer, reader,
professor, head of school, dean, pro-vice chancellor and acting vice
chancellor. He has served as professor and director of Development Studies
at USP and at Victoria University of Wellington. He has worked with
colleagues at ANU including David Hegarty, Stewart Firth, Greg Fry, Jon
Fraenkel and Brij Lal. Over the last 30 years, he has attended a number
of conferences and seminars convened by ANU scholars. A number of his
conference papers have been published in books and journals. He is on
the editorial board of a number of international scholarly journals. He has
served as consultant to government, non-government organisations
(NGOs) and United Nations agencies. He has served in various Fiji
Government Commissions. He is active in a number of NGOs.
Steven Ratuva is director of Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific
Studies and professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of
Canterbury. He is a former fellow at The Australian National University
(ANU) and worked at the University of the South Pacific for 11 years as
head of sociology and a senior fellow in development and governance.
With a PhD from the University of Sussex, he has published widely on
development, conflict, political change, coups, social protection, elections,
ethnicity, security, military, affirmative action, gender and nationalism.
He has also published widely on the politics of Fiji.
Claire Slatter retired from academia in 2018 after 23 years of teaching
politics at the University of the South Pacific (USP). She also set up
(with Dr Margaret Mishra) and taught ethics for close to three years at
the Fiji National University. Claire did her first degree in politics and
sociology at USP, her master’s at The Australian National University
(ANU) under an ANU scholarship, and her PhD at Massey University
(Albany Campus). She is a gender and development specialist, a founding
member and current board chair of the Global South feminist network of
scholar activists, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
(DAWN), and a founding and active member of the Pacific Network on
xvii
Globalisation (PANG). She is also a founding member of the Citizens

Constitutional Forum of Fiji. Claire’s research and publications have
mainly focused on the politics of development in the Pacific region.
Sandra Tarte is an associate professor and head of the School of
Government, Development and International Affairs, Faculty of Business
and Economics at the University of the South Pacific (USP). She has been
a lecturer and senior lecturer at USP since 1995 and has held various
roles, including head of the School of Social Sciences. Sandra graduated
with a PhD in East Asian Studies from The Australian National University
(ANU) in 1996. Her PhD thesis, ‘Japan’s Aid Diplomacy and the Pacific
Islands’, was co-published by the National Centre for Development
Studies at ANU and USP’s Institute of Pacific Studies in 1998. Sandra
has written widely on regional cooperation in the Pacific, with a focus
on fisheries management and conservation. She has also consulted for
the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency, the South Pacific Regional
Environment Program, the International Development Centre, Tokyo,
and Greenpeace Pacific.
Katerina Martina Teaiwa is an associate professor in the School of
Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific at
The Australian National University (ANU). Born in Fiji, she spent many
years on the Suva campus of the University of the South Pacific (USP),
where her mother, Joan Teaiwa, worked in extension services and her
sister, Teresia Teaiwa, was a lecturer. Professor Epeli Hau‘ofa was a close
mentor and introduced Katerina to Seiuli Allan Alo Va‘ai. Together they
founded the Oceania Dance Theatre (ODT), which is now part of the
performing arts programme of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and
Pacific Studies at USP. Allan and Katerina developed the ODT’s first
international shows for Canberra and Honolulu titled Boiling Ocean I
and II shortly after the Fiji coup of 2000. They collaborated for many
years, including on a field school involving USP, National University of
Samoa, and ANU students in 2013. Katerina’s research is on histories of

phosphate mining in Kiribati and the relocation of Banabans to Fiji. She
has also been a consultant with UNESCO and the Secretariat of the Pacific
Community on cultural policy in Oceania. She is author of Consuming
Ocean Island: Stories of People and Phosphate from Banaba (Indiana
University Press, 2015). In 2017, she converted her research into a visual
arts exhibition, Project Banaba, for Carriageworks, Sydney. Katerina is
currently vice president of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies.
xviii
Contributors
Morgan Tuimaleali‘ifano is an associate professor in history, former

head of the School of the Social Sciences, and former coordinator of
the history discipline in the Faculty of Arts, Law and Education, at the
University of the South Pacific (USP). His current research lies in three
areas: the evolution of Indigenous leadership within Western frameworks,
the influence of the Pacific diaspora on Indigeous society, and framing
a pan-Pacific identity. His PhD was supervised at The Australian National
University by Drs Niel Gunson, Donald Denoon and Deryck Scarr, and
awarded by USP in 1997. It resulted in the publication of O Tama-a-Āiga:
The Politics of Succession to Samoa’s Paramount Titles in 2006 (Institute of
Pacific Studies, USP) and a series of articles. He is a member of the Pacific
History Association, having served as its past president and convenor
of two conferences in 2002 in Samoa and 2008 in Fiji.
Joeli Veitayaki is from Gau Island, Fiji, and has been associated with
the University of the South Pacific (USP) since 1979. He completed
his undergraduate and master’s degrees at USP and has worked there
since 1990. Joeli attained his PhD in environment and development
from The Australian National University in 2000 and has maintained
his connections with mentors and colleagues there. He is currently an
associate professor at the School of Marine Studies and as well as the
director of the International Ocean Institute – Pacific Islands Operational
Centre and co-chair of the Korea South Pacific Fisheries Forum. Joeli
has published papers in the areas of customary marine tenure, capacity
building, Law of the Sea, marine resources management, community-
based resource management, and regional cooperation. He has worked
and collaborated with trainers and researchers in most of the Pacific Island
countries as well as in Australia, Canada, the US, South Africa, Portugal,
Japan, France, Norway, Korea, and Scotland.
R. Gerard Ward first did research on land use studies in Fiji in 1958.
This was followed by completion of land use maps of the main islands
based on aerial photograph interpretation. These were published in 1964,

and a volume entitled Land Use and Population in Fiji was published by
Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, in 1965. He continued to conduct
research in and on Fiji in subsequent years and maintained connections
with the University of the South Pacific from soon after it was established.
His studies in the Pacific Islands began in Samoa when he was a member
of staff in the Department of Geography at Auckland University College,
continued at University College London (1961–67), University of Papua
New Guinea (1967–71), and subsequently at The Australian National
xix
University (ANU). He was director of the Research School of Pacific

Studies at ANU from 1980 to 1993. He formally retired in December
1997, but has remained a professor emeritus.
Christine Weir studied history at the University of Cambridge, trained
as a history teacher, and in 1976 accompanied her husband Tony to the
University of the South Pacific (USP), where he was employed as a physics
lecturer. During eight years in Fiji, she taught in Fiji schools, learned
about Pacific history, and did some tutoring at USP in social science
and education. During the following years, while resident in Canberra,
she returned to study at The Australian National University (ANU),
completing a master’s in anthropology and then a PhD in Pacific history
(2003) on missionary ideas about work in Fiji and Solomon Islands.
In 2007, Christine returned to Fiji to take up the position of lecturer
in history at USP, which she held for seven years, teaching a variety of
courses in Pacific and world history, supervising several research students,
and researching colonial and contemporary Christianity in the Pacific.
Since returning to Canberra in 2014, she has continued her research
as an honorary lecturer in the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU
and is currently working on a biography of Bishop Jabez Bryce, the first
Indigenous Bishop of Polynesia.
xx
1
Themes
Stewart Firth
Stewart Firth: Personal Journey

I arrived at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva in 1998 and
was delighted to be back in the Pacific. Thirty years earlier I had taught in
Port Moresby—in the first years of the University of Papua New Guinea—
and I knew that, in order truly to know the Pacific, one had to live there.
My expectations were fully justified. I knew I would learn a great deal from
the students, and so it proved, as my romantic preconceptions about Fiji
fell away in the face of the country’s uncompromising politics and deep
divisions. And I knew Fiji and the region would prove endlessly interesting,
as indeed they did. Most rewarding of all, I had the opportunity to return
to teaching Pacific history—my starting point in doctoral research—and
to mine the immense research resources at The Australian National
University (ANU) on Pacific history to inform my teaching. ANU and USP
thus came together in a tangible way in the classrooms and lecture
halls of the old School of Social and Economic Development building,
where students would discuss the legacy of Sir Arthur Gordon or the
Indo-Fijian experience or Maasina Rule in the Solomon Islands or the Mau

movement in Samoa—subjects that in a real sense belonged to them.
I had marvellous colleagues at USP and my time there will always live
with me.
The University of the South Pacific (USP) is the inspiration for this
collection, which brings together contributors who have all been students,
lecturers or researchers there during its 50-year history. This volume is
sponsored by The Australian National University’s (ANU) Department
of Pacific Affairs, through the Australian Government’s Pacific Research
Program, as a celebration of the Pacific’s best-known university 50 years
after its founding and its collaboration—personal and intellectual—with
Australia’s national institution of learning and research.
For many years it was a common career trajectory for young lecturers at
USP to undertake doctoral research at ANU, almost always on a Pacific
Islands topic. Twelve of our 19 contributors gained their doctorates
at ANU, most of them before or after being students and/or teaching
staff at USP. They are Matthew Allen, Alumita Durutalo, Miranda
Forsyth, Joe Foukona, Epeli Hau‘ofa, Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, Brij Lal,
Sandra Tarte, Katerina Teaiwa, Morgan Tuimaleali‘ifano, Joeli Veitayaki
and Christine Weir. Greg Fry and Claire Slatter, both of whom taught
and researched at USP, are ANU graduates with involvement in USP
extending over decades. In all cases the award of an ANU postgraduate
degree was merely the springboard for academic careers that included
many other achievements and distinctions over decades. The fit between
the two institutions is a natural one, with USP being a premier institution
of learning in Oceania and ANU the centre of Pacific Islands expertise,
teaching, and research in Australia.
The connections to USP and ANU of the remaining five contributors are
various: Vijay Naidu’s career has been defined by USP as he rose from being
a student there in the 1970s to occupying a succession of senior roles and
becoming professor of development studies. He has worked closely with
the ANU over the years in research, conferences and publication; Stewart
Firth was professor of politics at USP for six years before moving to the
ANU; Jon Fraenkel spent 11 years at USP before becoming a research
fellow at the ANU and is now professor in comparative politics at Victoria

University of Wellington; Steven Ratuva was a student at USP, later head
of sociology, spent time at ANU, and is now professor in the Department
of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Canterbury; Gerard
Ward retired in 1998 after a distinguished academic career, which included
being foundation professor of human geography at the ANU as well as
undertaking pathbreaking geographical research in Fiji and serving USP
in a number of review capacities.
1. Themes
Contributors have been asked to make their own choice for an article
or chapter, already published elsewhere, to be republished here. Only
in one case—Epeli Hau‘ofa, perhaps the greatest mind associated with
USP since its founding and who died in 2009—did we as editors make
our own choice. ‘The Ocean in Us’, his remarkable article from the late
1990s, called for a coherent identity for the Pacific Islands and Pacific
Islanders, one that he saw deriving from the Pacific Ocean itself and
the close relationship of Pacific peoples with the sea. Alumita Durutalo
was looking forward to the republication of her chapter ‘Defending the
Inheritance: The SDL and the 2006 Election’ before her sudden tragic
death in October 2018.
This voluntary approach to organising the volume led, perhaps
unexpectedly, to the emergence of a number of common themes, not least
about USP itself.
In his commentary on the history of the institution, Vijay Naidu points
to both its success and its limitations: success as a regional university
which is a key institution of learning for the Pacific and which has vastly
increased in numbers of campuses, students and staff over 50 years;
and limitations imposed by a top-down model of governance, a focus
on training for employment at the expense of a wider education, and by
political events in Fiji.
In his account of the road from Laucala Bay, Brij Lal revives the sense
of liberation that accompanied the founding of USP. He writes:
The opening of the University of the South Pacific was a monumental
achievement in the modern history of the Pacific Islands, a genuine
turning point, much like the impact of the Second World War, or the
beginnings of decolonisation in the 1960s. It placed higher education
within the reach of all school children who passed the appropriate exams
with requisite marks, not only those who (or whose parents) could afford
it, or the select few who went overseas on a small number of government
scholarships.
Lal remembers new people and new ideas: lecturers such as Tony Chappell,
Ron Crocombe and Ahmed Ali, fellow students such as Vijay Naidu, Jone
Dakuvula, and Amelia Rokotuivuna, as well as writers who charted the
Fiji Indian experience such as Ken Gillion and Raymond Pillay. Vanessa
Griffin described the part-European experience and Albert Wendt raised
disturbing questions about history and literature. USP in the 1970s was
a crucible of fresh thinking about decolonisation, the place of the Pacific

Islands in the wider world as well as key political issues such as French
nuclear testing.
Balancing Tradition and Modernity

Gerard Ward, a distinguished geographer and the oldest of our
contributors, visited three Fijian villages in 1958 and 1959—Saliadrau,
Sote and Nabudrau—and returned there in 1983. During that time the
population of Fiji had almost doubled. In the quarter century between
these visits, thatch roofs and bamboo walls had given way to iron, timber
and concrete, and many people had many material possessions. Roads had
reached two of the villages and bananas as a cash crop had disappeared.
At the same time the informality that had characterised relations between
landowning mataqali (landowning group) and non-landowning villagers
had yielded to more formal, legalised relationships as land grew more
scarce and the commercial imperative grew stronger. Ward observed
‘much greater variation in wealth and income within villages’ and correctly
predicted a loosening of the bonds between chiefs and commoners.
‘Matai Titles and Modern Corruption in Samoa’ gives Morgan
Tuimaleali‘ifano an opportunity to describe what happens when a saofa‘iga
(title installation ceremony) and the gifting that accompanies it ‘is taken
out of the public and into the private and individualised arena’. He does
this through the lens of a ceremony in which a title was bestowed upon
him and his family, showing the extent to which previously reciprocal
exchanges are being reduced to the payment of cash and ‘shameless public
demands’ for more cash are being made by the orators of the village.
Capitalism, Tuimaleali‘ifano tells us, is undermining the essence of the
fa‘a Samoa.
In ‘Making Room for Magic in Intellectual Property Policy’, Miranda

Forsyth reminds us that the arid assumptions of the market economy are
made even by those who wish, with the best of intentions, to recognise
traditional knowledge in order to protect Pacific cultures against
misappropriation. Whereas traditional knowledge is embedded in social
relationships, modern Western knowledge has been reduced to purely
economic and legal instruments that ignore this difference in dealing with
intellectual property. Forsyth suggests ways of ameliorating this problem:
by recognising the dynamic character of indigenous knowledge and
4
1. Themes
innovation; by using vernacular languages in legal instruments to capture

the ‘different epistemological frameworks at play’; by using indigenous
institutions to regulate traditional knowledge; and by taking account
of the values inherent in that knowledge.
Politics and Political Economy

Politics, political institutions and diplomacy are the themes of our third
section, which begins with a classic survey of Pacific political institutions
by Jon Fraenkel. He points to the variety of ways in which Pacific Islanders
have dealt with the eternal dilemmas of politics: how to accommodate
ethnic diversity and other sources of conflict, adapt modern government
to tradition, build states where none existed before, and provide for
women’s representation. Just as electoral systems vary throughout the
region, so do the political systems that owe their origins to Westminster,
Washington or Paris. And the relationships between island territories
and metropolitan powers are diverse. As Fraenkel notes, ‘In between the
extremes of independence and incorporation, the Pacific Islands are host
to a range of hybrid political arrangements between island territories
and former colonial rulers’. At the same time, there are region-wide
commonalities—in the weakness of political parties, for example, and the
readiness of elected representatives to change sides.
A number of contributions place Fiji and the Fiji economy in the broader
context of globalisation and the turn to neoliberalism in economic
policy, both of which have affected Fiji profoundly since the late 1980s.
At the height of international enthusiasm for neoliberal economic policy,
the Pacific Islands, as Claire Slatter shows, were supposedly in need of
firm management by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank,
aid donors and policy experts in order to shape up as competitors in the
global economy. This broad issue of the place of small Pacific Island states
in a globalised world is one that has occupied the intellectual energies of

staff and students at USP over many years and continues to do so.
In her chapter on the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party’s
victory in the 2006 elections, Alumita Durutalo takes us to a moment
in time that now seems remote: after the election, with Laisenia Qarase
confirmed as prime minister, but before the coup that ushered in a newly
dominant role for the Republic of Fiji Military Forces and its commander
Frank Bainimarama. Back then it seemed as if the traditional appeal to
5
indigenous Fijians of vanua (domains of chiefly rule and Fijian identity),

lotu (the church) and matanitu (traditional government) in the election
of a government had been reconfirmed and would continue to form the
basis of political strategies by the parties—over the decades the Alliance,
Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) and SDL—that had the support
of the majority of iTaukei. Four out of every five iTaukei, after all, voted
for the SDL in 2006, ensuring its success. But as Durutalo warned at the
time, there was no guarantee that this formula for political victory would
endure. And so it proved.
Reimagining
A key theme of this collection is the Pacific in the imagination, and the
gap between image and reality in the region.
Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka examines it in his chapter on Melanesia.
Notions of a ladder of evolutionary development deeply influenced
the European way of looking at the Pacific Islanders. Europeans could
recognise themselves in Polynesia, with its hierarchy, aristocracy and
relatively large-scale political organisation. Some Polynesian island groups
were on the way to becoming states already and their customs of respect
based on rank seemed to mirror those of Europe. The Europeans had
a similar reaction to Fiji, where Fijian chiefs quickly adapted to the service
of the British colony established in 1874, becoming instruments of the
new state structure. In the rest of Melanesia, however, the Europeans
encountered a bewildering array of languages, senses of identity
and communities, all on a small scale and none suited to be building
blocks of coherent colonial administration. European notions of race,
as Kabutaulaka emphasises, were fundamental in the way the Pacific
Islanders came to be categorised and to the inferior place accorded to
Melanesians in the Pacific racial hierarchy. The prejudice extended
to gender and Kabutaulaka draws on the work of Margaret Jolly and

Marata Tamaira to remind us that Europeans tended to depict Polynesian
women as more attractive and alluring than Melanesian women. He sees
Pacific Islanders as having internalised these European prejudices in
their attitudes towards each other, with some Polynesians, for example,
looking down upon Melanesians and Melanesians discriminating among
themselves on the basis of skin colour. The argument Kabutaulaka brings
1. Themes
us, though, runs counter to this history of denigration, because he sees

a contemporary movement to embrace Melanesia in positive terms as the
basis for a cultural and political reinvigoration.
Steven Ratuva finds another need for reimagining. He focuses on an
issue that has been a lively source of debate in the classrooms of USP and
that addresses a key question often raised by iTaukei students—namely,
what accounts for the differential development of their community
compared with that of others in Fiji, especially Fijians of Indian descent?
Did British protection of the iTaukei community over the whole period
of British colonial rule stifle their opportunities in the modern world and
leave them behind at independence and beyond? Ratuva takes the case
of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, the best-known indigenous Fijian of the 20th
century and a man held up as an unqualified hero of the Fijian people
to generations of iTaukei. His ‘concerns and deeds’, as he reminds us,
‘were beyond reproach’ in his time, but need to be reevaluated in the
light of Fiji’s history. With his deep attachment to chiefly Fiji and to
keeping people in the village, Sukuna can now be seen, in Ratuva’s view,
as a conservative force standing in the way of the emergence of commoner
Fijians into the modern world; his efforts to protect the iTaukei ‘had the
effect of disempowering and undermining their potential for progress’
and kept them ‘politically and culturally submissive’.
We need to reimagine Indo-Fijian history as well as iTaukei history. We
tend to overlook the importance of Christian schools in the education of
Fijians of Indian descent, yet as Christine Weir points out in her chapter
on All Saints Primary School in Labasa, in the 1940s and 1950s almost
a third of Indian children were attending Christian mission schools,
Anglican, Methodist and Catholic. Not many converted to Christianity,
but their parents liked the education these schools offered. They played
their part in the rapid upward mobility of generations of Indo-Fijians,
reflected also in their higher education at USP from the late 1960s.
Rethinking Development
In some parts of the Pacific, especially the small island states, development
is almost synonymous with development assistance, which assumes an
enormous importance in budgets and political calculations. In his
chapter on ‘Development Assistance Challenges’, Vijay Naidu places
the aid process in its wider economic and political context, emphasising
7
the extent to which aid conditionalities are designed to remake Pacific

Island economies in the service of market competitiveness. But Naidu goes
further, setting the aid scene in the context of the years after September 11,
when Western donors became keener than ever to ensure that aid served
security purposes. The aid flows from Australia, New Zealand and the US
to the Pacific Islands were ‘geopolitical rent’, he observes, paid to Island
governments for the purpose of bringing stability and a pro-Western
orientation to the region. Much the same still applies except for the rise of
China, which has complicated the strategic calculations of longstanding
Pacific partners such as Australia and New Zealand. Writing in 2006,
Naidu saw China ‘emerging as a major player in the region’, one whose
presence would be welcomed by Fiji. Twelve years later, we can see that
Naidu was right. When USP opened in 1968, China was convulsed by
its Cultural Revolution and played almost no part in Pacific affairs. Fifty
years later, China is a presence to be reckoned with, above all through
its investments, trade, tourism and thousands of new Chinese migrants,
but also because of its highly visible soft loan and aid program. Naidu is
also right to remind us of the strategic origins of development assistance,
clearly on view in Australia’s recent shift towards closer engagement with
the region, an initiative driven by alarm in Canberra about the growth
of China’s influence.
Just as development has an international dimension, so it also has
a domestic one. While the standard of living for many Fijian villagers
had improved by the 1980s, rural development remained slow in the
decades that followed. Writing in the wake of the 2006 coup, Joeli
Veitayaki connects Fiji’s succession of coups to a lack of rural development
for indigenous Fijians. The discontent of rural iTaukei, he suggests, was
a political resource seized upon by coup leaders who knew that the
promise of a better life would bring iTaukei support. But the affirmative
action policies of the 1990s and the early 2000s, introduced by indigenous
Fijian governments, had few positive effects in the villages, where ‘poor
performance in rural development’ remained. The main beneficiaries of

affirmative action, he argues, were indigenous Fijian elites in a position
to access these programs of assistance. The corollary is that genuine rural
development will break Fiji’s coup culture.
The most contested of all development resources in the Pacific Islands
is land and in their chapter on urban land in Solomon Islands, Joseph
Foukona and Matt Allen examine the complex interplay of law, the
market, migration, squatter settlements and an ideology of customary
8
1. Themes
land ownership in conflict with the law. Their conclusion is that, even
after the long peace since the so-called ‘Ethnic Tension’ of 1998 to 2003,
‘a spectre of ethnoterritorial violence’ continues to hang over the city and
that ‘the formal rules governing land and property rights often bear little
resemblance to on-the-ground realities’, where issues of land ownership
are determined by personal patronage networks and personalised politics.
Just as legal claims to the land of Honiara have been contested since the
1920s, so that contestation will continue in a cultural framework that
lends legitimacy to tradition.
Into the Future

In his classic commentary on Pacific regional identity, Epeli Hau‘ofa offers
USP as an example:
In a very real sense the University of the South Pacific is a microcosm
of the region, and many aspects of its history, which began in 1968 in
the era of decolonisation of island territories, mirror the developments
in the regional communities it serves. The well-known diversity of social
organisations, economies, and cultures of the region is reflected in the
student population that comprises people from all 12 countries that own
the university, as well as a sprinkling from other regions.
Writing in the 1990s, Hau‘ofa saw USP as the ‘premier hatchery’

of regional identity. He pleaded for the most expansive concept of this
identity, one that would be genuinely postcolonial and independent:
The issue of what or who is a Pacific Islander would not arise if we
considered Oceania as comprising people as human beings with
a common heritage and commitment, rather than as members of diverse
nationalities and races. Oceania refers to a world of people connected
to each other … As far as I am concerned, anyone who has lived in our
region and is committed to Oceania is an Oceanian.
The single common heritage of all Oceanians is the sea itself, the same
sea lapping on the shores of every Pacific Island country. Hau‘ofa’s call
for an Oceanic identity remains more urgent than ever as the region
faces a common and existential security threat in climate change. What is
needed is new and more effective regional diplomacy.
This ‘new Pacific diplomacy’ is addressed by Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte.
Fifty years ago only two Pacific Island countries were independent—
Samoa and Nauru, with Cook Islands having moved into free association
with New Zealand—and even the possibility of a distinctive Pacific
diplomacy did not exist. And for decades afterwards, Pacific diplomacy
on numerous issues from decolonisation to tuna fisheries and nuclear
testing was refracted through an Australia/New Zealand lens, one that
gave expression to Pacific Island interests within limits. Those limits
were on display at the 1997 meeting of the then South Pacific Forum,
when agreement on a weak statement on climate change as desired by
Australia was reached in the face of concerted opposition from Pacific
countries. Since then much has changed. The seas have begun to rise, the
largest cyclones ever recorded have battered Pacific countries, and Pacific
Islanders’ concern about climate change has intensified. Driven by urgent
national interests, Pacific Island states are taking the initiative on climate
change without reference to Australia through groups such as the Pacific
Islands Development Forum and the Pacific Small Island Developing
States group at the UN.
Katerina Teaiwa takes us outside the Pacific to the Pacific diaspora in
Australia, and specifically to the strikingly dominant participation of
Pacific Islanders in sport, where ‘it is the Pacific Islander male, and more
specifically Polynesian male, who is the most visible’. In the Australian
diaspora, Teaiwa notes that, ‘participation in sport and popular culture
is a particular area of visibility and success for Pacific peoples that holds
great meaning for minority communities’, and the links between mana,
masculinity and sport become evident. The arena is one in which men
can show their mana, defined as ‘being strong, efficacious, prosperous,
successful, having “status and prestige”’ and performing mighty acts.
These mighty Pacific sportsmen uplift whole communities of Pacific
Islanders in a situation where ‘I’ is the same as ‘we’ and the individual can
bring respect to the many.
The Afterword looks forward to the continuing and emerging Pacific

contexts that will inform the teaching and research of the USP and ANU
in the years ahead.
10
2
A Commentary on the 50-Year
History of the University of the
South Pacific
Vijay Naidu
Vijay Naidu: Personal Journey

For the past four decades I have been an engaged Pacific scholar and,
during this time, I have read and been influenced by the work of some
pioneering scholars from The Australian National University (ANU), worked
closely with ANU colleagues, and enjoyed longstanding friendships with
several who were at ANU at some point in their working lives.
My undergraduate class of 1971 at the University of the South Pacific
(USP) included Brij Lal and Kesaia Seniloli (both of whom later completed
their PhD studies at ANU, and Brij would later become a distinguished
professor at ANU), Rajesh Chandra (former vice chancellor of USP),
and Justice Daniel Fatiaki (former chief justice of Fiji and currently judge
of the Supreme Court in Vanuatu). Among our lecturers in subsequent

years were Professor Ron Crocombe and Dr Ahmed Ali, both of whom
had ANU connections. Studying Pacific history and societies, Pacific
Islands development and migration, and ethnicity in Fiji meant that from
my undergraduate days I was exposed to the scholarly writings of Jim
Davidson, E.K. Fisk, Gerry Ward, Harold Brookfield, Ken Gillion, Neil
Gunson, Deryck Scarr, Dorothy Shineberg and Oskar Spate.
11
I worked closely with Professor Ron Crocombe as his tutor in the Advanced
Pacific History course he taught at the third-year level. I owe my fortuitous
entry into academia to him and Professor John Harre especially.
In addition to Brij Lal, other ANU scholars past and present with whom
I have enjoyed friendship over the years, and/or whose work I have read
and been influenced by, are Ahmed Ali, Stewart Firth, Greg Fry, William
Sutherland, Ron Duncan, Ropate Qalo, Sandra Tarte, Scott MacWilliam,
Stephanie Lawson, Katarina Teaiwa and Jon Fraenkel.
Research collaboration and attendance at seminars and conferences
have resulted in a number of chapters in books published by ANU. David
Hegarty, the former director of the State, Society and Governance in
Melanesia program became a close associate and friend.
Introduction
The year 2018 marks the 50th anniversary year of the University of the
South Pacific (USP)—a significant historic milestone and a proudly
celebratory year. USP is one of two regional universities in the world,
the other being the University of the West Indies (UWI). The notion of
‘regional’ has a specific meaning for these unique institutions as they are
owned and financed by a number of small island states in a geographic
region: the South Pacific for USP and the English-speaking Caribbean
islands for UWI. Until 1991, USP had 11 member states. In that year,
the Republic of Marshall Islands became the 12th member state and, with
that milestone, the USP began serving the northern Pacific. Given the
wide scatter of Pacific Island states in ‘our sea of islands’, the university
serves a region spread over 33 million square kilometres of the Pacific
Ocean. It is genuinely the University of Oceania. The significant and
almost indispensable support of the United Kingdom, Australia and New
Zealand, as well as other donor country assistance that USP has received
since its birth in 1968, is acknowledged at the outset.
USP’s 50th anniversary is worthy of the designated year-long celebration.
It provides an opportunity for reflection on the institution’s evolution,
to flag its remarkable achievements and pay homage to those who have
helped build it. It is also a time to think about contemporary issues and
challenges that face the university and to peer into its future prospects
and challenges in the coming decades. In the introduction of one of the
12
2. A Commentary on the 50-Year History of USP
commemoration books produced for the 25th anniversary of USP, the

seminal A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands, the then head of
geography department, Professor Eric Waddell, remarked:
On this our 25th anniversary we need not only celebrate our past but
reflect on our future; set, if necessary, a new agenda, revise our goals. Is this
not the real mission of the School of Social and Economic Development:
to contribute to the designing of a Pacific future? (Waddell, Naidu and
Hau‘ofa 1993)
The mission of contributing to the design of a Pacific future should,

in fact, be one for the university as a whole.
A Peace Dividend
Today USP has 14 campuses and 10 centres, with three campuses in
Fiji and a campus each on the remaining 11 member states. As will be
shown, student numbers have increased several thousand fold. However,
it all began on the grounds and buildings of the former Royal New
Zealand Airforce (RNZAF) base in Laucala Bay in Suva. The end of the
Pacific war, the last theatre of war in the Second World War, meant that
New Zealand and its allies did not need the base anymore. The idea of
a regional university in vogue at that time coincided with the availability
of more than 70 hectares of undulating land from the coast to the crest
of the Muanikau hills. The British colonial government of Fiji agreed to
make the land and all its buildings and facilities, including the largest
wooden aircraft hangar in the southern hemisphere and a swimming
pool, available for the new university. This peace dividend became the site
of the headquarters of the USP, the premier higher education centre for
the region and the cradle of the regional anti-nuclear and independent
Pacific movement, building the campaign against nuclear weapons testing
in French Polynesia and, later, the nursery for independence and pro-
democracy movements.
Brief History
The history of USP and some of its achievements in the first two-and-a-
half decades of its existence are well covered in the book Pacific Universities:
Achievements, Problems, Prospects written by former staff of the university
(Crocombe and Meleisea 1988), and the 25th anniversary publication
13
A Garland of Achievement (USP 1993). The first substantive vice chancellor

of the university, the late Dr Colin Aikman, who served USP from 1968
to 1974, wrote in the latter book, ‘We set out to turn a dilapidated flying
boat base at Laucala Bay into the campus of a viable regional university’,
constructing university buildings and facilities in member countries.
Dr Aikman justified USP’s establishment on the grounds that students
from the regional university would return to serve their countries upon
graduation, and contribute to social and economic development. He went
on to say:
Everywhere you look in the region USP graduates have prominent
positions in government, in education and in other walks of life. There is,
too, the USP ‘mafia’—the USP graduates throughout the South Pacific
who maintain valuable contacts with one another (Aikman 1993:5).
The university has been contributing to the creation and growth of

a pan‑Pacific identity through its students becoming more aware of the
wider USP region, and that Oceania has shared histories and cultures
as well as common challenges and possibilities. As noted by the late
Professor Epeli Hau‘ofa, there is considerable scope for enhancing both
this supra‑national identity and solidarity.
In his introduction to USP’s 1999 Annual Report, the university’s fifth
vice chancellor and the first ‘regional’ person at the helm, Esekia Solofa
succinctly summarised the university’s growth:
The development of USP since its formal constitution by charter in 1970
saw the 70s decade as a period of building and establishment, followed
in the eighties by a period of rationalization and consolidation. USP had
come of age by the end of the eighties. It entered its third decade with
youthful zest and confidence, ready to tackle the various challenges facing
the development of its member countries and the region, through the
provision of higher education. The nineties saw considerable expansion in
the university as areas of study widened and new programmes were added;
as support services were upgraded and new innovations introduced in their

operation; as total enrolments grew, new buildings [were] constructed,
and more staff recruited (Solofa 2000:1).
The first 19 years of the new millennium have seen the continued
expansion of buildings and facilities on nearly all campuses and centres of
the university, as well as a growth in student numbers in virtually all modes
of undergraduate studies and in postgraduate enrolments. Of special
significance is the Japan–Pacific Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) Centre, which houses the university’s ICT hub, and
14
a large multipurpose lecture theatre as well as conference, IT labs and

office facilities. Former vice chancellor Savenaca Siwatibau (2001–03)
began the negotiations towards having this complex built. This edifice is
an addition to previously built structures such as the library, the Japanese-
funded Marine Studies complex on the ‘lower campus’ at Laucala, and
the Australian-funded lecture theatres on the ‘upper campus’. All these
facilities, together with the three faculty buildings, enhance the university’s
modern outlook and complexity. Visiting USP alumni bringing their
children to enrol have been heard to remark that they no longer recognise
the campus because of this transformation.
New buildings and campus upgrades have been completed in regional
campuses and centres, although progress has been uneven. Kiribati,
Marshall Islands and Nauru have been the most recent sites of expanded
facilities. A major new campus is planned for the Solomon Islands where
the new School of Public Health will be located. The state of the present
Honiara campus leaves much to be desired.
Noteworthy too are the efforts by the university to continuously upgrade
its ICT facilities and the USPNet that links the campuses and centres.
This is vital both for communication and exchange of data. Professor
Rajesh Chandra, the former vice chancellor and president of USP, can
be credited for his push to make the university’s ICT facilities among
the best in the South Pacific, and for the leap forward to online teaching
and learning.
The university’s development has not all been rosy. It has coped reasonably
well with the demands of 12 member states, and their changing human
resources needs, along with addressing difficult financial and resource
constraints. External factors such as relative stagnant economies of
member states, and in particular political instability and military coups in
Fiji and the ‘tensions’ in the Solomon Islands, have affected the university.
The Fiji coups of 1987, 2000 and 2006 have been especially disruptive
as they increased the sense of insecurity among staff and students.

The presence of armed soldiers of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces on
Laucala campus, and the detention and torture of academics after the 1987
coups, traumatised the university community. In the Solomon Islands,
the fighting in Guadalcanal and the overthrow of government in 2000
accompanied by lawlessness not only disrupted the lives of most Islanders
but particularly affected schools and tertiary institutions, including USP’s
Honiara campus and the Institute of Marine Resources on Guadalcanal.
15
The late Geoffrey Caston, USP’s fourth vice chancellor (1983–92) stood
steadfast in keeping the university open during the unprecedented period
of instability in 1987. He declared that the university was ‘involved now
in the defence of a bridgehead for our values’ (Caston 1987:5) and, in
the trying circumstances of military dictatorship, sought to keep alive
academic freedom. His successor, Esekia Solofa (1992–2001), identified
another significant role for the university. In 1993 he opened the first
national dialogue in Fiji between political and civil society leaders to
address the constitutional crisis in the country. The event was organised by
the Citizens Constitutional Forum (CCF). He said the university campus
should always be an open and ‘safe space’ to dialogue on matters of serious
national importance for member countries (CCF 1993:1). The University
Council considered whether to spread more of the university ‘real estate’
across other member countries to reduce the risks posed by political
turmoil in any one country. There was talk about relocating the university
headquarters from Fiji to another member state.
University staff and students were further traumatised by the ethnically
motivated insurrection of May 2000 led by George Speight and his
group against the Fiji Labour Party–led government of Mahendra Pal
Chaudhry. Chaudhry and the government ministers and backbenchers
were taken hostage for 56 days, during which time there were periods
of ‘mob rule’ in parts of the country. Schools and the university opened
and closed depending on rumours about gangs of rebels heading towards
Suva’s central business district or to the campus. Academic freedom was
seriously compromised when the university administration decided to
shut down the website of its journalism students’ newspaper Wansolwara,
which provided excellent coverage of the unfolding political instability
and the military coup, on 29 May 2000 because of ‘security reasons’
(Robie 2000).
Following the December 2006 coup, the university became somewhat
complicit in gagging academic staff from openly criticising government

policies, and eventually compelled a leading economics professor to
relinquish his position. The university also adopted a policy that sets out
to restrict staff from communicating directly to the media. This restriction
is accompanied by another prohibition that seriously compromises
the governance of the university; staff have been prohibited from
communicating with members of the University Council and its Chair
16
if they have complaints and grievances that remain unresolved through

normal university processes. Complaints about the vice chancellor and
president need to be made to the vice chancellor and not to Council.
In short, even though USP continues to pay lip-service to its commitment
of academic freedom, the political environment in Fiji has made the
university not particularly enthusiastic about promoting healthy debates
and discussions about Fiji politics, economy and government policies.
USP Member States

The 12 member states of USP are Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall
Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu
and Vanuatu. As co-owners of the university, their representatives sit
in the USP Council together with representatives of donor countries,
university officials and academics. The council makes policy decisions as
well as deciding matters relating to university finance, the appointment of
the chancellor, pro-chancellor and vice chancellor. As in other universities
that follow the British model, the chancellor is the symbolic head of the
institution. The position is rotated each year among the heads of state of
USP member countries. Up to the end of June 2018, the President of
the Republic of Fiji was the Chancellor. The current Chancellor is the
President of the Republic of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau.
The new chancellor, USP’s 25th, is His Excellency Taneti Maamau, the
President of the Republic of Kiribati. The pro-chancellor is elected by
council and has the responsibility of chairing university council meetings.
The vice chancellor and president (the nomenclature ‘president’ is
a recent addition to the vice chancellor title) is the principal head of the
university and is responsible for the daily operation of the institution.
On completion of the eighth Vice Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra’s
term (2007–18), the position was filled by Professor Pal Ahluwalia who
had previously been Pro-Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation at the
University of Portsmouth in England.
Member states of the university contribute to its funding based on
a formula that seeks to apportion financial subventions according to the
benefits that accrue to each member state. As Fiji has the largest campus,
it has most of the students, its citizens form the biggest pool of employees,
it is the largest recipient of USP tax revenue, and it has historically been
17
the largest contributor. Other sources of funding include student fees

and donor contributions, both of which have increased significantly in
recent years.
Like other Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP)
member agency boards, the USP Council has tended to rubber stamp
the policies that the head of organisation and the senior management
team have proposed. They also tend to listen and accede to advice by
non-member state and donor country representatives. In recent years,
this tendency has become more marked, and especially disturbing
is the relative passivity of representatives of member states in contrast
to the active role played by Australia and New Zealand representatives.
As aid from the latter countries to the university has increased, there has
been a parallel increase in how much say they have in the affairs of the
university. Australia and New Zealand government representatives who
have been university vice chancellors have sought to make USP in the
image of their own universities. This approach has eroded the unique
and special features of USP’s regional and Pacific character (see Naidu
2004 for further discussion on seeking equality of partnership between
aid donors and recipients citing USP as an example). The path taken by
USP, like so many other universities, has been to focus on making and/
or saving money, becoming accredited or ranked, rather than fulfilling its
educational objectives. Issues related to this trend will be addressed under
some of the sub-headings below.
USP’s Reach as a Regional University

As mentioned earlier, the member states of the university are spread
over a huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean, posing daunting challenges of
communication and transportation.
University campuses are located in each one of these countries’ capitals,

and in some instances there are university centres in the outer islands—
as in the case of Vanuatu, which has four such centres. Besides Laucala
campus, which has the university’s three faculties—Faculty of Arts, Law
and Education, Faculty of Business and Economics and Faculty of Science,
Technology and Environment—there are two other large campuses. These
are Alafua campus in Apia, Sāmoa, which is the home of the School of
Agriculture and Food Technology and the Institute of Research, Extension
18
and Training in Agriculture (IRETA); and the Emalus campus in Port

Vila, Vanuatu, where the School of Law and the Pacific Languages Unit
are located. Fiji hosts two other campuses in Lautoka and Labasa.
Almost from its very inception the university set out to be the higher
education institution for the region by progressively establishing university
centres for distance learning and teaching in all its member states. USP
has been recognised as a world leader in the use of satellite communication
(initially, the Pan-Pacific Education and Communication Experiments
by Satellite program, or PEACESAT) in connecting these centres to
Laucala campus. Over some three decades, distance and flexible learning
was provided with the use of print materials and visits by mainly Suva-
based tutors. Given the tyranny of distance and associated transportation
of mail bags, the university overcame considerable challenges in the
delivery and receipt of course materials, assignments, test papers and
examination scripts.
Since the advent of computers and the internet, the university has adopted
the use of online facilities for teaching and learning. Serious challenges
do remain because of the relative paucity of privately owned computers,
computer lab facilities and internet access or connectivity issues in some
of the member states. In these countries there are also infrastructural
limitations (such as bandwidth) and regulatory bottlenecks. Students in
countries outside of Fiji struggle to access course materials and related
resources. Online teaching of courses has increased staff workloads as
many staff also teach the same courses face-to-face, and there are challenges
regarding coordination of teaching and learning with numerous tutors
and markers across member states. The availability of lecture slides on the
internet has also meant that, in some courses, student attendance in face-
to-face classes has significantly dropped.
The University Library

As in the case of regional centres and campuses, the university recognised
from the beginning that having a good library was pivotal to learning,
teaching and research. University librarians, Esther Williams, Sin Joan
Yee and Elizabeth Reade-Fong and their staff, have been at the forefront
of establishing a world-class library. The university library has grown in
tandem with the university, with state of arts facilities and thousands of
books and hundreds of journals. With the IT revolution, it has become
19
the information hub for students, staff and the wider public alike. Library
staff have also offered courses and programs of study in librarianship
and related information technology. The main USP library has digitised
collections and subscribes to search engines that allow wide access to
scholarly journals. This library is also linked to and facilitates other libraries
in the 15 campuses. The Pacific Islands Marine Resources Information
System is based in the marine studies complex, but is part of a network of
libraries and information centres of regional organisations and government
departments involved in fisheries and marine resource work.
Besides the special collection of books, journals and writings on the
Pacific in the Pacific Collection of the USP Library, the university also
has the South Pacific Regional Herbarium and Biodiversity Centre, which
has thousands of Fiji and Pacific plant materials in its care. The university’s
School of Law (Emalus campus, Port Vila) established the Pacific Islands
Legal Information Institute (PacLII) so that students from across the region
could have easier access to legal materials. It is now used by governments,
non-government organisations, legal scholars and professionals, students
and members of the public—and is seen as an example of excellence for
providing legal information.
Institutes and Centres

The university has been changing its form and component structures
together with some of its functions over the years. A good illustration
of such changes is the creation and phasing out of institutes and centres.
The flamboyant second vice chancellor of USP (1975–82) was Dr James
Maraj, a Trinidadian and former head of the Commonwealth of Learning,
who created a number of institutes and centres to enhance the university’s
research and consultancy activities. These were the Institute of Pacific
Studies (IPS), the Institute of Applied Sciences (IAS), the Institute of
Education (IOE), the Institute of Marine Resources (IMR), the Institute

of Research, Extension and Training in Agriculture (IRETA) and the
Institute of Social and Administrative Studies. These institutes were
linked to the schools of the university. A Centre for Applied Studies in
Development, a Centre for Appropriate Technology and Development
and an Atoll Research Centre were also established, but none of the
centres proved viable and were disbanded. Of the six institutes, only four
have variously survived: the IAS, IMR, IOE and IRETA. The Pacific
Institute of Advanced Studies in Development and Governance was
20
also short-lived. The Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable

Development (PaCE-SD), a relative newcomer, has become a dynamic
hub of postgraduate research and advocacy on climate change, aided by
a healthy boost of funding and a passionate director.
A major challenge to self-funded entities such as these centres and institutes
has been the capacity of member state governments, businesses and civil
society organisations to pay for services rendered. Generally speaking,
international financial institutions and other multilateral agencies,
including the UN system, have opted to use the services of Australian
and New Zealand institutions and companies to do work in Pacific Island
countries (PICs).
USP Restructuring
Among the variety of changes that the university has undergone are those
that have strengthened its teaching and research capabilities and those that
have detracted from these core functions. USP began 50 years ago with
three interdisciplinary schools. While there were recognised disciplines,
the objective was to promote interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
teaching and research. Ten years on from this orientation and thanks to
senior academics who came from ‘traditional universities’, departments
emerged with their own heads and the rise of separate silos. The schools
continued to exist (two with name changes) and did try to encompass
the earlier objective of cross-disciplinary work. This model existed until
the new millennium. From the early 2000s, the schools were replaced by
faculties: Arts, Law and Education; Business and Economics; and Science,
Technology and Environment. Each of these faculties are led by a dean.
The Pacific Technical and Further Education (Pacific TAFE) has been
recently added to provide vocational programs and has incorporated the
university’s pre-degree foundation programs.

A marked shift in the processes of decision-making and the relative size
and influence of administrative units of the university has accompanied
this restructure. Academic staff including professors have little say in
policy decisions because the former school boards of study have been
abolished and executive power resides in the office of deans and in the
vice chancellor and president’s office. The latter position has considerable
power bestowed on it and, in many ways, the senior management team has
21
become the main decision-making body of the university. The University

Senate, the apex academic forum is a shadow of what it had been before
the restructure. The trend has been towards top-down management.
The restructure also phased out the internationally renowned Institute
of Pacific Studies (IPS), which published the largest number of works
of Pacific Islanders and virtually on all Pacific Island countries, and the
region as a whole. IPS was replaced by the poorly resourced USP Press.
University Staff
USP is home to the largest pool of well-qualified academics in the South
Pacific Islands. In 1969 there were 31 academic staff, today there are over
300. In the very early years of the university, a majority of the senior
staff including the vice chancellor, registrar and heads of schools and
professors came from New Zealand. Very quickly, however, the mix of
nationalities became more diverse with Australians, British, Americans
(including Peace Corps volunteers, and former volunteers), Canadians,
Indians, Cook Islanders, Fijians, iKiribati, Samoans and Tongans joining
as academics and administrators. This mix was further enhanced with
Solomon Islanders, Ni-Vans, Niueans, Tuvaluans, Africans and other
nationalities. Indeed, it was noted at a conference in the mid-1990s
in Melbourne on the internationalisation of education, that USP was
only second to the University of Singapore in its openness to recruiting
academics internationally. By this stage, the university comprised staff
from more than 30 nationalities (Naidu 1997).
A major challenge for the university, however, has been the recruitment
and retention of quality staff, both regional and foreign, male and female.
USP emoluments have never been competitive with those offered in
neighbouring Australia and New Zealand. With the adoption of more
market-based policies and the removal of subsidies in housing and

other support, the university has not been able to attract and retain
good-quality mid-career academics, let alone those who are at the top
of their career. Various incentives and inducements have generally failed
to entice staff for the long haul, especially from Australia, New Zealand
and United Kingdom. There has been an increasing reliance on shorter
term appointments of retired expatriate professors, and academics from
South Asia.
22
With some exceptions, even well-qualified regional staff from USP

member states have not continued their employment with the university.
The reasons for this lack of stability in staffing according to Sarojini Pillay,
a former registrar, have been ‘insecurity inherent in a contract system,
national immigration policies, high taxation, lack of competitiveness
of USP salaries with those overseas and few employment opportunities
for spouses’(1993:92). The longstanding three-year contracts did not
help either. Although Fiji’s direct personal taxation is now below the
international average, USP’s emoluments remain uncompetitive, and
there are extremely limited opportunities for spouses of expatriate staff to
be gainfully employed.
The university has recently moved towards offering five-year contracts to
a few selected academic staff, but it has continued to refuse to institute
tenure, despite tenure being a standard practice in comparative universities
that USP benchmarks itself against. It is unsurprising, given USP terms
and conditions of employment, that academic staff numbers have declined
in recent years whilst student numbers have increased. In 2016 there were
425 academic staff but in 2017, that number had declined to 332 staff
(USP 2017:22). It is also of concern that fewer quality appointments are
being made at the professorial and associate professorial levels. Senior
academic staff (senior lecturers, associate professors and professors), as a
proportion of the staff establishment, have decreased from the envisaged
40 per cent to 35 per cent; tutors, teaching assistants, assistant lecturers
and lecturers now predominate (statistics derived from USP annual
reports up to 2017 and earlier staff policy documents). USP’s current
staff–student ratios are largely at variance with internationally accepted
ratios for quality teaching and learning.
Meanwhile, USP’s glossy annual reports have been winning prizes for
corporate annual reports.
Students: A Home Away from Home

and a Place of Diversity
The university began with a little over 150 students mainly in pre-
university level, Preliminary 1 (form 6 equivalent) and Preliminary 2
(form 7 equivalent) programs. In 1969, of the 249 students, only
12 per cent were in degree studies, but by 1974 the situation had changed
with almost 37 per cent of the 981 students undertaking degree studies,
23
and a further 36 per cent enrolled in Diploma in Education programs

(Aikman 1988:41). By 1993, student numbers had increased to 8,000,
and by 1999 to a little more than 10,000. In 2017, the number was close
to 30,000 with almost equal numbers studying in the face-to-face mode
as in distant and flexible modes.
The students are mainly from member countries with Fijian students
comprising over 70 per cent and other country student numbers
reflecting their relative population size. The Solomon Islands, for
instance, has the next highest number. Diversity is the hallmark of the
student body. To begin with, students from the member states represent
the geographical and supposed cultural regions of Melanesia, Polynesia
and Micronesia, and bring with them considerable cultural diversity.
However Solomon Islander, ni-Vanuatu and Fijian students are the most
culturally diverse. The cosmopolitan nature of the larger campuses are
added to by international students from Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
the United States of America, Europe, China, India, Japan, Korea and
African countries, as well as countries of the Caribbean region such as
Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad, who come under
exchange schemes. International students make up less than 5 per cent of
the USP student body.
There is relative gender parity in student numbers, and in recent years
there have been more women graduates than men. Women are also taking
up studies in those disciplines that have long been dominated by men,
such as engineering and physics. Students have generally got on well and
in the larger campuses of Laucala, Alafua and Emalus, regional students
feel at home because of similarities in cultures and the relationships that
they have with each other and with staff members.
Over the last five decades, the university has produced more than 50,000
graduates and certificate and diploma holders. It has also trained hundreds
of Islanders in shorter training programs to build capacity in the public

services of member states. Among its graduates, the university can count
presidents and prime ministers of PICs, members of parliament, ministers
of state, diplomats, senior public servants, teachers, lawyers, engineers,
economists and social scientists, chemists, biologists, accountants,
medical doctors, physicists and energy experts, regional and international
bureaucrats, academics and researchers. In virtually every regional
organisation and forum, it is inevitable these days to come into contact
with USP alumni.
24
Having contributed enormously to the human resource needs of member

states from the 1990s onwards, the university began to pay increasing
attention to postgraduate programs of study and research degrees. It also
sought to enhance its profile as a centre of research excellence in all
aspects of the Pacific. Postgraduate diplomas, course work–based masters
qualifications as well as research degrees at the masters and doctoral
levels have emerged over the last three decades. These are both discipline-
based (for example, MSc in Chemistry, MA in Education and MCom in
Economics) and interdisciplinary. These latter programs of study include
development studies, environmental studies, marine studies, tourism
studies, and Pacific studies. The Graduate School of Business has been
offering diplomas and the MBA degree in business-related specialisms.
There are more than 1,000 successfully completed masters and doctoral
dissertations (932 masters and 92 PhDs) in the university library’s care.
While the spirit of volunteerism appears to have died among the elected
officials of the USP Student Association, who pay themselves fortnightly
stipends and sitting allowances for every council and committee meetings
they attend, other students volunteer their services for charitable causes
and for humanitarian relief and rehabilitation work after natural disasters.
The long history and shared experiences of such volunteer efforts provide
another basis for solidarity and the formation of an Oceanic identity.
Remembering the Ancestors

At every commemorative event in Oceania, the ancestors are
acknowledged and homage is paid to them. Scores of staff—from those
holding academic leadership positions to those responsible for secretarial
support, maintaining the grounds of campuses and the cleaning and
maintenance of facilities—have helped the university thrive. A good
number have passed on. It is impossible to name all the people who have
made USP prosper, but a few more prominent persons can be mentioned
beginning with those at the helm. Former vice chancellors Colin Aikman,
James Maraj, Frank Brosnahan and Savenaca Siwatibau who started the
building of the university and contributed immensely to its growth have
passed away but their legacies remain. For example, the negotiations for the
construction of the Japan–Pacific ICT centre began with Mr Siwatibau.
25
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binnacle. On this, and other accounts, he was so much esteemed in
the ship, that more than the usual degree of regret was felt for his
melancholy fate. I saw the poor fellow pitch into the water, and
watched him as he floated past, buoyant as a cork, and breasting the
waves most gallantly, with an imploring look towards us, which I shall
never forget. In less than a minute he was out of sight. A boat could
hardly have lived in such weather, and no further attempt was made,
or could have been made, to save him, than to throw over ropes,
which all fell short of their mark. Although we soon lost all traces of
him, it is probable he may have kept sight of us, as we drifted quickly
to leeward under our bare poles, long after we had ceased to
distinguish his figure in the yest of waves.
This gale, the first I ever saw, was also, I can recollect, one of the
fiercest. It lasted for three days, totally dispersed our little squadron,
well nigh foundered one of them, the Cambrian, and sent her
hobbling into Bermuda some days after us, with the loss of her main-
mast and all three top-masts.
Bermuda seemed to us mids a very barren place, as it produced
few articles of any great utility—at least such as we required. There
were then so few bullocks or sheep reared on the island, that I
remember it was rather a wonder to see fresh meat on any table;
and amongst the lower classes such a luxury was never known in
those days. What may be the case now, I know not. The ships did
get fresh meat now and then, but only very seldom; whereas in all
other places, we were supplied regularly with fresh grub, as we
called it, every day.
The Bermudas consist of upwards of a hundred little islands,
clustered round two or three large ones. The seat of government is
in St. George’s Island, which is about four or five miles long, by two
broad, and very low. The town is built on the south-east side, on a
gentle and very pretty declivity which fronts the harbour. None of the
houses have more than two stories, and they are all built of the soft
freestone, of which all these islands are composed. Most of these
dwellings have but one chimney. In walking through the streets in hot
days, such is the extreme whiteness of the walls, that the glare is
most painful to the eyes. But as many of the buildings are
surrounded by bananas, calabashes, orange trees, and by various
members of the palm tribe, the disagreeable effect of the light is not
felt, except in the open streets. This pretty town is about half a mile
each way, and is mostly inhabited by blacks; but a great many of
these possess houses, and have gained their freedom by some
means or other. What is curious enough, all these manumitted
negroes hold slaves as black as themselves; of course the whites
own them in still greater numbers. The slaves are never allowed to
have firearms in their hands, for fear of revolt; indeed it is said they
are considerably more numerous than the freemen in the island; and
no slave is allowed to go about the streets after nine o’clock at night.
We found the black people, generally speaking, gentle, docile, and
kind. If we entered any of their houses, though they had but little to
offer us, that little was always given with much simple hospitality. To
say the truth, we saw much less reserve amongst the blacks than
amongst those of our own colour. It is true, the means of entertaining
strangers are but scanty; for the inhabitants, even of the better class,
we were told, live mostly upon salt meat, brought from America in
vessels which pass, like market boats, backwards and forwards
during all the year.
We had read somewhere in fanciful tales, of countries in which the
forests were of cedar; but, until we visited Bermuda, we hardly
believed in such stories. At that fairy island, however, this tree
constitutes the chief wood; so that every ship and boat built there is
made of cedar: the beams also, and the furniture of the houses, are
likewise constructed out of this fragrant timber. It is not the cedar of
Lebanon, but resembles in appearance the yew of England, though it
seldom grows to the same height. It has an agreeable smell, and
bears a little blue berry, about the size of a pea, which, though sweet
to the taste, is very dry. The wood, after it is cut up and planed, looks
well for a little while, but it soon turns pale and chalky; nor is it
capable of receiving a good polish. For ship-building, it is much
esteemed on account of its durability. We saw orange and lemon-
trees growing, also, in such abundance, that at first we were
enchanted to see the fruit thickly clustered upon all the branches.
But when we climbed up and picked them off, in hopes of a grand
feast, we found them all of that bitter kind which, though very
excellent for making marmalade, are good for nothing else.
Except a few wild pigeons, hardly any birds are to be seen, the
most common being of blue and red colours, about the size of a
fieldfare. The blue kind is pretty enough, but they do not sing any
more than the red birds; so that, in the midshipman’s birth, we had
no scruple of conscience about baking many a score of them in our
pies.
Besides St. George’s, there are numerous lesser islands, and a
large district, called the Continent, from its being by far the most
extensive in the cluster, no less, I believe, than twelve or fifteen miles
from end to end! At the north-western end of the group lies Ireland
Island, on which an extensive naval establishment has of late years
been erected; close to that spot is now the anchorage for ships of
war. The population of those islands was calculated, at the time I
speak of, at near twenty thousand, the greater part of whom were
blacks, and principally slaves.
The rock of the islands of Bermuda is of a very soft coarse
freestone, full of pores; so soft, indeed, that if it be required to make
an additional window in a house, there is nothing to be done, we
were told, but to hire a black fellow, who, with a saw, could speedily
cut an opening in any part of the wall.
How far this sketch of Bermuda, taken from old scanty notes and
faint recollections, may now be true, I cannot say. The cedar-trees
and oranges, the blue birds, the rocks, the negroes, and the islands,
I dare say, all remain just as before; but I think I have heard that the
seat of government has been changed to the western end of the
island; and now the men-of-war, instead of lying in Murray’s
anchorage, on the north side of St. George’s, find, as I have said
before, a far more secure roadstead.
There is nothing more remarkable in this singular cluster of islands
than the extensive coral reefs which fend off the sea on the northern
side, and stretch out in a semicircular belt, at the distance of two or
three leagues from the land. If I recollect rightly, only one of these
ledges, called the North Rock, shews its head above water. All the
others lie out of sight below the surface, and consequently form one
of the most dangerous traps that nature has ever set in the path of
mariners. On these treacherous reefs we saw many a poor vessel
bilged, at moments when, from seeing the land at such a distance,
they fancied themselves in perfect security.
Dangerous though they be, however, there are few things more
beautiful to look at than these corallines when viewed through two or
three fathoms of clear and still water. It is hardly an exaggeration to
assert, that the colours of the rainbow are put to shame on a bright
sunny day, by what meets the view on looking into the sea in those
fairy regions. On the other hand, there are not many things, in the
anxious range of navigation, more truly terrific, or, in fact, more
dangerous, than these same beautiful submarine flower beds,
raising their treacherous heads, like the fascinating sirens of old, or
the fair and false mermaids of a later epoch. If, by sad fortune, the
sailor once gets entangled amongst them, it is too well known that
his chance of escape is but small.
They tell a story at Bermuda—‘the still vexed Bermoothes,’—of a
boatman who, it was said, lived by these disasters, once going off to
an unlucky vessel, fairly caught amongst the coral reefs, like a fly in
a cobweb, not far from the North Rock. The wrecker, as he was
called, having boarded the bewildered ship, said to the master,
“What will you give me, now, to get you out of this place?”
“Oh, any thing you like—name your sum.”
“Five hundred dollars?”
“Agreed! agreed!” cried the other. Upon which this treacherous
pilot ‘kept his promise truly to the ear, but broke it to the hope,’ by
taking the vessel out of an abominably bad place, only to fix her in
one a great deal more intricate and perilous.
“Now,” said the wrecker to the perplexed and doubly-cheated
stranger, “there never was a vessel in this scrape, that was known to
get out again; and, indeed, there is but one man alive who knows the
passages, or could, by any possibility, extricate you—and that’s me!”
“I suppose,” drily remarked the captain, “that ‘for a consideration’
you would be the man to do me that good service. What say you to
another five hundred dollars to put me into clear water, beyond your
infernal reefs?”
This hard bargain was soon made; and a winding passage,
unseen before, being found, just wide enough, and barely deep
enough, for the vessel to pass through, with only six inches to spare
under her keel, in half an hour she was once more in blue water, out
of soundings, and out of danger.
“Now, master rascallion of a wrecker,” cried the disentangled
mariner, “tit for tat is fair play all the world over; and, unless you hand
me back again my thousand dollars, I’ll cut the tow rope of your
thievish-looking boat, and then, instead of returning evil for evil, as I
ought by rights to do, I’ll be more of a Christian, and do you a very
great service, by carrying you away from one of the most infamous
places in the world, to the finest country imaginable—I mean
America. And as you seem to have a certain touch of black blood in
your veins, I may chance to get good interest for my loan of these
thousand dollars, by selling you as a slave in Charleston negro
market! What say you, my gay Mudian?”
We lay, moored in Murray’s anchorage at Bermuda, for the greater
part of the winters both of 1802 and of 1803. The war had not yet
broken out, and, in the absence of active service, we were fain to
catch hold of any thing to amuse and occupy ourselves. The master,
and a gang of youngsters who were fond of navigation, set about
surveying the coral reefs already mentioned. This party of
philosophers, as they were of course dubbed, landed on St. David’s
Head, and other conspicuous points of land, to ascertain the
longitude with more care; to observe the latitude and the variation of
the compass; or to measure the perpendicular rise and fall of the
tides; or, lastly, and much the most frequently, to have a good hour’s
swim in the deliciously-warm sea. It will be easily understood, that all
and each of these inquiries furnished to those persons, whose duty
and pleasure it was to attend to them, an inexhaustible field of
occupation, and of interest likewise.
At first sight, many of these pursuits may appear trivial; but it ought
to be recollected, that, although it be easy enough to make the
observations enumerated, and many others of the same nature, in a
rough sort of way, there is hardly any one of them which, if it be
required to be done in the best possible style, does not demand
much attention and labour. For example, it seems a very simple
affair to draw a base or straight line on the ground; but if this line is
required to be, very exactly, of a particular length, so as to be neither
more nor less, the problem is one of the utmost difficulty, which has
fully exercised, and still employs, the talents of some of the ablest
engineers of the day. In fact, these refinements in surveying and in
observing, are pretty much like the pound of flesh question in the
Merchant of Venice; with one comfortable difference, that the
philosopher’s neck is not in such danger, even if, in a base of half-a-
dozen miles, he should happen to err in the estimation of half-a-
dozen hairs-breadths! It is well for young officers to recollect,
however, that there is still a tolerably formidable professional
tribunal, before which a man who undertakes such tasks is apt to be
arraigned, and, if found wanting, pretty severely dealt with.
Sailors, like the element upon which they are tossed about, are
scarcely ever at rest, and are seldom satisfied with what has been
done before them. Consequently, the moment a ship arrives at a
port, the navigators straightway erect their observatory, fix up their
instruments, set their clocks a-going, and commence an attack, like
the giants of old, upon the very heavens themselves,—and all for
what? They say to themselves, that this is done for the benefit of
science, for the advancement of geographical or astronomical
knowledge—and so it is. But, along with these pure and lofty
motives, there may enter some others, not quite so sublime, but
perhaps equally operative in producing diligence. We have a lurking
kind of malicious expectation of discovering that our predecessors
have not made out their latitudes, or longitudes, or whatever the
observations be, with the precision we ourselves hope to attain. It
does not much matter whether the superior accuracy we expect to
reach arises from our having better instruments in our hands, or from
having more leisure, or better opportunities at command. So long as
we contrive to do the required job better than it has been done
before, so long do we count upon getting the credit due to
superiority. These honours, it is true, are worn only till somebody
coming later shall jostle us out of our seats, by substituting still better
work. The desire to avoid being thrust on one side in this way, and
forgotten, is a strong motive to vigorous application on the occasions
alluded to, and helps essentially to quicken that delightful interest
which almost always attends an investigation of the properties of
natural objects.
It is probably requisite to this enjoyment, that the pursuit followed
should have some specific purpose in view;—if professional, so
much the better. If a man, quite uninstructed, shall start up and say,
in the abstract, “I mean to study botany—or astronomy”—or
whatever else his fancy may select, he will, in all probability, find the
pursuit as great a bore to himself as it will inevitably prove to those
friends whom he endeavours to persuade that it is the most delightful
thing in the world to be a savant. Still, young folks, in any situation,
and most of all in the navy, need not be afraid; for they can hardly
ever be cast into situations where, if their minds have been properly
trained, first at school, and then on board ship, they may not hit upon
ample materials to keep their heads and hands in motion, and at the
same time to advance their professional objects.
One of our party of mids, who has since turned out a valuable and
enterprising officer, took it in his head to make a trip in one of the
whale-boats of the Bermuda fishery. Having ascertained the time of
starting, he obtained leave to go on shore, and completely
succeeded in his object by being present at the capture of a whale.
The monster, however, led them a considerable dance off to sea,
and it was long after the time appointed for his return, when the
youth made his appearance, delightfully perfumed with blubber, and
with a glorious tale to tell of his day’s adventures.
This was voted by acclamation to be ‘something like an
expedition;’ and the youngster, of course, gained great credit for his
spirit. I was one of another party who, I suppose, being a little
jealous of our companion’s laurels, took the earliest opportunity of
trying to signalise ourselves in a similar way. A monstrous whale was
seen one morning playing about the Leander, in Murray’s anchorage,
and, of course, far within the belt of reefs already described as
fringing the roadstead on its eastern and northern sides. How this
great fellow had got into such a scrape, we could not conjecture.
Possibly, in placing himself alongside of the rugged coral ledges, to
scrub off the incrustations of shell-fish which torment these monsters
of the deep, he had gradually advanced too far;—or, more probably,
he may have set out in pursuit of some small fry, and, before he was
aware of it, have threaded his way amongst this labyrinth of rocks, till
escape was impossible. At all events, he now found himself in
comparatively deep water, from eight to ten fathoms, without any
visible means of retreat from his coral trap. All hands crowded into
the rigging to see the whale floundering about; till at length some one
proposed—rashly enough, certainly,—to pay him a visit in one of the
ship’s boats, with no better implements, offensive or defensive, than
the ordinary boat-hooks. These are light poles, with a spike, not
unlike a shepherd’s crook, at the end of them, and not bad things for
fishing up a turtle when caught napping, but slender reeds, in all
conscience, against a fish forty or fifty feet long!
Away we went, however, in our wild-goose, whale chase, without
any precise idea as to what we were to do if we should come up with
the game. When we got near the great leviathan, his aspect became
more and more formidable; and it was necessary to think of some
regular plan of attack, if any were to be made. As to defence, it may
easily be imagined that was out of the question; for one whisk of his
tail would have sent the cutter and her crew, boat-hooks and all,
spinning over the fore and yard arm of the flag-ship. All eyes were
now upon us, and, after a pause, it was agreed unanimously, that we
should run right on board of him, and take our chance. So we rowed
forward; but the whale, whose back was then shewing just above the
water, like a ship keel upwards, perhaps not approving of our looks,
or possibly not seeing us, slipped down, clean out of sight, leaving
only a monstrous whirlpool of oily-looking water, in the vortex of
which we continued whirling round for some time, like great ninnies
as we were, and gaping about us. At this time, we were not above
half a ship’s length from the Leander; so that our disappointment
caused considerable amusement on board, and the people came
laughing down from the rigging, where they had been perched, to
see the grand fight between the whale and the young gentlemen!
As we were lying on our oars, and somewhat puzzled what to do
next, we beheld one of the most extraordinary sights in the world;—
at least I do not remember to have seen many things which have
surprised me so much, or made a deeper impression on my memory.
Our friend the whale, probably finding the water disagreeably
shallow—for, as I have said, it was not above fifty or sixty feet deep
—or perhaps provoked at not being able to disentangle himself from
the sharp coral reefs, or for some other reason of pleasure or of
pain,—suddenly made a spring out of the water.
So complete was this enormous leap, that for an instant we saw
him fairly up in the air, in a horizontal position, at a distance from the
water not much short, I should think, of half his own breadth! His
back, therefore, must have been at least twenty feet, in
perpendicular height, over our heads! While in his progress upwards,
there was in his spring some touch of the vivacity with which a trout
or a salmon shoots out of the water; but he fell back again on the
sea, like a huge log thrown on its broadside; and with such a
thundering crash, as made all hands stare in astonishment, and the
‘boldest held his breath for a time.’ Total demolition, indeed, must
have been the inevitable fate of our party, had the whale taken his
leap one minute sooner, for he would then have fallen plump on the
boat! The waves caused by the explosion spread over half the
anchorage; nor, if the Leander herself had blown up, could the
effects have extended much further. As we rolled about in the cutter
from side to side, we had time to balance the expediency of further
proceedings, against the tolerable chance of being smashed to
atoms under the whale’s belly at his next leap.
All idea of capturing him was now, of course, given up; if, indeed,
any such frantic notion could ever seriously have entered our heads.
But our curiosity was vehemently roused to witness such another
feat; and, after lying on our oars for some time, we once more
detected the whale’s back at a little distance from us.
“Let us poke him up again!” cried one of the party.
“Agreed! agreed!” roared out the others; and away we dashed, in
hopes of producing a repetition of this singular exploit. The whale,
however, did not choose to exhibit any more, though we were often
near him. At last he fairly bolted, and took the direction of the North
Rock, hoping, perhaps, to make his escape by the narrow passage
known only to the most experienced pilots of those intricate regions.
It was not until after we had entirely lost sight of the chase, and
when we had rowed so far, that we could just see the top of St.
George’s Island astern of us, that we had leisure to remark the
change of weather, which had taken place during this absurd pursuit.
The sky had become overcast, and the wind risen to such a smart
breeze from the south-west, that, when we again put the boat’s head
towards the island, it was quite as much as we could do to make any
headway at all, and sometimes we hardly held our own. Had the
wind increased only a little more, we must inevitably have been
blown to sea—and even as it was, it cost us many hours of severe
tugging at the oars to regain the anchorage, just before night-fall,
completely worn out.
I have not related this story of the whale’s leap without
considerable hesitation, the source of which distrust will be found,
better than I can express it for myself, in the following anecdote,
related to me by Sir Walter Scott; which I recommend to the attention
of travellers who have any thoughts of communicating to the public,
what they have seen in distant lands.
It appears that Mungo Park, the first, and still, perhaps, the most
interesting of African travellers, was in the habit of relating, in a quiet
way, to his most confidential friends, sundry curious and highly
amusing incidents, that had occurred to him during his celebrated
journey in search of the Niger. Of these anecdotes, however, no
mention is to be found in his printed statements—while many others
are inserted, not nearly so interesting as these rejected stories.
“How is this?” asked his friends. “Why did not you put these things
also into your book?”
“Oh,” replied Park, “the case is simply this:—I was sent to Africa
for certain public purposes, and expressly required to investigate
particular points. Now, it seemed to me of consequence not only that
these inquiries should be carefully made, but that a credible, as well
as a faithful account, should be rendered to the world.”
“Very true,” resumed his friends; “but as there is nothing which you
have now told us, in addition to what you have printed, which is not
strictly true, while it is certainly very entertaining, why should you
wantonly deprive your book of so much that would recommend it still
more to general favour?”
“There is nothing wanton in the matter,” answered the traveller;
“indeed, it is precisely because I believed it would have had no such
good effect as you suppose, that I have kept out the matter alluded
to. It might, indeed, have gained for the work a little more temporary
popularity; but that was not what I desired. At all events, I had, as I
conceived, a still higher duty to perform. Being sent to execute a
given service, I performed my task to the best of my ability. But on
returning, I felt I had another obligation to attend to, not less binding,
which was, to give such an account as, over and above being strictly
true, should carry with it such evidence of its own good faith, as
should insure every part of my story being credited. These
anecdotes, however, which I only venture to tell you because you
have known me all my life, I have shrunk from repeating to the world,
whose knowledge of my character is drawn from this book alone. In
short, I did not feel that I was at liberty to shake my own credit, or
even to risk its being shaken, by relating anecdotes so much out of
the ordinary line of events as some of these stories are. As a servant
of the public in the great field of discovery, I considered my character
for veracity as part of their property, which was not to be trifled with,
merely for the sake of making idle people laugh or stare a little more.
And I feared, that even one doubtful point in such a work, no matter
how small, or how true, might have weakened the authority of the
whole, and this I did not choose to hazard.”
After Park’s death, and when a biographical sketch of this most
amiable and persevering of travellers was in the course of
preparation, one of this circle of friends, whose memory for such
things was known to be very retentive, was applied to for these
suppressed anecdotes, the existence of which had, somehow or
other, leaked out. After a moment’s reflection, he said—
“No!—I won’t tell you one word of them. If my friend Park, in his
soberest and most reflecting moments, considered it proper to keep
these things out of his book, and only betrayed them even to his
intimates, over a glass of toddy, I don’t see that we should be acting
a generous part by his memory to publish them after he is gone,
however true we are convinced they must be.”
After preparing the above adventure of the whale’s leap for the
press, I felt, on Park’s principle, a certain hesitation as to trusting it
before the public; but in order to fortify myself by an authority of the
highest rank in whaling matters, I sat down and wrote the following
letter to my friend Captain Scoresby:—
“More than twenty-eight years ago, I saw a whale leap

right out of the sea, in Murray’s anchorage at Bermuda.
The depth of water, if I recollect right, was about ten
fathoms, and he had, somehow or other, got inside the
barrier of coral reefs which gird these islands on the north.
When the whale was at his greatest elevation, his back
may have been twenty or thirty feet above the surface of
the water, and at that moment he was in a horizontal
position. His length could not have been less, I should
imagine, than fifty or sixty feet. As I never saw such a
thing before or since, I am a little afraid of relating it, and
have no mind to risk my credit by telling a story too big to
be swallowed by the average run of gullets, however true
in point of fact. You will oblige me, therefore, very much,
by telling me whether, in the course of your extensive
experience, you have seen one or more such incidents. If
not, I fear my story of the whale’s jump at Bermuda must
be kept out of a little work I am now preparing for the use
of young folks. But if I have your authority to back me, the
anecdote shall stand, and so take its chance for being
valuable in the way of information.”
To this I received the following reply from Captain Scoresby, who,
as all the world will admit, is the highest authority on such questions:
—
“Liverpool, 25th August, 1830.
“And now having come to the subject, which, I allow, is

one of magnitude, I have much pleasure in being able to
speak to the point, in attestation of the not infrequency of
the exhibition of the huge leaps which you witnessed,
however ignorance might charge it as ‘very like a whale.’
Whilst engaged in the northern whale fishery, I witnessed
many similar exploits of the whales in their frisks.
Generally, they were of a middle size; but I think I have
seen instances of full-grown fish, of forty or fifty feet in
length, forgetting their usual gravity, and making out these
odd exhibitions of their whole form from head to tail.
Certainly, I have several times seen whales leap so high
out of the water as to be completely in air, which,
reckoning from the surface of the back (the real extent of
the leap), could scarcely be less than twenty feet, and
possibly might be more. I have, at different times, gone in
pursuit of these frolicsome fish; but in all cases they
avoided either catastrophe—the leaping upon the boat, or
allowing the boat to pull upon them.
“By the way, whilst the breathing of the whale has been
magnified into a resemblance of water-works, to the abuse
of the credulous, the frolic feats of the leaping whales
have been neglected as a source of interest. In referring to
my account of the arctic regions, I perceive the fact is
named, but with little commentary for general
amusement.”[1]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Capt. Scoresby’s exceedingly curious and valuable
Account of the Whale Fishery in the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 467.
CHAPTER V.
MIDSHIPMEN’S PRANKS.
During the long winters of our slothful discontent at Bermuda,

caused by the Peace of Amiens, the grand resource, both of the idle
and the busy, amongst all classes of the Leander’s officers, was
shooting—that never-ending, still-beginning amusement, which
Englishmen carry to the remotest corners of the habitable globe—
popping away in all countries, thinking only of the game, and often
but too reckless of the prejudices or fears of the natives. This
propensity is indulged even in those uninhabited regions of the earth
which are visited only once in an age; and if Captain Parry had
reached the Pole, he would unquestionably have had a shot at the
axis of the earth!
In the mean time, the officers and the young gentlemen of the flag-
ship at Bermuda, in the beginning of 1803, I suppose, to keep their
hands in for the war which they saw brewing, and hourly prayed for,
were constantly blazing away amongst the cedar groves and orange
plantations of those fairy islands, which appeared more and more
beautiful after every such excursion. The midshipmen were generally
obliged to content themselves with knocking down the blue and the
red birds with the ship’s pistols, charged with His Majesty’s
gunpowder, and, for want of small shot, with slugs formed by cutting
up His Majesty’s musket-bullets. The officers aimed at higher game,
and were, of course, better provided with guns and ammunition.
Several of these gentlemen had brought from England some fine
dogs—high-bred pointers; while the middies, also, not to be outdone,
must needs have a dog of their own: they recked very little of what
breed; but some sort of animal they said they must have.
I forget how we procured the strange-looking beast whose
services we contrived to engage; but, having once obtained him, we
were not slow in giving him our best affections. It is true, he was as
ugly as any thing could possibly be. His colour was a dirty, reddish
yellow; and while a part of his hair twisted itself up in curls, a part
hung down, quite straight, almost to the ground. He was utterly
useless for all the purposes of real sport, but quite good enough to
furnish the mids with plenty of fun when they went on shore—in
chasing pigs, barking at old, white-headed negresses, and other
amusements, suited to the exalted taste and habits of the rising
generation of officers.
People will differ as to the merits of dogs; but we had no doubts as
to the great superiority of ours over all the others on board, though
the name we gave him certainly implied no such confidence on our
part. After a full deliberation, it was decided to call him Shakings.
Now, it must be explained that shakings is the name given to small
fragments of rope yarns, odds and ends of cordage, bits of oakum,
old lanyards,—in short, to any kind of refuse arising out of the wear
and tear of the ropes. This odd name was perhaps bestowed on our
beautiful favourite in consequence of his colour not being very
dissimilar to that of well-tarred Russia hemp; while the resemblance
was increased by many a dab of pitch, which his rough coat imbibed
from the seams between the planks of the deck, in the hot weather.
If old Shakings was no great beauty, he was, at least, the most
companionable of dogs; and though he dearly loved the
midshipmen, and was dearly beloved by them in return, he had
enough of the animal in his composition to take a still higher
pleasure in the society of his own kind. So that, when the high-bred,
showy pointers belonging to the officers came on board, after a
shooting excursion, Mr. Shakings lost no time in applying to them for
the news. The pointers, who liked this sort of familiarity very well,
gave poor Shakings all sorts of encouragement. Not so their
masters;—they could not bear to see such an abominable cur, as
they called our favourite, at once so cursedly dirty and so utterly
useless, mixing with their sleek and well-kept animals. At first their
dislike was confined to such insulting expressions as these; then it
came to an occasional kick, or a knock on the nose with the butt-end
of a fowling-piece; and lastly, to a sound cut with the hunting-whip.
Shakings, who instinctively knew his place, took all this, like a
sensible fellow, in good part; while the mids, when out of hearing of
the higher powers, uttered curses both loud and deep against the
tyranny and oppression exercised against an animal which, in their
fond fancy, was declared to be worth all the dogs in the ward-room
put together. They were little prepared, however, for the stroke which
soon fell upon them, perhaps in consequence of these very
murmurs. To their great horror and indignation, one of the
lieutenants, provoked at some liberty which Master Shakings had
taken with his newly-polished boot, called out, one morning,—
“Man the jolly-boat, and land that infernal, dirty, ugly beast of a dog
belonging to the young gentlemen!”
“Where shall I take him to, sir?” asked the strokesman of the boat.
“Oh, any where; pull to the nearest part of the shore, and pitch him
out on the rocks. He’ll shift for himself, I have no doubt.” So off went
poor dear Shakings!
If a stranger had come into the midshipmen’s birth at that moment,
he might have thought His Majesty’s naval service was about to be
broken up. All allegiance, discipline, or subordination, seemed utterly
cancelled by this horrible act. Many were the execrations hurled
upwards at the offending ‘knobs,’ who, we thought, were combining
to make our lives miserable. Some of our party voted for writing a
letter of remonstrance to the admiral against this unheard-of outrage;
and one youth swore deeply that he would leave the service, unless
justice were obtained. But as he had been known to swear the same
thing half-a-dozen times every day since he joined the ship, no great
notice was taken of this pledge. Another declared, upon his word of
honour, that such an act was enough to make a man turn Turk, and
fly his country! At last, by general agreement, it was decided that we
should not do a bit of duty, or even stir from our seats, till we
obtained redress for our grievances. However, while we were in the
very act of vowing mutiny and disobedience, the hands were turned
up to ‘furl sails!’ upon which the whole party, totally forgetting their
magnanimous resolution, scudded up the ladders, and jumped into
their stations with more than usual alacrity, wisely thinking, that the
moment for actual revolt had not yet arrived.
A better scheme than throwing up the service, or writing to the
admiral, or turning Mussulmen, was afterwards concocted. The
midshipman who went on shore in the next boat easily got hold of
poor Shakings, who was howling on the steps of the watering place.
In order to conceal him, he was stuffed, neck and crop, into the
captain’s cloak-bag, brought safely on board, and restored once
more to the bosom of his friends.
In spite of all we could do, however, to keep Master Shakings
below, he presently found his way to the quarter-deck, to receive the
congratulations of the other dogs. There he was soon detected by
the higher powers, and very shortly afterwards trundled over the
gangway, and again tossed on the beach. Upon this occasion he
was honoured by the presence of one of his own masters, a middy,
sent upon this express duty, who was specially desired to land the
brute, and not to bring him on board again. Of course, this particular
youngster did not bring the dog off; but, before night, somehow or
other, old Shakings was snoring away, in grand chorus with his more
fashionable friends the pointers, and dreaming no evil, before the
door of the very officer’s cabin whose beautifully-polished boots he
had brushed by so rudely in the morning,—an offence that had led to
his banishment.
This second return of our dog was too much. The whole posse of
us were sent for on the quarter-deck, and in very distinct terms
positively ordered not to bring Shakings on board again. These
injunctions having been given, this wretched victim, as we termed
him, of oppression, was once more landed amongst the cedar
groves. This time he remained a full week on shore; but how or when
he found his way off again, no one ever knew; at least no one chose
to divulge. Never was there any thing like the mutual joy felt by
Shakings and his two dozen masters. He careered about the ship,
barked and yelled with delight, and, in his raptures, actually leaped,
with his dirty feet, on the milk-white duck trousers of the disgusted
officers, who heartily wished him at the bottom of the anchorage!
Thus the poor beast unwittingly contributed to accelerate his hapless
fate, by this ill-timed shew of confidence in those who were then
plotting his ruin. If he had kept his paws to himself, and staid quietly
in the dark recesses of the cock-pit, wings, cable-tiers, and other wild
regions, the secrets of which were known only to the inhabitants of
our submarine world, all might yet have been well.
We had a grand jollification on the night of Shakings’ restoration;
and his health was in the very act of being drunk, with three times
three, when the officer of the watch, hearing an uproar below, the
sounds of which were conveyed distinctly up the wind-sail, sent
down to put our lights out; and we were forced to march off,
growling, to our hammocks.
Next day, to our surprise and horror, old Shakings was not to be
seen or heard of. We searched every where, interrogated the
coxswains of all the boats, and cross-questioned the marines who
had been sentries during the night on the forecastle, gangways, and
poop; but all in vain!—no trace of Shakings could be found.
At length, the idea began to gain ground amongst us, that the poor
beast had been put an end to by some diabolical means; and our ire
mounted accordingly. This suspicion seemed the more natural, as
the officers said not a word about the matter, nor even asked us
what we had done with our dog. While we were in this state of
excitement and distraction for our loss, one of the midshipmen, who
had some drollery in his composition, gave a new turn to the
expression of our thoughts.
This gentleman, who was more than twice as old as most of us,
say about thirty, had won the affections of the whole of our class, by
the gentleness of his manners, and the generous part he always
took on our side. He bore amongst us the pet name of Daddy; and
certainly he was like a father to those amongst us who, like myself,
were quite adrift in the ship, without any one to look after them. He
was a man of talents and classical education, but he had entered the
navy far too late in life ever to take to it cordially. His habits, indeed,
had become so rigid, that they could never be made to bend to the
mortifying kind of discipline which it appears essential every officer
should run through, but which only the young and light-hearted can
brook. Our worthy friend, accordingly, with all his abilities, taste, and
acquirements, never seemed at home on board ship; and unless a
man can reach this point of liking for the sea, he is better on shore.
At all events, old Daddy cared more about his books than about the
blocks, and delighted much more in giving us assistance in our
literary pursuits, and trying to teach us to be useful, than in rendering
himself a proficient in those professional mysteries, which he never
hoped to practise in earnest himself.
What this very interesting person’s early history was, we never
could find out; nor why he entered the navy; nor how it came, that a
man of his powers and accomplishments should have been kept
back so long. Indeed, the youngsters never inquired too closely into
these matters, being quite contented to have the advantage of his
protection against the oppression of some of the other oldsters, who
occasionally bullied them. Upon all occasions of difficulty, we were in
the habit of clustering round him, to tell our grievances, great and
small, with the certainty of always finding in him that great
desideratum in calamity—a patient and friendly listener.
It will easily be supposed, that our kind Daddy took more than
usual interest in this affair of Shakings, and that he was applied to by
us at every stage of the transaction. He was sadly perplexed, of
course, when the dog was finally missing; and, for some days, he
could give us no comfort, nor suggest any mode of revenge which
was not too dangerous for his young friends to put in practice. He
prudently observed, that as we had no certainty to go upon, it would
be foolish to get ourselves into a serious scrape for nothing at all.
“There can be no harm, however,” he continued, in his dry and
slightly-sarcastic way, which all who knew him will recollect as well
as if they saw him now, drawing his hand slowly across his mouth
and chin, “There can be no harm, my boys, in putting the other dogs
in mourning for their dear departed friend Shakings; for, whatever is
come of him, he is lost to them as well as to us, and his memory
ought to be duly respected.”
This hint was no sooner given than a cry was raised for crape, and
every chest and bag ransacked, to procure badges of mourning. The
pointers were speedily rigged up with a large bunch of crape, tied in
a handsome bow, upon the left leg of each, just above the knee. The

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Understanding Oceania Celebrating the

University of the South Pacific and Its

The University and its Boundaries 1st Edition Eliel

A New Kid on the Block The University of South

The University Library in the United States: Its

The University of Pennsylvania Today: Its Buildings,

Widening Minds The University of New South Wales and

Coming of Age Griffith University in the Unified

Big House on the Prairie : 75 Years of the University

Preserving the Past The University of Sydney and the

EDITED BY STEWART FIRTH

The full licence terms are available at

Part 1: Balancing Tradition and Modernity

Part 2: Politics and Political Economy

7. Postcolonial Political Institutions in the South Pacific

Part 4: Rethinking Development

Part 5: Into the Future

ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific

FDB Fiji Development Bank

GNI gross national income

PaCE-SD Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable

PICs Pacific Island countries

Matthew G. Allen is a professor of Development Studies at the

Commission. She was the author of a number of publications on Pacific

Stewart Firth is a research fellow at the Department of Pacific Affairs,

He was educated in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea,

Dr Sandra Tarte of USP and published by ANU Press (2015).

a hub of Pacific artistic expression and intellectual activity. He and his

University of Hawai‘i in 1983. He joined ANU in 1990 and retired from

Vijay Naidu’s future was moulded by the establishment of the University

Globalisation (PANG). She is also a founding member of the Citizens

Samoa, and ANU students in 2013. Katerina’s research is on histories of

Morgan Tuimaleali‘ifano is an associate professor in history, former

based on aerial photograph interpretation. These were published in 1964,

University (ANU). He was director of the Research School of Pacific

Stewart Firth: Personal Journey

Indo-Fijian experience or Maasina Rule in the Solomon Islands or the Mau

fellow at the ANU and is now professor in comparative politics at Victoria

a crucible of fresh thinking about decolonisation, the place of the Pacific

Balancing Tradition and Modernity

In ‘Making Room for Magic in Intellectual Property Policy’, Miranda

innovation; by using vernacular languages in legal instruments to capture

Politics and Political Economy

in a globalised world is one that has occupied the intellectual energies of

indigenous Fijians of vanua (domains of chiefly rule and Fijian identity),

to gender and Kabutaulaka draws on the work of Margaret Jolly and

us, though, runs counter to this history of denigration, because he sees

the extent to which aid conditionalities are designed to remake Pacific

performance in rural development’ remained. The main beneficiaries of

Into the Future

Writing in the 1990s, Hau‘ofa saw USP as the ‘premier hatchery’

region and is committed to Oceania is an Oceanian.

The Afterword looks forward to the continuing and emerging Pacific

Vijay Naidu: Personal Journey

of the Supreme Court in Vanuatu). Among our lecturers in subsequent

commemoration books produced for the 25th anniversary of USP, the

The mission of contributing to the design of a Pacific future should,

A Garland of Achievement (USP 1993). The first substantive vice chancellor

The university has been contributing to the creation and growth of

as support services were upgraded and new innovations introduced in their

a large multipurpose lecture theatre as well as conference, IT labs and

as they increased the sense of insecurity among staff and students.

complicit in gagging academic staff from openly criticising government