BRAND NEW! Na Duna Navatu: A Fiji Tale (The eel of Navatu) Novel 3 of the Kaiviti series "Ebook"

BRAND NEW AND ONLY AVAILABLE AT THIS SITE. Not yet in hard copy due to high printing costs (Caused by Covid-19 and Ukraine war).

Provided in both ebook form (EPUB) and PDF.

Book 3 of the Kaiviti series (and the sequel to Ancestral - although 700 years later). Also a sequel AND prequel to Kaiviti: A Fiji tale as Na Duna Navatu switches backwards and forwards in time from 700BC to 1999AD.

A return to traditional story telling with novel in 3rd person past tense, with Tui being 2 of the 4 main characters.

“The days of magic are returning in the third novel of the Kaiviti series.”

Seven hundred years after first landing, the maritime people of the shark, serpent and whale totems harvested the lands and seas of the Fijian archipelago. There was disunity across the land as one man’s greed slowly destroyed what was once great. Then there were rumors of new arrivals from the western lands across the great sea; a warring nation of eel warriors. Predictable lives quickly become a struggle of life over death for Tui, Pio and Keli, as the day of first harvest looms.

The daily grind as a mother and dutiful wife was becoming a torment for Tui Cavubati. But soon after the 1999AD elections, she finds a cave entrance at Kulukulu that opens a portal to a time long past. Someone or something is trying to tell her something. Na Duna Navatu is a story about a struggle which took place long ago, buried under the sands of Sigatoka and Natadola in western Viti Levu.

First two pages

She sat atop a grass-covered hill staring out to sea. The sun was high against a cloudless blue sky. To her left was a large river mouth, its waters clear this day, although it was often muddied after heavy rain caused by soil runoff from the farms that occupied the riverbanks further up. To her right was a white sand beach, one of the few places along the coast where reef and mangrove swamp did not line the shore. Behind her was deep forest, majestic hardwoods of many species.

Her long curly hair swayed lightly in the freshening sea breeze that churned the ocean into broken lines of white caps. In the shallows, great waves reared up and crashed on the shallow sandbar a short way from the beach.

Tall, slender, and strong, she could match the speed of the fastest boys in the river facing hamlets over medium distance. She absently traced the contour lines of her whale shark pendant that she wore around her neck, a family heirloom that had been passed from mother to daughter for many generations. It represented the shark Dakuwaqa and the whale Lutuna; the two great ancestors who brought her people to this bountiful land many years ago.

All her memories were of this place next to the river mouth, although when she was very young, her parents had journeyed by foot from Natadola Bay where a great population of their people lived. They had travelled for two days before deciding to set up home in the cave under the hill. Over time, more people had come to the area although this spot by the river entrance was still reserved for her small household on account of her father. He was a direct descendent of one of the two great founding families of this vast land.

She watched her younger brother, Wise, returning from the river where their small sailing boat, Bangko, was moored in the protected shallows of the western bank. All the fun work was man’s work. She was destined to forage and weave, cook, and sit there and wait for the men to return from their daily adventures.

She spotted her dog, Tahiti, ambushing a flock of birds as they took to the air from their nyali nut, burckella fruit and breadfruit orchards, a short distance from the pandanus tree-lined riverbank. The dog, in hot pursuit, blazed through the taro and yam fields and into the kava plantation—a dangerous game if her father or brother were to see this. She laughed to herself. Dogs were such loyal creatures, if not a little bit stupid. They were rare and had not been in the eastern colonies for long. Tahiti was a gift, one her father said he could not refuse. She loved the dog but hated what it represented.

The laugh became a sneer. Never accept a gift from the Great Chief at Natadola or you will be forever in his debt! Soon there would be a husband to dote over, children to rear, if she survived childbirth. Women were like the kula bird, pursued for their red feathers and then discarded as spent carcasses for others, especially if you were marrying the High Chief’s heir. The process had started already. She had heard first from her mother. Oh, that cowardly man! Then he told her it would be a life of prosperity, wanting for nothing. If only he had looked her in the eye when he said it. Later that night she heard her father tell her mother he had had no choice. The Great Chief made requests but essentially, they were demands. She wished she hadn’t heard that. What was the use of a family name such as hers?

I will want for nothing but with nothing I want.

I might as well be a stone.