Lasakau sea warriors
Bauan chief Ratu Loaloadravu Tubuanakoro was praised by French Captain Dumont D'Urville in May 1827 for his geographic knowledge of the Fijian archipelago signifying Bau's naval influence.
About 1760, the Bau chief Nailatikau seized Ulu-ni-vuaka and expelled the Butoni, who thenceforth were rovers, wandering to many parts of the Group establishing settlements at Lakeba and Somosomo.
The Vunivalu of Bau, Nailatikau was succeeded by Banuve, who, during a period of nearly thirty years, consolidated the young state's position and carried out an ambitious scheme of improvements to the island.
[8] The Lasakau people of the Yavusa Nabou clan trace their roots to Delailasakau Naitasiri and the Nakauvadra ranges foothills where their original ancestral home or yavutu was located.
The seafaring exploits of Bau's sea warriors, recounted through the lineage of the Lasakau Nabou sub-clan of Mataqalikira and in particular the two chiefly households of Nacokula and Nadrakuta reflected the Machiavellian and martial mores of the times.
Ratu Pope Seniloli the Vunivalu of Bau (1883–1936), in his sworn statement at the Native Lands Commission in 1933 for the Village of Lasakau asserted, Ai tokatoka ka liu ko Nacokula.
"[11] French Captain Dumont D'Urville in his 1827 expedition of the Fiji archipelago, was amazed at Tubuanakoro's seafaring skills and knowledge of the group of islands when Cakobau's elder half brother acted as pilot on board his ship the Astrolabe.
[12] The surname 'Kamikamica' or 'sweet' that survives in the Nacokula household today is an allusion to the personable, genial and gracious character of Ratu Loaloadravu Tubuanakoro alias Kolivisawaqa I.
Reverend Jagger said of the Lasakau, " much feared on that account, the circumstance of them having plenty of canoes at their command enables them the more effectively to carry their schemes into practice".
As Tanoa's trusted collector of tribute and wealth this may have led to his demise at the hands of rebels including his half brother Tutekovuya, the vasu-i- Tamavua Naitasiri.
Tutekovuya is a 'ravu' name shortened for 'he that set fire to the great Bauan temple of Dulukovuya', that was bestowed on the Lasakau chief after Cakobau's successful counter-coup.
The support of the Roko Tui Dreketi to Lasakau was crucial in the success of this coup in which Tanoa the vasu to Rewa was re-installed though Cakobau was the power behind the throne.
Many recorded contacts in the 1830s and 1840s such as with Commodore Charles Wilkes, Captain John Erskine and Reverend Calvert, place Lasakau chief Gavidi as Cakobau's leading enforcer.
"[26] Another account stated that it was witnessed that Cakobau's "anxiety was high" as the Lasakau chief forayed too deep into the Veratan battle lines and "was shot in the back".
His body was taken back to Lasakau and buried in Nadrakuta, his home which was built to honour his mother Adi Vuniwaqa the daughter of the Roko Tui Bau.
At Gavidi's death and in breaking with traditional mourning practices, the people of Lasakau pleaded with Ratu Cakobau that Adi Loloakubou, be spared the custom of wife strangulation as she was with child.
These strategic familial links reinforced Bauan supremacy on the western coast of Viti Levu, Lomaiviti and the yasayasa Moala Lau group of islands.
Through the main support of Kolivisawaqa I and his Lasakau clan, the Vunivalus Naulivou and Tanoa gained ascendency in the eastern parts of the Fiji archipelago.
The name is an allusion to the burning arrows and reed fences set ablaze by the Lasakau on the night of the 1837 coup that re-installed Cakobau's father Tanoa as Vunivalu.
Furthermore, Koli's move to adopting Catholicism would have stemmed more from a political motive due to the Wesleyan missionaries abhorrence of his tribe's pillaging and plundering, the raison d'etre, of Lasakau's sea warriors.
As seafarers their dominating reach by the use of huge sailing war canoes established Bauan colonies in various villages on Gau, Moala, Vanuabalavu, Nairai and coastal Tailevu and Ba.
Hence well beyond the tiny islet's horizon, Bau was able to levy food, traditional wealth and more importantly war canoes through the Lasakau sea warriors.
Much of our understanding of pre-contact Fijian history has been interpreted through the observations and writings of missionaries such as Reverends Williams, Calvert and Waterhouse from the cockpit of Bauan culture and tradition.
Indeed, the rise of Bau as the leading Fijian chiefdom in the first half of the nineteenth century was closely witnessed by these pioneering missionaries and their women folk such as Mary Wallis.
Since European contact in the early nineteenth century the position of Bauan war lord had gained significant power along Fiji's eastern coast and windward islands.
Prior to succeeding his brother Naulivou at Muaidule, Bau as Vunivalu in 1829, Tanoa had led the Lasakau sea marauders as chief purveyor of tribute throughout the Fiji islands.
In the 1856 Rev Waterhouse plan of the island of Bau, the largest yavu in Lasakau of Nacokula was labelled as Kolivisawaqa's (alias Kamikamica and grandson of Tanoa) residence.
The native Bauan poem immortalizing the rise of Cakobau as translated into English in Reverend Joseph Waterhouse's pioneering historic work, The King and people of Fiji, is perhaps the closest insider account of the 1837 counter-revolution on the island.
The poem from oral tradition encode verse meaning with the use of allegory and allusion known only to those knowledgeable of Bauan political and intra-tribal intrigues of the time.
The demise of Lasakau chief's Kolivisawaqa, Tutekovuya and Gavidi of the Kubuna i wai chiefdom in 1832, 1840 and 1850 respectively at the hands of their close clansmen most probably was the outcome of the rivalry for power that prevailed at the zenith of Bauan traditional political hegemony.
