Social Structure
Traditionally, each Fijian villager is born into a certain role in the family unit or Tokatoka. Various heads of the family will administer and lead the family unit within the village community. Each chief of the village will in turn lead the people to fulfill their role to the Vanua.
Each village will have several family units / Tokatoka which are part of one clan or Mataqali. Several Mataqali will make up the larger tribe or Yavusa. Several Yavusa will belong to a certain land mass and comprise thereby the Vanua (confederation of Yavusa) Dr Asesela Ravuvu (1983, p. 76) describes the Vanua as:
The living soul or human manifestation of the physical environment which the members have since claimed to belong to them and to which they also belong. The land is the physical or geographical entity of the people, upon which their survival...as a group depends. Land is thus an extension of the self. Likewise the people are an extension of the land. Land becomes lifeless and useless without the people, and likewise the people are helpless and insecure without land to thrive upon.
The Vanua is headed by a Turaga i taukei, the most prominent chief from the most prominent family. To explain further, a Vanua is the largest collective group of people associated with a particular territory or area of land. A Vanua is divisible into a group of Yavusa / tribes: a Yavusa is a group of Mataqali / clans: a Matagali is a group of Tokatoka / family units. Within the Mataqali making up one Yavusa one Mataqali will be predominant and head that Yavusa as a whole. Similarly, one Tokatoka will head that Mataqali and one member of that Tokatoka will be Senior Chieftain / Turaga i Taukei of that Vanua.
Matanitu is a confederation of Vanua, not through ancestry or traditional ties, but rather by alliances formed politically or in war and/or united by a common need.
Read more about this topic: Fijian Traditions And Ceremonies
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