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House Of Chiefs (Fiji)The term House of Chiefs is a collective term used to refer to the Fijian nobility, which consists of about seventy chiefs of various ranks. It is not a formal political body and should not be confused with the Great Council of Chiefs, which is a political body with a prescribed constitutional role. The membership of the two bodies does, however, overlap to a great extent. Fijian society is traditionally very stratafied. A hierarchy of chiefs presides over villages (koro), sub-districts (tikina vou), districts (tikina cokavata), and provinces (yasana). These administrative divisions generally correspond roughly with the social units of the extended family (tokatoka), clan (mataqali), tribe (yavusa), and land (vanua). Each mataqali is presided over by a chief, styled Ratu if male or Adi (pronounced Ahn-di) if female. Chiefs presiding over units above the mataqali have other, more prestigious titles, although they, too, are typically addressed and referred to as Ratu or Adi, although some have the title Ro. The method of appointing chiefs is not uniform, although the position is generally held for life (with some exceptions) and there is a hereditary element, although the son of a chief does not automatically succeed to the position on his father's death. A chief may hold more than one title, just as a peer may in the United Kingdom; the 189 sub-districts are headed by only seventy or so chiefs. For administrative purposes, Fiji is divided into fourteen provinces, each of which has a Provincial Council in which the chiefs from the province are represented, along with commoners. Each Provinical Council is headed by a Roko Tui, whose appointment must be approved by the Fijian Affairs Board, a government department, which must also approve all bylaws passed and taxes levied by the Councils. (Titles can be deceptive: not every chief styled Roko Tui heads a Provincial Council). The Provincial Councils are significant in that they not only administer communally owned land (more than 80 percent of Fiji's total land area), but also elect most of the representatives to the Great Council of Chiefs. Moreover, the Great Council of Chiefs, which is charged with choosing 14 of the 32 members of the Fijian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament, normally delegates that task to the fourteen Provincial Councils. All of the chiefs also belong to one of three confederacies: Kubuna, Burebasaga, and Tovata. For the most part, the boundaries of the confederacies correspond to the boundaries of the provinces. An anomaly exists in the west of the country, where the provinces of Ba and Ra are split between the confederacies of Kubuna and Burebasaga. This does not affect administration, however, as the confederacies and the provinces fulfill different roles, the former being based on the relationship of chiefs and clans, and the latter being formal political entities. The highest chiefly title of all, the Tui Viti (King of Fiji), has been vacant since 1874, when King Seru Epenisa Cakobau ceded the islands to the United Kingdom. The British Monarch has filled a similar role since; even since Fiji became a republic in 1987, the Great Council of Chiefs has continued to recognize Elizabeth II as its most senior chief. Confederacies and provinces The table below summarizes the three confederacies and fourteen provinces. The name of each confederacy and province is capitalized, with the title of the paramount chief below, followed by the name of the chief (in italics) where applicable; some chiefly positions are currently vacant. Linked articles list the chiefs for the districts and sub-districts of each province. Note that the provinces of Ba and Ra each straddle two confederacies.
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