ABSTRACT
This essay1 concerns itself with capital formation and use among the Fijian people of the Sigatoka2 River Valley and adjacent coastal areas, in the administrative province of Nadroga and Navosa. Within Fiji there are a number of variations of traditional culture, but in the area of which I write the culture is relatively homogeneous. There are of course differences in the emphases of production as between coastal and riverine people; between those who cultivate the fertile alluvial fiats and those whose garden plots are carved out of hillside forests; and between those who today are in close contact with roads and the settled population of East Indian immigrants, and those whose villages are seldom visited by any outsider. There are also a number of differences in culture which serve as symbols of differentiation as between local groups. Among these are minor differences of dialect and vocabulary, some details of marriage ceremonies, ceremonial group-names, guardian agricultural spirits, and ritually significant food-stuffs (erroneously described in the literature as totems).
