Java persistence with enum types

Hi, I have an enum type in my postgres 8.3 database:

CREATE TYPE typeOfNames AS ENUM ('Latin', 'Common', 'Local');

I am trying to access the database through the Java Persistence API using Netbeans:
    @Lob
    @Column(name = "typeofname")
    private String typeofname;

This works for reading from the database, but writing to it, I get the error message:
Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: column "typeofname" is of type typeofnames but expression is of type character varying

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks