Meke: Fiji's Living Cultural Archive

To witness a meke is to witness Fijian history in motion. This traditional performance art — combining dance, song, chant, and storytelling — has been practised across the Fiji Islands for centuries and remains one of the most powerful expressions of iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) cultural identity today.

What Is Meke?

Meke is a collective performance involving coordinated movement, percussion, and vocal harmony. It is performed by groups — often entire villages — at significant occasions including:

  • The installation of a new chief (solevu)
  • The welcoming of important visitors
  • Weddings and life-cycle celebrations
  • National and cultural festivals
  • Religious gatherings

There is no single form of meke. Different performances carry different purposes. Some recount battles and heroic deeds of ancestors. Others celebrate the land, the sea, or the spirits. Some are performed exclusively by men, others by women, and some by mixed groups.

The Forms of Meke

Several distinct performance types fall under the umbrella of meke:

  • Meke wesi: A spear dance performed by men, dramatic and powerful in its choreography, evoking the movements of warriors.
  • Meke i ulate: A fan dance typically performed by women, characterised by graceful, flowing arm and hand movements using fans woven from pandanus leaves.
  • Seasea: A seated dance where performers use their upper bodies and hands expressively.
  • Cibi: A war chant historically performed before battle, now seen at sporting events as a powerful haka-like challenge — most famously performed by the Fiji rugby sevens team.

Music and Instruments

Meke is inseparable from its music. Traditional percussion instruments including the lali (a wooden slit drum) and the derua (bamboo stamping tubes) provide the rhythmic foundation. Voices — chanting, harmonising, and calling — are central. The music of meke is not merely accompaniment; it carries the narrative and spiritual weight of the performance.

In contemporary settings, some meke performances incorporate adapted instruments and staging while preserving the core movements and songs.

Meke and the Transmission of Knowledge

Before written records were widespread in Fiji, meke served as a crucial vehicle for preserving and transmitting oral history. Genealogies, land boundaries, battles, the deeds of chiefs — all were encoded in the words of meke songs and passed from generation to generation through performance and practice.

This is why cultural practitioners and educators across Fiji emphasise the importance of teaching meke to young people not merely as a performance skill, but as an act of cultural memory and identity formation.

Meke in the Modern World

Today, meke is featured prominently at:

  • The Hibiscus Festival in Suva, Fiji's largest annual cultural celebration.
  • School and university cultural competitions.
  • International cultural exchanges and Pacific arts festivals.
  • Tourism performances at resorts — though cultural practitioners often advocate for contexts that honour the depth of the tradition rather than reducing it to entertainment.

The tension between cultural preservation and commercialisation is a genuine conversation within Fijian communities, and it reflects a broader Pacific-wide dialogue about how living cultures navigate modernity.

Why Meke Matters

In a rapidly changing world, meke is a reminder that culture is not static — it breathes, adapts, and endures. For Fijians at home and across the global diaspora, performing or watching a meke is an act of connection: to ancestors, to land, to community, and to a sense of self that no distance or decade can erase.