Property of Spirits: Hereditary and Global Value of Sea Turtles in Fiji

Abstract

This paper considers sea turtles as a form of spiritual and social property among Fijians. It emphasizes the ways clan groups with rights to turtles respond to regional and global forces affecting their area. For Fijians, turtles are both a subsistence food and a prestige food associated with hierarchical obligations among the chiefs and clans. Customarily, rights to catch and consume turtles derive from hereditary relations and mediations with ancestral spirits. Various factors operating at regional and global levels have attenuated the property rights of the indigenous clan groups. Who has rights over the sea turtles now? Fieldwork in the Wainikeli District of Taveuni Island provides material to describe and analyze these changes. Three trends may be identified. The special value assigned to turtles in global conservation culture poses some challenge to local exploitation of the animal. Of greater concern to Fijian turtle catchers, however, is the recognition of hereditary prerogatives reflected in turt...