["Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 36, Issue 2, August 2026. ", "\nAbstract\nThis article examines a prolonged “delay” of a chief installation ritual in Dawasamu, Fiji, conducted in 2010 by a lineage group not recognized in the colonial archives as the rightful kingmaker. It argues that this incident signals a broader socio‐semiotic transformation in the understanding of how land as a spatiotemporal place relates to the people as its components in Fiji. In particular, drawing on semiotic notions of interpretants, the article argues that this transformation is a “downshift” from a “dicent” to a “rhematic” interpretant in the entextualization of Fijian vanua (i.e., land and people). That is, whereas the colonial archives signified Fijian vanua as a contiguous, developmental, or hypotactic entity of land and people, the diagrammatic frame of entextualization in the archives came to be self‐grounded, thereby figurating vanua as a formal, figurative, or paratactic entity of land and people. The article further characterizes the self‐reflexive nature of this socio‐semiotic transformation as a shift from “archive state” to “archive state,” in which efforts to disavow colonial archives and to long for the delayed arrival of “unwritten” truth nevertheless reanimate and ultimately adhere to the diagrammatic frame of vanua that was itself a product of the colonial‐era archival work.\n\niVakaleka\nNa itukutuku qo e dikeva e dua na vakaberaberataki vakadede ni veivagunuvi ni turaga e Dawasamu, Viti, ka a vakayacori ena yabaki 2010, mai vei dua na kawa ka sega ni kilai ena akaivi vaka‐koloni ni matanitu me nodra itavi dodonu me ra sauturaga. E vakamacalataki eke ni ituvaki oqo e vakaraitaka e dua na veisautaki raraba ena ivakarau e kilai kina na veisemati ni qele kei ira na tamata e Viti. Ni vakayagataki na vakasama ni semiotiki, e vakaraitaka na itukutuku qo ni na veisautaki oqo e rawa ni kilai me dua na veisau sobu mai na ivakarau dicent ki na ivakarau rhematic ena vakavolaitaki ni vanua e Viti. O koya, ena akaivi vaka‐koloni, a vakatakilai taumada na vanua e Viti me dua na vanua e tubu vakaveitaravi ka sema vata na qele kei ira na tamata. Ia, e muri, e dua na ivakarau diagrammatic ni vakavolaitaki ni vanua ena akaivi ka yaco me yavu vakataki koya, ka vakatakila na vanua me dua na veisemati vakaiyaloyalo ni qele kei ira na tamata. E vakamacalataka talega na itukutuku qo ni na veisau oqo e vakaraitaka e dua na veisau mai na dua na archive state (ivakarau ni matanitu e yavutaki ena akaivi) ki na dua tale na state, ni ra sasaga na tamata me biuti tani na akaivi vaka‐koloni ia era muri tiko ga na ivakarau diagrammatic ni vanua ka a buli taumada ena gauna vaka‐koloni.\n"]