WILIKSEN Solrun Moods Behind The Silences

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Ethnography
DOI: 10.1177/1466138108099592
2009; 10; 115 Ethnography
Solrun Williksen
Moods behind the silences
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Moods behind the silences
I Solrun Williksen
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
A B S T R A C T I This article reects on encounters that took place while
doing eldwork in Fiji. The writer thinks back on moods and acts that
were, and still are, only partly understood. The writer has in earlier works
discussed how Fijian people adhere to strict rules for body comportment
and social intercourse, not least in their elaborate ceremonies that seem to
continue unabated even in the urban areas. These rules are related to the
status hierarchy of the chiey system where communal values of kinship
and social obligations reign supreme. Togetherness and a constant
adjustment to others expectations are the norms. A person seems hardly
ever to be alone or free from obligations or duties to perform in one way
or the other. This article, however, is a more personal account of people
who became friends of the writer during eldwork and yet in certain
aspects, as the writer thinks back, remain riddles.
K E Y W O R D S I silence, moods, solitude, sorrow, sleep
Moods, says Geertz, vary only as to intensity: they go nowhere. They
spring from certain circumstances but they are responsive to no ends. Like
fogs, they just settle and lift; like scents, suffuse and evaporate (Geertz,
1973: 97).
The rst impressions I have from Fiji are about sounds, even noise:
women shouting to each other from across the streets in Suva while buses
and trucks passed in between them; people calling from inside the houses
in the villages to people walking past: Come in and eat, children scream-
ing and splashing water at each other along the shore; the bats shrieking at
graphy
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http://eth.sagepub.com Vol 10(1): 115127[DOI: 10.1177/1466138108099592]
T A L E S F R O M
T H E F I E L D
115-127 099592 Williksen (D):156x234mm 11/02/2009 14:31 Page 115
night, the cocks crowing in the early mornings, men singing and playing
guitar around the kava bowl in the evenings, ghting taking place some-
where, women screaming, men swearing. There was always something
going on, people arriving and leaving, exchanging news, informing each
other of social events or just as a matter of form telling the other I am just
about to . . ., I am just coming from . . . and the other person, thats ne
. . . Go ahead . . ..
A dense cloth of information was being woven from morning till night,
everybody knowing what the others were up to. As I got to know the
language better I realized that the words were mostly just about keeping in
touch, showing ones social competence and willingness to conform.
Personal information that mattered was carefully distributed, in small
portions, if at all. The verbal exchanges and incessant noise of a Fijian
village were, I learned, like a babbling brook, never drying up. Running
alongside was the slow moving river with pools of still water. One had to
listen very carefully to realize it was there at all and not least to understand
what messages it was carrying.
What appeared to become the greatest challenge to me was the silence
and sometimes stubborn withdrawal and impenetrable distance that people
employed, consciously or unconsciously, when they wanted to be left alone,
show disapproval or anger or when they were feeling worried or sad and
possibly even depressed. The beaming Fijian smile, so present in the tourist
brochures, is there in daily life too, but this is the smooth surface covering
whatever turbulence there may be underneath. It is the silence and complete
quietude in individual persons as well as in multitudes of people I keep
thinking about and realize that I have not yet wholly understood. I also feel
a fool to have suffered from it rather than let it go, take it as a matter of
culture, to be observed, rather than to let oneself be absorbed by it. Was I
an unusually naive and innocent anthropologist, thinking that communi-
cation in the sense of telling all, understanding all, would be possible if only
one was open and understanding enough?
Now, so much later, living in the quiet, mountainous area in the east
of Norway, I have given myself time to reect further upon some of the
riddles I struggled with in Fiji. Certain forms of cultural expression here
bring back memories and I think: Was it not so secretive at all? Just look
here: slow body movements, the occasional withdrawal from social inter-
course, the shyness, fear of saying too much or asserting ones opinion.
There is a quiet pressure to conrm. Words never give a person away. There
are a lot of humming and assenting murmurs rather than commitment to
an argument.
The residue of experience I was left with after my lengthy stays in Fiji,
and which was never analyzed in any satisfactory manner at the time, can
come back to me now as I take my walks through the mountain village,
Et hnography 10(1) 116
accompanied by ashes of associations and understanding and sometimes
inner eruptions of anger, remorse or sadness.
The persons I encounter now involuntarily point to persons I was with
then. Characteristics I found it hard to cope with particularly the long
silences are part of my daily life now, as they were then. Yet there are
clear differences. I never feel threatened by the silences here, though I must
admit that silences often do make me anxious and lead me to wonder: have
I done something wrong, must I do something to make the other person
feel better? I may be particularly sensitive to silences, even in my own
culture. In the best of cases they make me feel curious; is there a hidden
depth here to explore? In Fiji I came to wonder how people with such an
inclination to silences and withdrawal could function in the modern world,
the modern market, with its emphasis on self-promotion and personal
visibility. I have broached this point in several works and enlarged upon it
in the article Can a Silent Person Be a Business Person? (Williksen-Bakker,
2004).
I sometimes take out my notes, many of which are still undigested
(theoretically speaking), look at them and ponder upon their contents.
Note:
Lai, a fairly young father of four children told me he was worried because
his relatives had so far not done anything on his behalf, i.e. they had not
made any arrangements for him and his wife to get married in the Fijian
way with exchange of mats and other traditional goods. They were now
about ten years delayed. I asked him could he not discuss it with one of his
elder brothers or uncles. His reply was: They know what their duties are. I
just have to wait and keep silent.
And if they dont ever remember, what can you do?
Nothing, then I just must bear the shame of it.
I did not realize then that to bear, even suffer, shame for any length of time
was a kind of cultural commitment, a noble act, a sign that one knew what
values were. To keep silent, galu, where in a European context one would
be expected to speak up was an expression of dignity. At the time it used
to make me feel irritation. Why could not people talk about things, get the
problems out into the air, solve them? I had to experience the silences at
the personal and emotional level and the stubborn waiting for something
to happen again and again in order to get a glimpse of understanding.
And I had to get hurt and feel puzzled time and again in order to obtain a
feel for the culture, for better or worse.
After a number of years in relatively comfortable circumstances in Fiji,
my life took a different course and I moved in to a block of small self-
contained apartments in Suva while I waited for a at to become empty in
Knollys Street.
Williksen I Moods behind the silences 117
Marama
Note:
Marama, who is in charge of the apartments is living in a small room in the
basement, there are no windows so she always keeps the door open. Is it
allowed to let people live like this, I wonder. The owners, the rich Indian
family come by every afternoon to pick up the rent. While they are there,
two young men, spotlessly dressed, Marama hides the two little girls upstairs
in one of the unoccupied guestrooms. She threatens them with severe punish-
ment if they make a sound. The severest and most cruel method of punish-
ment is to put chilli in their bottoms. I tried to stop it once, but Marama
just laughed. When the young men have left, the twins come out, shrieking
like little cats. Maramas son is the father of the girls, the mother is never
mentioned. The son comes in from time to time, sleeps on the only bed in
the room and leaves the next day. He looks sullen, says little and eats the
food his mother serves him. While he is there, Marama sleeps on a mat under
a tree, with the twins.
Marama and I have become great friends. She and I sit up at night after
the twins have gone to sleep and we tell each other about our lives. Marama
has been married, but her husband had died (later I heard that he had left
her) and after that she has looked after her two sons and daughter and
worked as a housegirl in different households. She has now worked for the
Indian family for a few years. Her pay never goes up, but she can keep her
grandchildren there in secret and that is a great advantage.
Marama has a dramatic appearance. She is tall and thin and wears a
large towel or cloth wound around her head like a massive turban. All her
front teeth are missing. She is laughing and shouting like a madwoman,
even at the guests, who behave like obedient children towards her. Most of
the guests are men, businessmen of all nationalities. She serves them break-
fast and irons their shirts. The only people she shows humility towards are
the bosses, only called the Gujaratis, the smooth and arrogant young men,
whose father once in a while comes with them, but remains sitting in the
big, black car.
Note:
By and by Marama has started to do things I do not really appreciate, but
before I have realized, it has gone too far. I have not withdrawn in time. She
has, in her own way, begun to dominate me.
It started with her asking once could she sleep in my room instead of
outside once when her son came and it was raining. I said yes. The next time
he came and it was not even raining she did not ask, but just mentioned it
and I consented though not very happily. She and the twins slept on mats
on the oor.
Then I realized that she had started to use my fridge for her own things
and came in picking them up, even if I had visitors. She did call softly from
out on the steps, it is true, but it was still an interruption. Yet, I said nothing.
She told me many things of interest to me, concerning kinship and relation-
ships generally. I grew dependent upon her for information, translation of
certain concepts, as a companion during the long evenings when we chatted
and I mastered the language more and more. She once asked me to go with
her to her village. I paid for the bus and the boat for both of us. In the
village she left me with her elder sister and she and I chatted away the day
while Marama made tea for us and treated her sister with the utmost respect,
i.e. she hardly said anything when not spoken to.
It is some time since we made the trip. She has not mentioned to repeat
it. I cannot say she treats me with contempt, but each day it is with less
respect and kindness.
Note, a few more months later:
The at will be ready to move into soon. Marama has stopped talking to
me. It has happened so gradually. I cannot make head or tail of it. I try to
talk to her, but I am met with silence. She still uses my fridge, lets the twins
disturb me at any time of the day, laughs behind my back when she has
visitors; the laugh Fijian women sometimes employ in order to put you
down. I have not reacted in any way, just kept to myself, feeling hurt and
wondering what I have done to deserve this kind of treatment. In the
evenings Marama withdraws to her dark hole, locks the door. I am left to
wonder what on earth has happened. There is no way I can discuss with her,
ask. The distance around her is like an iron fence.
I think about Marama from time to time. The riddle was never solved.
I moved out, she never came to visit me after that. I once asked her daughter
whom I met in the street if she knew what the matter was, but she said it
was nothing. Not so long after this Marama got a job in Nauru, moved
there and died a year later. The twins were taken to her village. This is all
I know. I still wonder whether I had made a terrible blunder or whether
she was just jealous of me in one way or the other. I detected a streak of
heartlessness in Fijians from time to time that always scared me.
Knollys Street
There were several people who coloured my period in Knollys Street. Two
of them have left lasting images on my minds eye. I can clearly visualize
their dark, heavy gures, solid and silent like monuments. When I moved
to Knollys Street I asked a woman I had known for some time to come and
stay with my son when I went away on eldtrips to faraway villages. He
liked her and she liked to be away from her busy household with two
grown-up daughters with husbands sharing her one room apartment and
six or seven grandchildren. This was Seini.
At this time I decided to take the Fijian language seriously and was
admitted to a Fijian class, run mainly for the benet of priests, nuns and
the odd person, like me, who wanted to be able to say more in Fijian than
just Bula (hello).
The teacher, I shall call him K, spoke in the most dignied manner, both
in Fijian and English. I learned from others that he was a high chief, but
with no money (like nobility elsewhere!), and gained his living by teaching
Fijian to foreigners. He looked very respectable, spoke in an even,
somewhat rusty voice and moved about in the slow, deliberate manner of
the higher classes.
How it started I do not know, but K gradually came to use my apart-
ment as his private space where he could withdraw when the social
pressure of being a chief became too strong. He came for a visit one
evening on his way somewhere else and before I realized it he had more
or less moved in.
He stayed in the corner in the bay window. Bachelard, I remember, writes
about the corner as a solitary space (Bachelard, 1964: 136). For K it was
so indeed. Between Seini and K there was avoidance and silence. Seini was
also from chiey stock, but from an island in the Lau group. They knew
each other by name, but ignored each others presence, apparently out of
respect. When K and I talked Seini stayed by herself or did some work in
the kitchen. Only when K left the house did Seini and I talk. The two of
them only muttered excuses and polite phrases when they passed each other,
like tulou (excuse me). K slept on the bench in the bay window and I
still see him sitting there in the morning, pensive, sullen, looking in front
of him for lengths of time. Sometimes, after his shower, he would sit, clad
in his isulu (a ower-printed cotton cloth around the hips) and oil his skin
with long, pensive strokes. I made coffee, tried to chat, but I soon learned
that it was not appreciated. He shufed around until ready to leave the
house, morose, perhaps dreading his duties later in the day as a talking
chief, mata ni vanua, for the Governor General, where all the required
etiquette would be one of the chores of the day. He was the master of cere-
monies when high guests arrived, like royalty or politicians from abroad.
Once he said: If a black car should stop outside, it may be a message from
the Governor General. Tell them you do not know where I am. They will
nd me, but rather not today. On days like this he would put on trousers
instead of his isulu vakataga (a grey or black skirt with pockets) and boots
instead of slippers. Sometimes he wore sunglasses. He looked foreign. It
was probably an effort of disguise, of rebellion. His spells of rebellion were
brief, but impressive. His silences were interspersed with long sighs or rather
a whistling sound as if he had held his breath for a long time and nally
let it out in small portions.
Note:
In my mind I am putting those mornings away under the label The Fijian
Gloom. A type of mood, which is not light and imsy like the moods Geertz
writes about, that suffuse and evaporate, but like a heavy fog a way of
withdrawing, being incommunicado. Ks mood is like a black curtain
hanging between him and us, dampening our speech and our activities as
well. How glad we are when he is gone! The fog lifts immediately from our
souls. On these foggy days I cannot help wondering what personal pains
and losses he is going through.
Seini can be silent too. She may sit for hours on the veranda, looking out,
not moving. What goes on, I wonder. But sometimes in her presence the fog
lifts, the silence breaks.
Seini
When I rst met Seini I was impressed by her posture and dignity. Her
features had the regularity and beauty of the Lauans. They are people with
pale skin and slender bodies. However, as far as the womans body goes, it
usually becomes heavy after childbirth, and the men become rather massive
too as the years go by. Seini had had seven children and her body bore
witness of that. She had, however, the grace of movement that is recogniz-
able across the islands. Like other islanders she moved with her body erect
and her head proudly upright. She was always dressed in a spotless isulu
and tsjaba (a wrap-around skirt and long cotton top) when she went outside
and her hair, slightly greying, was brushed up from the face in the style of
the Lauans. I found Seini beautiful. Only one thing marred her beauty,
namely her missing front teeth. After we had become friends I offered to
help her to x her teeth and this was done by a dentist who made a few
teeth she could put in during the day and take out at night. She could also
keep them on the whole time as she got used to them. Her beauty was
complete.
Note:
I have noticed that Seini does not put her teeth in anymore, not even when
she goes out. She has said nothing by way of explanation. I feel a bit hurt
as I have helped her pay for them. I must put up courage and ask her.
Note:
I asked her if she had lost the teeth and the answer was that she did not
want to get any attention from men. Several men had approached her
recently and she was not in the mood to link up with any of them. She had
had enough of men, wanted peace now.
Thinking back I conclude that the teeth made her individuality conspic-
uous. A dignied woman of a certain age should not seek the attention of
others, particularly not of men. Besides the teeth were a hassle, and not
something very important. That she wanted peace from men was perhaps
an excuse she sought in order to be understood by me. But I knew already
that Fijian men seldom go for teeth or facial beauty in the rst place. They
go for strong bodies, and particularly for strong legs, calves, as others have
also observed (Becker, 1995: 53).
One day Seini and I were sitting in my apartment having a meal. We
gossiped about some of the staff members at the university, some of whom
Seini knew better than I as she was working as a house-girl for them. She
could be talkative when she wanted to and fun to listen to. Seini started to
talk about how difcult life had been for her and how hard it had been to
bring up seven children all alone. I sympathized with relevant murmur and
sounds as we had been through this theme several times, but usually after
a while we could leave the subjects, as Seinis children were all adults now
and three of them had even migrated to Canada and were doing well. The
story she told was like this and it must have happened about 20 years ago.
I had made a note in my diary about this already.
Note:
One day, as she got off the bus at the market place in Suva, with one of her
seven children by the hand and a big bunch of sugar cane that she had got
from an Indian farmer up Wailoku way, under one arm, she saw him, her
husband, behind one of the stalls in intimate exchange with a woman dressed
in a white isulu and tsjamba, ready for church, prayer book in her hand.
This slut even belonged to the Assembly of God. I ran up to them, my anger
was like a re in my body. I hit them as hard as I could with the sugarcane.
The white clad woman ran away like a rat, and hopefully never made it for
church that day.
I knew the story by heart, it only varied slightly in tone and emphasis.
I followed it in my mind, when she talked, as if it was my own narrative.
They ought to dispel people like that from the Assembly, it just shows
what kind of a church it is. I always murmured my agreement at this point.
Her memory would dwell on the child by her side.
The child started to cry, it must have been the boy. I have six girls, but the
boy is more scared, cried more easily as a child. It must have been the boy,
Alipate, for he ran out to play that day, as soon as he had had something to
eat, like he always did.
The story progressed and I made a note of this too:
She drank some tea and cried a little after they had come home and the boy
had gone out to play. She cried just a little. This was emphasized. Fijian
women do not cry just for nothing. They keep their crying for funerals and
this is an occasion to cry their heart out for everything painful in life. Then
she went about her duties, cleaning and ironing, for Mr Burrow, in whose
house she was employed as a housegirl. Finally she packed her husbands
suitcase, which he kept stored under their bed, containing odds and ends
and an occasional whalestooth for ceremonial purposes. She packed it and
put it outside the door. She locked the door and went to bed. The neigh-
bours laughed when he came home at night and found the door closed and
his suitcase outside with a heap of clothes on top of it. He knocked, but she
did not open. She felt satised and went to bed.
Seini and I had been through the story many times and the emotional
tone of it would vary only slightly. However, it always contained the same
elements: the woman dressed in white, the Assembly of God, the sugarcane,
the suitcase, a child crying, she herself, crying just a little, and nally the
locked door. End of story line. End of the ofcial version.
Sometimes, when she told the story we would laugh and make fun of
the couple behind the stall at the market. I took the role of the woman
dressed in white, pious, ready for church and Seini played the part of herself,
showing how she would sneak up behind me with the bunch of imagined
sugarcane.
This particular time, however, which is clearly outlined in my memory,
she started to cry out loudly towards the end of the story, wailing. She was
by this time holding the broom to sweep up the breadcrumbs after the meal.
She swept violently and without purpose as she cried and sobbed as if an
avalanche of grief was taking possession of her. I sat speechless by this
sudden change of mood. Then I too started to cry, rst quietly, thinking of
my own sorrows, mingled with hers. We wept and talked incoherently,
trying to console each other. Her story, which I had heard several times,
and usually in a joking mood, now touched upon grief and loss in us both.
It was as if her story gradually had ripened and brought out her grief in
full force, accompanied by mine.
Now she remembered that after he had gone in the evening she had sat
down and cried for a long while, all the seven children were sleeping on
mattresses on the oor. She lived in so-called servants quarters in the
basement of a house in the government quarters. She sobbed and prayed
and was at a loss about what to do. It was a long night. Her boss, Mr
Burrow (already dead at the time of this episode), had come down the
following morning and given her some money. He pressed her hand and
said not to worry. She stayed there for several years after. As she was telling
about Mr Burrow she demonstrated how he had talked, pressed her hand
in sympathy and assured her not to worry. He gave her 10 dollars that day.
She had cried then and she cried now. I cried too, as she pressed my hand
to demonstrate how Mr Burrow had understood her plight.
He was a good man. He understood. I was alone with the children. He never
said anything harsh to them. We all loved him. He was good. I managed
alone after that, without a husband. Whats the use of a husband who drinks
and chases after other women? He was good looking, it is true, like all the
men from Lau.
We were married in traditional style and we were cross-cousins. After a
little while I saw his character. It was too late. Our parents had promised
us to each other when we were small. I loved him. He was nice on the
outside, his manners were like a chiefs (turaga), but he was bad on the
inside. No, I dont regret leaving him. He is no good. I was blamed by all
in the family, but I dont care. I have supported myself and brought up my
children alone.
(I met him later, in the Fijian community in Vancouver, a charming elderly
man with a Canadian wife and the manners of a chief, like Seini had said.
He had a particular role here, was liked by everybody. But this is another
story.)
The following night Seini was dreaming and screaming loudly in her
dream. I woke her up. She was bewildered and talking about the dream,
all confusion. I could not make head nor tail of it. I gave her a hot drink.
She said a spirit had sat on her chest. I could not sleep myself. As if there
was a dark presence in the room. I sat by her bedside for a long while. Her
heavy body was covered with an isulu with orange coloured hibiscus. She
tossed and turned, sometimes incoherent words were cried out. I realized
that the dream was completing the verbal narrative. It would be less
coherent than the verbal account, had she been able to tell it. But it could
probably not be told. I felt deep empathy, a resonance of sadness, regret.
The next day Seini got up, dressed and went to see how her daughters
were doing. She was composed, her face was calm, her posture dignied,
as usual. No words were spoken about the episode the previous evening.
Only I had new insight into her troubled heart and layers of sorrow,
momentarily brought to rest. I had gained a new insight to my own heart
as well. During the telling of the story and during the following night, when
Seini was tossing about on bed, screaming and sobbing, and I was sitting
sadly by her, we both experienced the turmoil and grief of our lives. As she
sobbed for her own life, she sobbed for mine as well, and the other way
round. The story of the rupture and struggle of her life had become an
experience of great intensity and impact for us both. The narrative had
developed slowly, come to maturity as we looked back upon it.
Whenever I look at the tourist brochures and posters with the broad
Fijian smile I think of experiences like this one; the turbulence at night and
the bright smile of the day.
Back to K
The person I have called K is one whose personal strength, kaukaua, was
obvious, not only as a personal trait, but as a sign of his high position as
a chief from a well established chiey family from Bau, the silent island.
Silence there cannot simply be placed under the label The Fijian Gloom. It
is a cultural requirement. When K walks the streets in town, people step
aside to give him personal space and show their respect. Once, my friend
Marama fell down on her knees when she met him, and kissed his hand,
which he allowed with a formal bow of his head.
Note:
He always walks with measured steps and when he speaks it is in the low
and cultivated tone of a chief. His tone of voice is never raised, indeed, he
murmurs so softly that he can barely be understood. When he is silent
nobody dares to speak. When he is morose the curtain falls. This man and
I have become very close, yet never so close that I can fathom his inner being.
We sat by the dining table many a night discussing Fijian custom, history
of the islands, linguistic concepts. K smoked and drank beer. People had
told me that K had once been married, some said he had children, some
said he had not. He himself never mentioned either wife or children to
anybody. His conversations were never about his personal being. That was
only expressed in moods. However, he gave the impression that there were
rows of people towards whom he owed something, goods or respect or
both. And people who owed him the same things. However, once during
our nightly talks, he said that his wedding had been particularly ceremoni-
ous. Everything there was of ceremonial decorum had been put into effect.
I became curious, but dared not ask, for fear I might say or ask too much.
Were they dressed in tapa, I wondered. Yes, of the nest quality, and the
food was exquisite. We were fed with long sticks, he said, like in the olden
times. The chiefs should not eat by themselves, but be fed. She was of
chiey descent also. Then he closed the matter and never came back to it
again. I am only left with the image of two young people, skin treated with
perfumed oil and dressed in tapa, seated on a high pile of mats and being
fed by means of long sticks.
He was usually the one to stand up and formally bow his head. I knew
the condences were over, if such they could be called. I went to bed and
he lay down on the bench by the window. Next morning he might be remote
and sullen, shufing about on his bare feet, until, dressed in his isulu
vakataga and smelling of coconut oil (applying the oil thoughtfully to arms
and legs as if he were putting on a garment), he would make his way down
town where he gave his language class. We greeted each other solemnly and
formally before he left: Thank you very much, vinaka vakalevu. And in
return: It is nothing to speak of, sega ni dua na ka. Polite noises and
murmurs were uttered by both of us as he shufed down the path.
Once, somebody called me late at night and told me that K was lying
drunk in a bar and could I come and help him home. I went there with
a taxi and another friend and we got him home and back to his bench
by the window. A few men carried him to the taxi and the crowd stood
aside, looking respectfully as if his image was not at all tainted by his
actual behaviour, which surprised me. His whole corporeal being was in
a mess as if he had been on a tour of rebellion. Nobody mentioned
anything about this incident, not to me at least. Between K and me it was
wrapped in silence.
Note:
I am fed up with Ks way of monopolizing space. The bench in the bay
window has become his to the extent of visitors not daring to sit on it, even
when he is not there.
After his drinking bouts he may sleep there during the day, making it hard
for both Seini and me to do something, forcing us to talk in hushed voices.
Still, when he wakes up and looks around him with heavy eyes, searching
for his cigarettes, we ask him if he will like something to eat. He whispers,
yes, please a cup of tea and some scraps of food, if you have. He uses the
word bulagi, meaning old food or remnants of yesterdays meal. He makes
himself humble. How can one not be nice to him?
K always prayed before the meal, even when drunk. I would watch him
from the kitchen. He was sitting alone by the table, as a dark and massive
icon. It moved me strangely. Seini and I would never disturb him while he
ate. We served him silently. He folded his hands and bent his heavy head
over them, murmuring his prayer.
Acknowledgements
I cherish these memories, and the more distant they become the more clearly
they are outlined in my memory, rid now of the irritations and worries of the
moment. I can even think back on Marama, without the sadness of earlier times.
Like Seini and K and a number of other people, too many to mention, she is
part of my images of Fiji, composing a varied picture of personalities, for ever
there in my mind.
I am grateful to Professor A.J. Schutz who over the years has shared some
of his extensive knowledge of Fiji and the Fijian language with me. He has also
read and commented on this article.
References
Bachelard, G. (1964) The Poetics of Space. New York: The Orion Press.
Becker, A.E. (1995) Body, Self and Society. The View from Fiji. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Williksen-Bakker, S. (2004) Can a Silent Person Be a Business Person? The
Concept of mdu in Fijian Culture, The Australian Journal of Anthropology
15(2): 198212.
I SOLRUN WILLIKSEN was educated at the University of Oslo,
where she has a magister degree in Psychology and Anthropology,
with Fijian language as a special subject. She also has a doctoral
degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Oslo. Her
doctoral thesis was about lifecycle rituals in Fijian culture. She lived
in Fiji for several years during the 1970s and 1980s and has
returned on a number of brief eldworks since. She has published
in, among others, The Journal of the Polynesian Society, The
Australian Journal of Anthropology and Bijdragen. For the last
15 years she has been working at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology where she is now a professor at the
Department of Social Anthropology. Address: Department of Social
Anthropology, The Norwegian University of Science and
Technology (NTNU), 7491 Trondheim, Norway.
[email: solrun.williksen@svt.ntnu.no] I

WILIKSEN Solrun Moods Behind The Silences

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