21. A Woman's Place

“You’d think,” Fasi said in exasperation, “That in a place with Our Granny in charge, women would get a better deal.” I had no need to ask her about her niece’s problems: the next week when I called in to see her and Langanipa, she wanted to talk about nothing else.

“You know, Tommu,” she went on. “It was always women’s work to gather food. They planted everything in the jungle. Men never cared about growing things. They always thought it was enough to go out hunting birds and animals. Every few days they would bring in some little dead creature. But if you had to rely on men you would have starved. My mother was in the jungle and she told me. They could do very well without men as long as there weren’t other men they needed protection from.

And who was it taught us about the Americans? A Woman.  But then the men got the Tractor and it went to their heads. Men think a Tractor is the only way to grow food. They expect women to just do what they say and treat them as if they were Our Granny herself! And if a woman has the courage to stand up for herself, then you see how they stand together to put her in her place.”

“Come on, Fasi.” Langanipa said reasonably. “Not all men are like Iliva’s husband. You know that he is unusually obnoxious. Don’t pretend that all of us are like that. Look at Tommu here, for instance. You can’t imagine him behaving like Manla Kulu.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s you and Tommu that are the exceptions. As far as I can see, most of the rest of them are exactly like that nasty man.  I warned her before she married him that things would end badly. But would she listen?”

She turned to me. “There has to be a balance in a marriage. One partner – and I don’t care if it is the man or the woman – can’t own the other one. It was clear from the moment that she first met Manla Kulu that he had no respect for her. He wanted to make all the decisions and tell her what to do. And how to do it. And when.

But you can’t tell young people anything. They think that they are the first people ever to have grown up. she said that she loved him and that she was happy to let him take charge. He would never do anything to make her unhappy because he loved her too much.”

“Stop, Fasi, stop!” I protested. “If she was happy to let him take charge, wasn’t that her decision to make?”

“She decided. She made a mistake.” Fasi responded. “In the beginning, they had a lot in common. She was madly in love with him. And so was he. She thought about what he wanted and she assumed that he thought the same about her. She wanted to be a wife. He wanted a cook.

You know what Gardeners are like. People take gifts up for Our granny and they get given to the Gardeners. Chickens, pigs, vegetables – fruit of every sort. I don’t know what Our granny gets to eat, we have to presume that she gets the best of what is given to Her, but there’s so much food that the Gardeners end up throwing it away. In any case, a good part of getting on as a Gardener is to do with feasting.

Iliva wasn’t even a particularly good cook when she got married. But what she could do was read. She asked Bahla to get hold of books on cooking. She learned to cook the American way. You’ve never seen food like it. He would invite his Gardener friends around. Their house became the place that all the Gardeners wanted to be. That is the secret of his success, if you want my opinion. He is friendly with all the top men because of those feasts.

So at first it was a great triumph. She was so busy bringing up the children and cooking that she never even worried that he wasn’t there very much. And of course, the better she cooked, the more he was able to get choice ingredients. Manla Kulu was getting to be one of the most popular Gardeners. Thanks to her efforts.

And then she began to teach the children to read. When she was a tiny child, Iliva learned how to read. Her father was a Reader before he passed away, and he taught her. It was natural that she wanted her children to read too. But when Manla Kulu found out about it he was as angry as a snake. He told her that Our Granny wouldn’t want his children to read. He was one of the fattest Gardeners without worrying about books or being able to read them. If anyone needed to know what was in a book he could get a Reader to tell him. The important thing was to know Our Granny’s will. Manla Kulu could tell her that whenever she needed to know it.

She tried to reason with him, of course. She explained to him how she learned to cook. He said that nothing she cooked was exactly like what was in the books. He said that he told her what he liked and she changed the recipes to suit him. Actually, it was really him that she learned from.

By then, by good luck, the children already knew how to read. He can never take that away from them. They went down with her to the book room and they could read as much there as they wanted to.”

I told Fasi that I remembered the times when Iliva and the kids used to come to the book room together. At first she used to read stories to them and then they read by themselves. But then she stopped bringing them with her.

“Their father objected. He didn’t want them down with the Readers. He said that the Readers were in danger of disrespect. The Gardeners would explain the will of Our Granny and sometimes the Readers would say that this or that didn’t fit with what the books said. Manla Kulu said that he didn’t want children of his brought into contact with people who doubted Our Granny’s word. In the end, she couldn’t take them with her any more. But she still smuggled books home for them.”

“And she still came down to the book room herself.” I said.

“Yes Tommu. And you know that when the Readers wanted to understand how the Americans ate or what they thought in other areas she was interested in, they turned to Iliva. She started to earn money herself, part time, as a Reader.”

“That’s right.” I agreed. “She knows more about American tools for cooking and about how they furnish their homes than anyone else. All of us rely on her for one thing or another.”

“And that’s what really upset him. At first he simply insisted that she should hand over any money she earned to him and she was happy to do that. But then the Readers saw that the more money they paid her, the more she had to give to him. So they only paid her part of her salary and if she wanted anything, she could ask and they would get it for her.

But what really annoyed him wasn’t the money. Giving him the money she earned didn’t make him less cross. If anything he was more angry than ever. He began to create extra work for her, getting her to cook for other Gardeners as well as at home. That made things worse, because other people began to realise what she was capable of. So he stopped her from cooking for anyone else. He said he didn’t want to be known as Mr Iliva.

I think he began to beat her.” Fasi continued. “She will not admit it but every now and then she has a bruise or a black eye from ‘walking into a door’ or ‘falling over’. At the same time, the Readers want her to spend more time at the book room. She understands the language of the Americans and they consulted her more and more.

Then suddenly, he tells her that Our Granny didn’t want her going down to the book room at all any more. He said Our granny had decided “that it did not befit the rank of a Gardener, leave alone one of the fattest Gardeners”, that his wife needed to earn money from the Readers. He forbade her to go down there. Of course they still wanted to talk to her and they would bring books up to the house to consult her on the difficult bits. He told her that she was forbidden to see anyone from the book room.

Well, she said that he couldn’t stop her because she wasn’t doing anything wrong. He answered that it was wrong to disobey a Gardener. And even if he had not been a Gardener, it was wrong to disobey her husband. He’s taking the case to the Gardener’s courts. He says that she has shown disrespect.

That,” Fasi continued, “Is where the trouble really starts. He knows all of them. The stupid thing is that it’s her cooking that got him in with them. They can do anything. They have had people put to death, you know.”

“He wouldn’t want them to execute her.” I protested. “He just wants to show who’s boss.”

“You can’t say that.” Fasi wailed. “He wants revenge. He’s made himself look like a fool. He has to blame somebody and she’s the closest one. He even wants to punish the Readers who consulted her.”

“But how could he do that to his wife?” I asked. “Surely, it makes him look even more stupid if he takes her to court? It makes it obvious that he can’t deal with it himself.”

“Who can say what he’s thinking?” Fasi looked at Langanipa. “My husband won’t admit it, but I think that part of the problem is that Manla Kulu is afraid that he’s not a real man. He is afraid that his wife is better than him. Cleverer and more capable. When he married her he wanted the most beautiful and talented woman so that other men would look up to him. After a while, he realised that they look up to his wife but they don’t respect him. They feel sorry for her. That’s why he wants to punish her.

And she made the mistake of always giving way to him at the very beginning. She thought that if she let him have his way then he would be prepared to do the same for her. But in the end, it was just take, take, take. She let him get into the habit of having whatever he wanted and the more she gave him, the more he took.

If they had an argument, she ended up having to make the peace. Or else the argument would have gone on forever. He would go out day and night with his friends, but if she set foot outside the house he wanted to know why and where she had been, who she had seen. He wanted complete control of her. And for a long time she accepted it. But in the end, the time came when she could not accept it any more. And now who knows what the decision will be.”

 

20. The Feast

Bahla had been allocated a seat on the Gardener’s platform so I attended the inaugural match with Langanipa and his wife, Fasi. We had arranged to find seats in the Barbecue area and Bahla would join us when the formal drinks were over so, as soon as the trestle tables had been set up, Langanipa and I grabbed some chairs and bagged places at the end of one of the corner tables.
Langanipa was in high spirits because of the success of his generator. The whole project had been a challenge, from making sure that the water wheel was ready in time to the procurement and reconditioning of the generator itself. It had been abandoned when the Americans left and he had had to do a great deal of research (with Bahla’s help) to find the correct techniques to get it working. The two of them now knew more about electricity than anyone else in the village.

His wife took a far less sanguine view of the proceedings and was consumed by the injustice of Langanipa not having been mentioned in the course of the demonstration.
“That little pipsqueak Bambafama” She declaimed loudly “Wouldn’t recognise a generator if he fell over one. And as far as connecting it to a spotlight, he is as ignorant as a newly hatched chicken. I cannot believe that they would have that whole show, listening to the tractor and everything and not even mention your name.”

“Calm down, Fasi. Calm down.” Langanipa responded. “You know that having one’s name mentioned is not significant. The important thing is that they have done something positive. You would not believe how many parties and dinners Bambafama will have had to attend to get his name mentioned. Can you imagine all those boring evenings spent buttering people up? Far rather him than me. And anyway, they did give credit to the team at the river. That’s us, you know.”

“But the whole Village thinks that Bambafama was the one who did it. That just isn’t fair.”
“And I care what the Village thinks?” Langanipa laughed. “The only people I care about know the part I played and the rest can think what they like. I wonder what’s keeping Bahla. It’s not like him to hang about at a reception and we had better stir ourselves and get some food before the termites finish it all. Come on Tommu.”

We set off for the barbecue pits where plates were being piled high with slices of roast pork, taro and sweet potatoes. We collected a cob of roasted corn and pitchers of beer and as we walked back to rejoin Fasi, Langanipa told me how well the generator was performing.
“The Americans used it to create power for the whole airbase, you know. But with no engine to drive it, it had been mouldering away outside. We had to rebuild the bearings and clean up all the electrical contacts with fine sand. They had left a stock of electric lamps in the hangar and I can imagine a time when a good proportion of the houses in the Village can have electrical lighting. And all without consuming any fuel at all.” He winked at me mischievously.

“And the famous Lieutenant Bambafama?” I asked. “Exactly what did he have to do with it?”
“In practical terms, nearly nothing.” Langanipa smiled. “But tonight’s little show was entirely his achievement and he was the one who convinced Paitor to let me have the generator. So Fasi is not being entirely fair when she says he doesn’t deserve any credit. And he is my bosses’ boss so if I can generate some trophies for him, he will keep letting me do good things.”

We arrived back at the table and sat down. Bahla was still not there but, about ten minutes later, he arrived.
“Sorry to take so long.” He apologised.
“The chief’s rum more attractive than us, eh?” Langanipa teased him.
“Not at all.” Bahla replied. “On the contrary, there was general consternation up their. Lailavu has collapsed with a heart attack. He’s dead.”

“Oh My Granny” Fasi exclaimed. “But he looked so big and healthy.”
“Big isn’t always better, you know.” Bahla replied. “The Gardeners live far too well and all that weight puts a strain on the heart. They don’t live long, in general, and it seems that Laialavu has been having pains in his chest for months. Anyway, Tahmo Lukuni has taken over and is organising everything. He has already said that Our Granny’s plan to drain the wetlands by the river will go ahead, and that no-one is to worry about their jobs.”

“That’s pretty quick off the mark.” Langanipa looked up from his plate.
“Well Tahmo isn’t one to hang about. Once he has made up his mind, things happen.”
“Wouldn’t they have had to ask Our Granny? Appointing the new Head Gardener is her decision, after all.” Fasi seemed quite worried by the speed of events.
“I gather that Our Granny generally approves things after the event.” Bahla smiled. “The Gardeners will tell you that they have been trained by Her, perfectly to anticipate her wishes and wisdom. In any case, Tahmo Lukuni is very much in charge.”

We ate for a while in silence then, just as we were finishing our meal a noisy band of young football fans joined our table. They had been drinking and were carrying pitchers of corn beer and plates piled high with food. They were discussing the merits of some young woman.

“Did you see her?” One of them was saying. “She’s had one too many. She can hardly walk. I’m going to go over and see if I can get in there.”
“Only because she wouldn’t talk to you if she was sober.” One of his friends laughed. “Even when she’s had a few, you don’t stand a chance. No one could get drunk enough to look twice at you.”
“Speak for yourself.” Came the answer. “She wouldn’t be seen dead with you and that shows she’s got good taste. She was talking to me this afternoon and she told me to come over and say hello. I’m in with a chance now. And they’re draining the swamp, so there’ll be cash to pay for things next year.”

“You think they’ll take you on to drain the swamp? After they fired you from the stadium?” One of the other boys interjected. “They want people who will work, not people who lie about the whole day.”
“They took me back, didn’t they? They should be grateful that I’m even thinking of applying.”
They looked around belligerently and began to gobble their plates of food, shovelling meat and potatoes into their mouths at a great pace. One of them sat slumped over on the bench, leaning on one side against his mates. Suddenly he half rose to his feet.

“I don’t feel very well.” He mumbled, leant forward and vomited onto the centre of the table. His friends leapt out of the way, shouting.
“You filthy pig.” “How do you expect us to eat now.” “We’ll have to find a new table.” They stood up. Leaving their half eaten plates on the table and, taking their beer with them, they weaved drunkenly away.

“Time to call it a night, I think.” Said Langanipa. “Let’s take a slow walk back to the Village.”
We set out across the fields for home.
“What a complete waste.” Langanipa continued. “And that is the sort of person that Lailavu – and now Tahmo – are making work for. Pay them this money and all they do is get drunk and disgusting!”

“Better than not paying them and having them running round stealing and beating people up.” Said Bahla. “You can’t let them starve and at least it will give them something to do with themselves.”
“I suppose so.” Langanipa agreed. “But I wish they’d have the decency to learn how to behave.”
“Yes.” Fasi concurred. “I suppose we have to feed them but, as long as they are getting the benefit of The Tractor, they could at least show some respect.”

“It’s a big problem.” Bahla added. “A lot of the families that have come into the Village have no concept of living in a group. The parents know about hunting and finding food in the forest and perhaps growing a small patch of taro. They come here and there is nothing for them to do. The Guardians can only take on a limited number. There’s only so much work in Our Granny’s gardens and most of them don’t know how to do that. The men don’t want to plant things – they think it’s beneath them – and yet we have to look after them.

If we don’t want them to spend their whole time drinking and fighting then we just have to find things for them to do. Clearing the swamp is as good a thing as any. I’ve listened to this discussion in a hundred council meetings.”

“Well they should make them do something useful.” Langanipa growled. “Send some down to me and they can help build dams and dig ditches.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Langanipa.” Bahla cautioned. “I’m not sure you’d be all that happy with the responsibility for managing a dozen assorted delinquents.”
“Well just send me the good ones.”
“That’s what everyone says.” Bahla patted his friend’s shoulder. “But I’ll do my best not to send you the worst ones when the time comes.”

We reached their house and Langanipa and Fasi bade us good night and went indoors. I turned to Bahla.
“Fasi seemed a bit out of sorts tonight.” I said. “Is there something wrong?”
“Nothing we can help with, I’m afraid. She’s worried about her niece and the court case.”
“I’d heard something about that, but why is she so concerned?”
“She’s closer than a normal niece.” Bahla replied. “More like a daughter really. Langanipa and Fasi brought her up after her mother died. Everyone was very happy when she married one of Our Granny’s Gardeners but now that everything seems to have gone wrong, it seems as if that makes it even worse.”

“How so? I thought that, as a Gardener’s wife she would have the best of everything. As much food as she can eat, the best clothes. What is the court case about?”
“I’m not sure of the exact details. You’d have to ask Langanipa or Fasi. But in essence, I believe that it is really about whether she is allowed to own her own property and work or not.”
“But surely,” I said, “There are dozens of women who work in the fields weeding and hoeing and bringing in the crops.”
“Yes. But not Gardener’s wives. And they don’t want to become Readers.”

19. Lailavu's Triumph

As the drummers and dancers took their places on the terraces, the youth teams ran out onto the field. All the players were aged between fourteen and seventeen and they were drawn from all parts of the Village. To provide a good mix of areas, a line from Our Granny’s House to the Hangar divided the Village into roughly equal parts.

One team was selected from the left, south of the line and the other from the northern part of the Village to the right of it. The teams were a mixture of every type of development – both included the full range from blue bloods of the upper hillside to the ragged children of the slums.

They were coached by fraction coaches (whose teams had already been eliminated from the championship) and selected on merit after innumerable practice and elimination games.
Lacking the power of the adult teams, the players trained for speed and agility so that the match showed a fluent passing game with runners dodging and weaving up and down the length of the field. Drawn from different fractions, the players were supported by their families, friends and neighbours, with none of the fanaticism built up over the years by the fixed teams.

This good-natured rivalry was important because the crowd was mixed with supporters intermingled in a way that would have been dangerous for the hard core fans of the big teams in the second half of the event. As the players ran onto the field, they waved to their relatives and neighbours who responded enthusiastically, pointing out to the people nearest to them the players that they knew.

The match began with people shouting encouragement and applauding good work, even by the opposing team. The ball was relatively small and light and the players handled it skilfully. Their commitment, their speed and grace and even the occasional mistake – all in a spirit of good nature and sportsmanship made the game a delight to watch.

Play moved up and down the field, first to one end and then to another. The attention of the crowd followed the individual players, yelling encouragement for those from the same part of the Village or for relatives who happened to be playing for the other side. At half time, the South were in the lead by five to three but it did not seem to matter as the spectators discussed who had excelled and who had made mistakes.

When play restarted, the team from the North took control, running and weaving with the ball for a touchdown within the first ten minutes. Five to four. Then the South took possession and brought themselves to within a few yards of the line before being robbed of the ball, allowing the North to run in a second touchdown with a series of long passes up the length of the field, gracefully and economically cutting through the opposition.

The last fifteen minutes kept the crowd alive with excitement as first one then the other team appeared to have the match won. The lead changed five times as first the North, then the South scored. At last, with the North leading by eight to seven, the South gained possession and began a series of running plays to take them to the North line. A Touchdown would tie the match.

The ball snapped and the South Quarterback took the pass. His wide receiver was in the end zone. The ball flew straight as an arrow but, in his excitement, the receiver took his eye off the ball and missed the pass. Incomplete. The whistle blew and the game was over; the field left to young and beautiful girls who, drilled as thoroughly as the players, gave another demonstration of dancing.

This game, with players about to enter their footballing prime, seemed to augur well for the future of the sport in the new stadium but, had we realised, it was the second game of the afternoon that demonstrated the shape of the what was to come.

The teams took the field, larger and heavier than the juniors and without their joy in playing. To them this was serious business, with famous players determined to advance their reputations.
Within five minutes of the start, a judgement by the referee was vigorously contested by the team from the Hill. This was followed, ten minutes later, by an outbreak of fighting among the players with two from the Field and one from the Hill suspended from the game for ten minutes and a first Down to the Hill. The famous players seemed ill humoured and leaden footed.

The game became a war of attrition between the two teams, with neither prepared to take any sort of risk. On both sides, the predominant style of play was to run the ball with making the minimum of passes required for a first down. Play ground up and down in the middle of the field with fans of both sides becoming frustrated and bad tempered.

The new moat, separating the players from the spectators meant that no invasion of the playing field (like that which took place on the day of the Great Riot) was possible and this was probably a good thing, because the restive fans would almost certainly have taken matters into their own hands had they been able to. In the inaugural championship in Our Granny’s new stadium it was already clear, for those who could see it, that the moat was the start of a new era.

The players were no longer just local lads playing a game in the afternoon. Even if the Guardians had not formed a wall surrounding the playing area, no-one unauthorised could have joined in the game. Up on their elevated platform the Gardeners and the Senior Guardians were separate and safe from the crowds on the terraces. Lailavu would not be losing his sarong at this match.

At the halfway point, the scores were just two points to each team. Neither seemed capable of breaking through the other’s defence. The third quarter, however, brought a change. The Field changed their formation and a different player took on the role of quarterback and the game began to take off. He was prepared to throw longer passes and, with the grace of a dancer, to marshal his team mates on the offence. In quick succession, he gained two first downs and then threw a long pass into the end zone.

The crowd, frustrated after the first two quarters of defence, were suddenly cheering and stamping. A second touchdown followed quickly and the Hill, in possession, recognised that their only chance of winning lay in attack and also began to play more adventurously. They scored but this was soon matched by the Field.

The crowd roared their approval and the players responded with feats of athleticism that separated them even further from the rest of the Village. This match was the real beginning of football as a sport to be watched rather than played in our village. The players on the other side of the moat were changing before our eyes into a different type of person.

They would be surrounded by servants, managers and administrators, buying and building new luxurious houses in the best parts of the Village. They would generate new occupation for craftsmen who would supply them with every luxury from comfortable, hand made shoes and clothing to carved furniture and vast meals cooked from the finest ingredients money could buy.

The new stadium was showing us, although we did not see it at the time, the future of the Village, the separation of the Gardeners and the Guardians and the football heroes, each in their own place and each playing out their role.

But as the match drew to a close, no one was thinking about that. The crowd screamed and shouted support for their teams as if the result was a matter of life and death for them. People who had spent the week worrying about their jobs once the stadium was built now lost themselves in the progress of the ball up and down the field.

The Hill scored again, and then the Field. The scores levelled at six each and then, as the final quarter came to an end, the Field scored again and, suddenly, the Match was over. The Field had won by seven downs to six. The winning team ran up and down, their jubilant yells lost in the frenzied noise of the crowd, while the losers walked glum and silent to the exit. Officials marshalled the teams and led them up to the Gardener’s viewing platform, where they were to receive their trophies.

Lailavu rose to his feet, tall and broad on the new platform, he seemed to tower, solid and immovable as the island itself. He seized his loudhailer. The Great Conch blew and the stands fell silent. He began to address the crow. He told them of Our Granny’s care and the generosity with which she had given the new stadium to the village. He announced that this was not the end of her generosity. She had decided, he said, to continue work on draining the marshy land by the river to provide space to plant more crops for her people.

Her Grandson, Manaku Jim would also be sponsoring the training program for one of the teams and the Captain of the Guardians would be sponsoring another. The new swamp draining project would create new jobs for those who had worked so hard and so successfully to build the stadium, and the old football field would now be ploughed and cultivated by the Guardians of the Tractor to provide supplies for the Village.

He presented medals to the losing players and then larger ones to the winning team. Finally, he presented a model of the Tractor to the captain of the winning team, declaring them champions for the year.

“And now,” he said, "I would like to draw your attention to a great advance that has been produced by Our Granny's Guardians. I would like you to listen carefully."
The crowd hushed and listened puzzled. Everything seemed completely normal and they began to shake their heads.
"You can all hear," he continued, "the sound of The Tractor as it powers the spotlight that is shining down on me as it starts to get dark. Well now, if you will listen again."
The engine of The Tractor stopped. There was a slight flicker and then the spotlight brightened again, shining limpidly down on the massive bulk of the reverend Gardener.
"What you are seeing," Lailavu said, "Is electrical power produced not by The Tractor, but by the poser of our river. It has been captured by Our Granny's Guardians, tamed and led to help us so that we can use it whenever we wish, while The Tractor is free to do other things.

Our Granny is truly great and we should give thanks to Her for giving this mission to Her guardians and, in particular to Lieutenant Bambafama, and of course to the team who have worked so hard down by the river to achieve this great feat."

He shook the Lieutenant's hand and the crowd applauded furiously. He continued.

“Our Granny has provided a feast for us all this evening and I would like to invite…” he paused and looked around.
“I would like to invite…” He repeated, suddenly seeming confused. “I would like to invite…” He stepped backward and sat down in his chair and was surrounded by a group of Gardeners.

Tahmo Lukuni took up the loud hailer “There is nothing to be concerned about,” he announced “Lailavu, Our Granny’s Reverend Head Gardener will rest for a moment. In the meantime, I repeat his invitation to the feast that Our Granny has provided. She invites you all to eat and to drink and to enjoy the opening of this stadium, Her gift to Her people!”

18. Inauguration

The construction of the new football stadium was the largest project that had ever been planned and executed in the life of the Village. At first, when the site was still nothing more than swamp, it seemed as if nothing changed from one month to the next. Gradually, as the terraces were cut into the banks and the marshy land was reclaimed and filled, it was possible to detect signs of progress and then, after years of labour, as buildings began to be erected and grass planted, every week and every day began to bring noticeable change.

Carpenters arrived to assemble the benches for the dignitaries and the Head Gardener sponsored a wood carver to decorate his viewing stand. The Captain of the Guardians, not to be outdone, commissioned a pair of columns, carved up their height with animals and birds and with a carving of the Tractor on the top of each. Even the Chief Reader commissioned a painting for the wall beneath the viewing dais. The various football teams of the Village competed to place their own individual emblems in the most favourable places within the entertainment shelters.

As it became clear that the project was drawing to a close, discussion began in earnest on the best way to inaugurate the new facility. The first match would take place on Our Granny’s name day and elaborate plans began to be drawn up for the great occasion. Indeed, so many different schemes began to appear, for processions, ceremonies, dances, entertainments and every conceivable sort of participation that their various proponents were soon at loggerheads.

Finally, the disputes became so heated that Lailavu himself had to take action and he appointed his deputy, Tahmo Lukuni to hear the various suggestions and to draw up the final program for the great day. Tahmo set a day on which anyone wishing to contribute to the celebrations would present their proposals so that he could make the final decision on what would take place.

The courtroom in the Hangar was filled to capacity with enthusiastic villagers touting ideas for the occasion, many with troops of supporters eager to demonstrate their proposals in whatever way was necessary to convince. It was soon clear, however, that if a proposal had not caught Tahmo’s interest within thirty seconds it would not be on the program. A suggestion by one of the Readers, for example, of a public exposition of the rules of football as detailed in the books of the Americans was cut short without the judge ever having got to a point in the explanation where he could have known even approximately what was on offer.

In short order, a final program was published. It began in each of the sections of the Village where the local football team would arrange a ceremony – content to be at their own discretion – followed by a parade from the Village by various routes, arriving one team at a time with precise synchronisation at the stadium and entering the stands.

Once everyone was in their places, a blast on the Great Conch Shell of the Village would herald the arrival of the team coaches, the Chief Reader and his assistant, the officers of the Guardians, and the Gardeners in their colleges. When they had taken their places, there would be a display of drumming and tribal dancing.

Two football matches were on the program. The first would be a junior match played by young boys; the second would decide the championship for the year. The Head Gardener would then award the prizes to the winners (and the losers) and declare the stadium officially open for business. In the evening the roasting of pigs and a memorable night of celebrations was planned.

The program was announced three months before the date of the opening and the whole Village began to prepare itself for the event. The football teams still in the championship competition dedicated themselves to training and every match was contested to the bitterest of ends.

The team drummers began rehearsing. New drums were commissioned from the most skilled drum makers and expeditions were sent into the forest to obtain the choicest wood for them. The drum leaders of all the teams were brought together to decide on the most appropriate rhythms and patterns for the event and the drum teams began to practice; first weekly but, as the event approached, every day. Dancers were recruited and drilled to perfection.

The tailors and seamstresses throughout the Village were fully occupied as costumes were planned and sewed and arrangements for cooking the food were discussed in intricate detail, revised and then revised again. Supplies of rice and corn were procured and the price of pigs soared as supplies were booked ahead of the feast day.

One by one, the preliminary matches were played. At last, the semi-final places were known. Both the Hill and the Field were through the elimination rounds. The Hill faced a team from the new areas named the Flying Foxes. The Field were to play a team of Guardians who called themselves The Clubmen.

The Field played first, a relatively easy match against opposition who, while tough and fit, lacked imagination and tended to rely on brute force to overwhelm the competition. The Hill, on the other hand, faced a strongly motivated team who were prepared to do whatever it took to overcome the opposition. The result was a dirty match and a close call, with the Hill winning in the end by one point and lucky to have only one player injured in the encounter. Fortunately this was not one of their stars, but a defender who had underestimated the determination of a Flying Fox ball carrier and damaged his shoulder in tackling a man twice his size.

Both these matches attracted large and excitable crowds, a warning to the Guardians to prepare themselves for the main event and they began to practice their riot drills and crowd control. This was done very much in public and any misdemeanour they encountered received particularly unsympathetic treatment as they demonstrated to the Village the seriousness of their intentions.

Mixed in with the anticipation, there was also an undercurrent of unease. As the work on the stadium finished, groups of workers were laid off, given their last pay packet and sent home. Even a completion bonus did not disguise the fact that a significant number of villagers had become reliant on the work provided by the construction project and, as the number of unemployed increased, murmurs of discontent made themselves heard.

After some of those being paid off showed signs of wanting to take matters further, it became the practice to call men in one at a time to receive their final wage packet to avoid the danger of their making common cause and creating a disturbance. Although the prospect of the grand celebration distracted them, it was clear that, in the longer term, there was potential for trouble among this group, who should have had the most to celebrate.

As always, once the other teams had been eliminated, support shifted behind one or other of the finalists. This time there was no outstanding star in either team. Manaku Jim had made a donation to the team from the Hill, who drew their support from the Gardeners and Guardians living in the upper village. The team from the Field attracted the sympathy of those who lived in that district and also a majority of the unofficial villagers of the shanty areas.

The day of the matched dawned, misty and humid and, by mid morning, the streets were alive with people heading for their local team’s headquarters. The celebrations in each area were very varied. Some had set up tables of food for their supporters, some held concerts, some had organised parades and competitions for the best dancing or costumes.

At last, at midday, the processions began to form up. In the lead were the drummers for each team, then the football players, then the supporters. Columns snaking through the street from each fraction they set off by various routes, drums beating as they made their way down to the new stadium by the river.

Great care had been taken with the timing, with careful rehearsals to ensure that each group would arrive at the gates just as the last of the previous one entered but, in fact, this was an impossible task. This meant that groups who arrived before they were expected were sent marching round the stadium and back towards the village to allow the others to enter. To be quite honest, I do not think that anyone minded this very much as marching was more interesting than waiting in the stadium while the others arrived.

As each group entered, they crossed the playing field and the drummers and dancers turned on to the grass to join their equivalents from the other teams. The rest of the spectators took their places on the terraces. The sound of the drums had been impressive on the march down from the Village but now, as the number of drummers and the variety of their instruments grew on the field, the volume of sound swelled.

Their numbers increased and the drummers found their rhythm. The sound thundered and rolled across the terraces, echoing off the buildings and out over the river to the fields beyond. The enormous bass drums boomed out, answered by the clicking and rattling of the smaller drums and by the metallic clash of cymbals. What had been a series of individual rhythms picked up pace and coherence so that the large drums beat in unison like the breathing of some enormous animal while the restless, excited rhythms of the smaller, lighter instruments lent a sense of excitement and tension.

As each group entered the stadium the sense of occasion and purpose increased. From the Gardener’s dais, a drum leader orchestrated the drumming and then, suddenly, he brought the wall of sound to a stop with a wave of his hand.

In the sudden silence, the Great Conch Shell blew and the Guardians and Gardeners entered in procession. Their uniforms and sarongs were new and brightly dyed as they slowly progressed across the field and took their places, juniors first, followed by more senior officials in order of rank until at last, Lailavu, the Head Gardner entered, escorted by the Captain of Guardians and the Chief Reader.

When they had seated themselves, Lailavu gave a signal and the drummers began again. Now the dancers took to the field. Stamping and twirling in the traditional style, they gave a physical form to the sound of the drums, their movements now simultaneous, now contrasting, reinforcing the sense of a single organism, a community at one with itself and acting in perfect concert. Or so it seemed.

At last the performance ended, the Great Conch blew once more: the signal for the games to begin.

17. Manaku Jim

Divos Paitor was appointed as Captain of the Guardians of the Tractor of Morakeewa on the death in service of Manaku Apu. He had been among the original recruits when the corps was set up and he had the classic Guardian mixture of discipline and loyalty. With twenty five years of service he had become the most senior Lieutenant Guardian on whom the whole organisation depended.

In spite of this, his appointment as Captain was never a foregone conclusion. It may be that if Manaku Apu had not succumbed suddenly to a heart attack without leaving a clear plan of succession, Paitor would have remained second in command for the rest of his life. Privately, many people thought that Manaku Apu had intended his son, Manaku Jim to succeed him.

Our Jim had been given an American name and he joined the Guardians as soon as his voice broke. By the time that his father died, ten years later, he was already a Lieutenant. As a trooper, he had been brilliant but erratic, the best marksman in his cohort and a talented mechanic. Early shifts, however, were not his strong point and evenings were always his private time.

In general, a relationship with a Guardian was something that appealed to the women of the Village and Manaku Jim was handsome and affable; kind enough to try to oblige all the women who wanted to know him. To some, it appeared that his career moves had been determined as much by the need to move him out of trouble as by the normal promotion mechanisms. Even as a junior corporal, he had already fathered a number of children but he was protected, both by the position of his father and by his relationships with the Gardeners.

As a child, he had been a favourite of Our Granny and the Head Gardener was his godfather. His evenings were often spent with Gardeners and he had a group of close friends among the Guardians with whom he would go drinking. Despite his swift rise through the ranks, he also remained a popular figure with the other Guardians for his generous nature. He was always prepared to admit his errors. He never took credit for someone else’s work and people felt it would have been unfair to blame him for the accident of his lucky birth.

On the death of his father, Our Jim would probably have succeeded him had he been in the right place. Jim was supposed to be on duty the day his father died but he had persuaded a friend to cover for him and, when he was sent for, no one could find him. It later emerged that he had gone with another friend and a group of girls to a beach house that his father owned. They had been swimming and barbecuing and only returned two days later, by which time Paitor was already Captain.

To give him his due, Jim never complained about being passed over. He would laugh and say that he would never have been as good a leader for the Guardians as Paitor and that he was far happier as a simple Lieutenant. With his father gone, Jim took, if anything, even less interest in his career as a Guardian. He still retained an office in the Hangar and turned out for ceremonial occasions, maintaining a friendly relationship with Paitor and acting as unofficial liaison officer between the Guardians and the Gardeners. He and his associates among the Guardians were famous for their long lunches and riotous evenings.

The forged tokens had presented a major problem for the authorities on the island. A token entitled the bearer to a certain amount of corn, sugar, drink, cloth or fruit. As the extra tokens were redeemed, the supplies of first one then another commodity were jeopardised. Villagers who came to redeem their tokens sometimes found that there was nothing available and, once a system of allocations was established, they were given less than they expected.

There were massive protests and, on several occasions, the Guardians had to break up crowds of chanting protesters surrounding the hangar. Those who felt they had not received their fair entitlement made complaints were both to the Guardians and the Gardeners and many villagers appeared to Our Granny’s courts in an attempt to obtain full measure for their work. A public announcement had been made that the forgers would be tracked down and severely dealt with.

As the network of those who had attempted to pass off the forged tokens was rounded up, rumours surfaced that Our Jim was in some way linked to the fraud. His expenditure was well known to exceed his income from official sources. He had one of the largest and most luxurious houses in the Village, many children, servants and threw frequent, expensive parties for his friends. He was rumoured to owe huge sums of money.

In the end, a Guardian Technical Trooper was arrested and found to be in possession of a cutting press and a large stock of fake tokens. The procedure for passing the tokens to the next link in the chain to presentation was unravelled and documented. One of Our Jim’s sidekicks, a Guardian Sergeant called Fawks, was arrested while collecting new coins obtained by exchanging false tokens. It was shown that he had paid a large sum in the new money to Jim, but this was explained as the repayment of money that Fawks had borrowed from him to pay a gambling debt.

All those arrested for passing false tokens were brought to trial and made an example of. A special public courtroom was prepared in the hangar and the culprits were offered the option of pleading guilty to a minor offence and apologising to Our Granny, with a short flogging as punishment. They had all been caught in the act and it was not difficult to persuade them that taking the risk of being found guilty of the much more serious additional charge of disrespect for Our Granny, with its weightier penalties, would not be in their best interests.

A platform was placed at one end of the court, with one of the Gardeners, in the maroon formal sarong of the second to highest level seated on a high backed chair to judge each case in turn. On each side, he was flanked by an escort of Guardians and a number of more junior Gardeners – dressed in yellows and browns – seated at benches.

The accused were brought in, one at a time. The charges were read out with an explanation that, in passing false tokens, the accused had stolen from all the people on the island. The offenders had reduced the value of the work everyone else had done by taking more than their legitimate share of the payment. They were then allowed to make their apologies to Our Granny and to the people of Morakeewa before hearing their sentences. The courtroom was crowded with spectators. The idly curious, as well as the friends and families of the officials and the accused come to see the trial and, later, to watch the punishment.

As each flogging took place, the Sergeant in charge of the punishment detail read out again the details of the crime committed and the way in which it affected the whole island. Predictably, this excited the crowds of spectators who called out angrily, encouraging the officer who administered the whipping to put his back into it, taunting him if he appeared to be letting the culprits off lightly and sometimes throwing fruit and rubbish.

The forger himself was both flogged and imprisoned. Fawks was the only one not to plead guilty. At his trial he attempted to defend himself by suggesting that Our Jim might be implicated but this was disproved by several witnesses of unimpeachable reputation – Guardians, Gardeners and ordinary people. He was found guilty of Disrespect, flogged, expelled from the Guardians, banished from the Village and sent out into the forest to fend for himself.

Our Jim, himself, made a public statement of regret that a friend of his, a person that he trusted implicitly, should have been involved in this reprehensible scam. He met suggestions that he should return the money that Fawks had paid him with a flat refusal. The money was his, he claimed, and he had no reason to return it simply because Fawks had subsequently engaged in criminal activity. In any case, since Fawks had now left the Village, there was no one to return it to.

The punishment of the culprits was widely publicised so that everyone, whether they had attended the trials or not, would be warned of the consequences of disrupting the smooth running of the Village. The Gardeners were careful to distance Jim from the affair. Their official stance was that he was an innocent victim and that it would be impossible on principle for a member of Our Granny’s immediate family to do anything to harm the Village she had founded.

Privately, they were at great pains to prevent anything that might damage her reputation among the common people, and a number of individuals who suggested that Jim might have played a more significant part in the affair were punished for sedition. In any case, Jim’s generosity and his reputation as a lovable rogue tended to work for him. Everyone knew that he might get up to mischief occasionally but no one thought he would engage in serious criminal activity on the scale of the Token Scandal.

With confidence restored, the new coins were a great success and the construction of the stadium was able to proceed smoothly. Their lower value meant that they could be used for smaller purchases, where previously transactions valued at less than one day’s labour had been hard to carry out. Some people worried that if all the coins were presented at once the Guardians would not be enough goods but this proved not to be a problem.

People tended, instead, to save the new coins so that the cost of building the new stadium could be paid in future years. Occasionally someone would point out the danger of having so much money in circulation and calculate the amount that each man, woman and child in the Village would have to pay back but most of the time they were not worried by it.

Our Jim, his problems of debt and dependency conveniently resolved, continued to be a popular figure in the community. He had always maintained a friendship with the football coaches and, as the construction of the stadium was completed, he was invited to become the patron of the team of the Field, working to recruit better players to their cause. Ultimately, any promising football player was able materially to improve their career prospects by having Jim’s patronage.

Jim’s rakish lifestyle did not slow down as he grew older. He was never far from some whiff of scandal and mischief, which meant that gossip about him was always in circulation, eagerly collected and retailed all through the village. Wherever he went, he was watched with a mixture of censure and envy, as famous as his friends, the football heroes; perhaps even more so.

16. Public works

Our island of Morakeewa is formed of three parts. To the south, it is a broad, fertile plain. In the middle is the forest, stretching up the mountain and at the northern end, beyond the mountain, is a mixture of impenetrable swamps and forest.

The Americans began the process of clearing the plain and, in the last fifty years, almost every area that can be cultivated has been cleared and planted. An isolated hill emerges from the flat land and it is here that the people now live. This place is called Morakeewa, the same name as the island, but mostly we use ‘Morakeewa’ for the whole island and we simply refer to the built up area as ‘The Village’

When the Americans left, our people occupied the few houses that they had built alongside the air base in the place called Morakeewa and it was truly a village. Later, as more land was cleared and more people from the forest began to live there, the community came to expand and today the word ‘village’ hardly does it justice.

At the top of the hill is Our Granny’s house and gardens. Surrounding it are the houses of those who have been there longest, the families of Gardeners, Guardians and Readers. Around this area, the Village has grown downwards towards the plain. At first the land was easy to build on but, as more and more people came in and began to erect their huts and tents, increasingly difficult areas have been occupied so that, now, in each valley and ravine that cuts into the hill, even the steep sides have their growths of constructions, makeshift affairs, clinging to the hillside like moss to a rock.

These late arrivals, displaced from some newly cleared area, are ill equipped to live a civilised life in the Village. Their forest skills of stealth and cunning are no use to them in earning a living. They often still have the weapons they used for hunting and little respect for life – animal or human – so that they make dangerous and unpredictable neighbours. Living close together requires more restraint and a different set of rules from what is needed in a small band in the forest. If it had not been for the wisdom of Our Granny, translated into laws that regulate behaviour in Morakeewa, the Village would long ago have torn itself to pieces.

Thus it is against the law of Our Granny, for anyone but a Guardian to carry a weapon within the Village. To control theft, those who do not live in the officially sanctioned part of the village may only visit that area with an explicit invitation and anyone who wishes to employ a house servant must obtain a permit from the Guardian’s office in the village to allow them to come to their house on a daily basis or, if there is accommodation for them, to remain there in the night time.

Within the Official Village, the Guardians keep a watchful eye on the streets, stopping any suspicious looking characters to ensure that they have a legitimate reason for being there. Outside in the shanty areas life is much less regulated. They are sometimes dangerous and unruly places where the inhabitants must learn to defend themselves and even the Guardians must take care and rely on strength in numbers to defend themselves.

The whole of the Village, however, is directly or indirectly dependent on The Tractor for survival. The wild forest that has been cleared and planted could never have supported even a tenth of the people who live in the Village today. The food and other goods produced by virtue of farming and The Tractor is distributed to those who work the fields.

They pay taxes and give gifts to Our Granny, which the Gardeners then use to pay for help – often from the unofficial village – in cultivating their lawns and gardens. The families who live in the Official Village employ servants and workers to maintain their houses and streets. Skilled people in the unofficial areas trade woven cloth, sandals, woodwork and so on with the Official Village and, each year, a few people from the unofficial areas manage to acquire property in the Village itself. These dependencies are very complex and we should not forget that even theft serves to provide food and goods that originate in The Tractor to the unofficial population in the shanty areas.

Naturally this gap between the Official and the unofficial residents sometimes causes discomfort on both sides. The Guardians behave as if they have complete control of the unofficial areas but privately they know very well that they could not retain it if an organised rebellion were to take place. The Great Football Riot illustrated very well the limits of what they could achieve.

Although I had not thought it a good idea at the time, I had to admit later that Lailavu’s decision to construct the football stadium had been inspired. The work lasted nearly five years, beginning with the digging of drainage channels in the swampy area next to the river so that the reed beds dried up. The surrounding banks were terraced and the tons of spoil were moved on barrows and carts to provide a flat playing surface. Finally, tree trunks were cut up-river in the forest and floated downstream to the building site where they were split and dressed before being used to construct fences and seating.

The Gardener’s ceremonial dais was built on the centre line, high above the crowd and offering both a splendid view of the games and some isolation from the rest of the spectators. Rooms were built underneath it to accommodate the players before and after the match and there were open sheds along the side opposite where food and drink could be served.

The labour was drawn largely from the unofficial part of the village. The men were enthusiastic about earning their living instead of having to beg. The problem of theft from the Official Village reduced and even the fights in the shanty areas seemed to reduce since the workers were tired at the end of the day. The risk of losing their jobs made the workers more amenable as the Gardeners and Guardians were able to decide who to employ and who not to.

The other interesting aspect of the project was the need to provide money to pay for it. When the Americans were here, they used their coins to pay for goods and services (and I believe that they also brought money made of paper).They continued to be used in Morakeewa when they had gone but there were not enough of them to make them practically useful and when Our Granny’s house was built, the villagers worked as volunteers and were rewarded with gifts – food, cloth, corn beer and so on.

The construction of the stadium was on a much larger scale, with many more people involved so that this system was no longer appropriate. It would not have been realistic to take huge quantities of goods down to the site for distribution each day. Workers were therefore given tokens – small circles punched out of aluminium sheets left by the Americans – at the end of each day’s work.

These could be exchanged for produce when it was convenient and people began to use them more generally to buy and sell things. At first this system was sufficiently effective, since the total number of tokens distributed corresponded exactly to the number of days worked on the project. Soon, however, things started to go wrong and extra tokens were found in circulation.

Some of them were crude copies – easy to detect because they had clearly been cut by hand from aluminium scrap recovered from plane wrecks in the jungle. Anyone who tried to pass these was quickly found and punished. With time, however, more sophisticated copies began to appear.

It was also possible to detect these because outside sleeve of the punch used to produce them did not fit the inner cutter as well as the official one so there was a tiny ridge of metal on one side that could be felt with the fingers if one knew exactly what to look for. Unfortunately, to the general population, they seemed exactly the same as the real thing and people were using them in good faith. The whole system would have come to a halt if they had lost confidence in the value of the tokens.

The authorities needed to find a way to regain control because the amount of goods and of work being performed remained the same so with more tokens in circulation some people were receiving more goods than they were entitled to and, ultimately, the average value of each token was being reduced.

After a number of council meetings, a plan of action was agreed. New tokens that were not so easy to copy would be produced. Following the American system, they would be coins, authenticated by stamping patterns on each side. The front of the coin would be stamped with a tractor. Initially the proposal was to follow the Americans and stamp a picture of Our Granny on the other side but this proved too difficult. None of the artists who would have to carve the steel dies knew what Our Granny looked like so, in the end, a hibiscus flower, the emblem of the Gardeners was stamped on that face.

The daily rate of pay was changed to three of the new coins for a day of the least skilled labour, with skilled craftsmen receiving four, five or six coins depending on what they did and how long they worked. This would make the new coins more suitable for use in trading, as they would no longer represent a whole day’s work. For a period it would be possible to exchange the old tokens for coins and people who had saved the tokens were able to bring them in to the Guardians’ hangar and make the swap.

Generally, this worked well although people were inclined to complain that tokens they had worked a whole day for were now only worth a third of a day but the Guardians were able to explain that this rate had been sanctioned by the Gardeners on behalf of Our Granny. Most people accepted this because the extra tokens had undermined token values to the point that they recognised that the real difference in current value was not that great. Also, everyone recognised the authority of Our Granny which stood behind the coinage.

What this process did reveal, however, was that there was a group of people who were bringing mostly false tokens for exchange. Once this pattern was noticed, it was decided to try and see if it was possible to find out who had been making them and whenever a number of false tokens were presented, the owner was detained for questioning.

It soon became clear that the people trying to exchange the false tokens were not aware of what they were doing and had agreed to make the exchange on behalf of others in return for a small share of the resulting coins. These people were also questioned and gradually the net tightened on the real culprits.

An association with the Guardians should not come as a shock at this point. They had access both to supplies of aluminium and to the tools required to create the fakes. The exact identities of the forgers did, however, come as a complete surprise.