Father Anster—Fijian Legendary Lore—Forest Graves—The Blind
Chief—Mythology and Love-making—Falling Stars—The Change—A Drove of
Native Children—The Village Missionary—A Native Supper—An Old Chief’s
Reminiscences—Fijian Poets and Musicians—A Tribute to the Humbug of
Civilisation
I SAT and gazed round that little lonely homestead by the shore-side at
Naraundrau. The scent of the jungle blooms and dead grass crept into my
nostrils as soft winds came up from the sea, blew in at the small
doorway and fell asleep in the leafy hollows. Opposite the doorway, by
his broken coloured-glass window, sat the missionary to whom Mabau had
appealed. He had already given her his advice.
He was a venerable-looking old man, with earnest, sunken grey eyes. As
his aged, bearded lips moved, and he spoke in a sensitive, musical
voice, I at once felt a liking for him, and I seemed to be back in the
days of an age that had long since passed away. For this lonely old
missionary was the sole survivor of the first white men who had exiled
themselves from their native lands with the one intense motive only in
their hearts—to endeavour to preach the word of Christ and better the
conditions of heathen lands. No ambition in his mind had craved for
recognition; he had done his day’s work, and there, weighed down with
years, he waited sadly, yet patiently, the last act of life’s drama, the
call of his Creator, to whose service he had devoted his earnest
existence. He died, quite unknown to men on earth, for if men do not
strive for fame it seldom will come to them, unless they do not deserve
it.
“My son, what brings you this way?” he said, and his grey eyes gazed
kindly at me.
“Father,” I said respectfully, “I heard of you from Mabau, the native
girl who sorrows over her faithless lover, and since hearing of you it
has been my wish to meet you, and here I am.”
Hearing my answer, the old man looked intently at me, and to my great
pleasure I saw that I had impressed him favourably. “Art thou hungry,
lad?” he said. “No, not hungry, but I am exceedingly thirsty, Father,” I
answered; and at that he at once brought out, from a little wooden
cupboard by his side two coco-nuts, and with trembling fingers pierced
the holes with a screw. Very thankful I was as I drank off a tin
pannikin full to the brim of the refreshing fruit milk. After that I
felt much refreshed and more at my ease, as I talked to my host.
At his bidding I took my violin from its case and played the _Ah che la
morte_ from _Il Trovatore_ to him. As the strain died away, and silently
I laid the fiddle down, he crossed his hands over his breast and sat in
the gloom, for night was falling fast. He looked like an old,
grey-bearded apostle carved in stone as he sat there.
“My son, thou playest well, and I am thankful for thy visit,” he
murmured; and I was touched and highly pleased, for deep in my heart I
suddenly felt a tenderness for the lonely old missionary. I saw by the
way he crossed his hands that he was a Roman Catholic. I am a Protestant
by birthright, but his sincerity made me feel more attached to his
denomination than my own.
As night fell and the stars came out he became more talkative and
unburdened himself to me, a fact which I always remember with pride, for
he would not have done so if he had not felt instinctively that my heart
was in sympathy with his.
Rising and lighting an old oil lamp, he stood it on the window-shelf,
and its faint flicker lit up his room. In the corner was a sleeping-mat,
for he slept on the floor in native fashion. His furniture consisted of
two wooden stools, a small bench table and a few cooking utensils.
Outside the door in a cage was a large grey parrot; it looked as old as
its master, was almost featherless and seldom spoke. But now and again
it would gaze sideways at me and without opening its tuneless beak say
in a sepulchral voice, “Good-bye, good-bye,” as though it were jealous
of my conversation with its lonely master. It was a wise old bird,
mistrusted strangers and realised that old age could be tempted and led
away from old friendships by the voice of youth.
As we sat there together the moon came out and shone brilliantly over
the sea, outdoing the dimness of his oil lamp; so brightly did it shine
over the palms that one could easily have read ordinary print.
Taking an old flute down, he started to play upon it, and then with a
sigh laid it back on the shelf and asked me if I should care to stay the
night. “Yes,” I immediately answered. We went out and strolled in the
moonlight, and he told me much of Fiji in the old days. Though he was a
poor and aged man, with only the moonlit forest flowers as his friends,
flowers that would some day blossom over his fast-dissolving dust, the
largess of his sincere heart, all that he told me, has been vast wealth
to my memories through the years, and his dead voice has haunted my
dreams at times.
He too told me of Thakambau; he had known him in his worst days, and
spoke with the famous warrior king when he had at length, after many
councils with his chiefs, decided to embrace Christianity.
As we strolled under the straight-stemmed palms the silvered moonlit
waves splashed over the coral reefs below, and across the waters, like a
weird shadow, passed a canoe filled with singing natives.
“Who sleeps there?” I asked him as we passed a mound of earth whereon
was a cross half hidden in drala weed. He told me that it was the grave
of a white man who had left a ship at Viti Levu and had become attached
to the wife of a notable chief. The chief discovered them together by
the shore, and after a terrible battle, the white man with a rifle-butt
and the chief with a club, the white man fell mortally wounded. In the
struggle the native wife was shot dead, and her spirit, the natives say,
was carried on wings of fire up through the trees towards the stars that
light the shores of that heathen land which was ruled by Mburotu. The
missionary told me that he crept through the forest and with his own
hands dug a grave under the pandanus palms for the slain body of the
white man, and night after night he came and prayed fervently over the
man of his race, asking God to forgive and grant to his soul salvation.
I was much impressed as he told me these things, and also by seeing how,
as we walked along, he would tenderly bend and touch the tall flowers
with his lips. “Under them sleeps the child I loved, or the chief who
fell in some bloody tribal fight,” he would say; and he told me also
that often in the Fijian wilds men, women and children were buried in
spots known only to those who loved and buried them.
That same night as we walked along the narrow track by the shore-side at
Naraundrau the aged missionary took me gently by the arm and, turning up
the inland track, we stood by a native’s conical-shaped hut. In it sat
an old, almost blind chief, the half-brother of Vakambau, a great
warrior who was dead. It appeared that he loved the missionary, and
though he would not give up his heathen faith had, owing to the
supplications of my host, half embraced Christianity.
It was the habit of the Father to call night after night and pray with
the old heathen chief before he slept. I felt very strange as I stood
watching the white man and the old Fijian kneeling side by side praying,
while three old women squatting in the corner of the den gazed on
silently, as though they were carved stone images. They were his
servants; being of Fijian royal blood, he would not move himself. Often
as he sat there he imperiously pointed to a stone flask wherein was some
_yangona_,[16] and at once the slaves of royalty, with machine-like
swiftness, filled a stone bowl and held it to his lips. Suddenly
starting up, he rushed to the den door and gazed up at the trees,
shouting, “Wai, wai, taho mi,” then waved his arms, lifted his chin
towards the stars and called to the memory of dead warriors and comrades
dead with heathen gods. As the Pacific wind sighed softly through the
giant backa-trees he bowed his head reverently, for to him so answered
the gods.
Footnote 16:
Native wine made from a root.
I stayed that night with the missionary, and the next day and night
also, and heard many strange things. Beautiful were some of the legends
of the forest children that my host told me. The stars were the eyes of
the fiercer gods, and the falling stars the bright tears of the powerful
Muburto and Nedengi’s warriors. Fijian maidens and youths prayed to the
eyes of shadow-land, and if, as their impassioned lips met, a star fell
and arched over them in the vault of night, great was their sorrow, for
a god had shed a tear over the grief that would befall the life of the
first-born. But if, ere the lovers said farewell, more stars fell, great
was their rejoicing, for it was a sign that other gods were pleading to
the greater god to stay the evil that was predestined by the first star
that burst out of the dark soul of evil Destiny. So, notwithstanding
heathenism and the gruesome cannibalistic customs of the old times, much
innocence and poetry softened the hearts of the wild native children of
those dim lands. It was a common sight by night in the shade of the
coco-palms to see love-sick maids in the arms of the Fijian youths,
gazing at the skies, yearning for the sight of the vast gods shedding
starry tears on their behalf, and often great was their delight to find
the foretold grief to their first-born overthrown by the power of other
gods. Then the innocent maids gave themselves, body and soul, to the
infatuated, delighted youths, and fell with the falling of the stars!
When the stars on windy nights twinkled fiercely through the wailing
boughs of the bending forest giants, lovers gazed heavenward anxiously,
for to them the glimmering stars were the tiny bright legs of their
unborn children running happily across the fields of paradise. Often,
too, sorrowing mothers would peer up for hours on those windy, starlit
nights, as they watched their dead children’s bright legs twinkling as
they ran laughing over the forest trees in the far-off fields of
shadow-land.
As I heard these beliefs of the forest I thought of Mabau, and wondered
whether, while she was in the arms of Vituo, the stars had fallen, and
in her poetic faith she had given herself to him; and I saw that though
the native legends were beautiful, it was sad for the maids; for the
stars foretold many things that did not come to pass, and mythology,
when applied to morals, brought much sorrow to those that loved.
The aged missionary spoke the language like a native and so, through
mixing with the remnants of his old flock for years, isolated as he was,
knew all their ways and their passions and aspirations. He told me that
the mythology and religions of the South Seas revealed, through their
poetic, heathen expression, much that was “new thought” in modern
Europe, and that all those things which the great minds of my country
had discussed and the nobleness they had overthrown by their doctrine of
the “survival of the fittest,” a doctrine bringing the whole creed of
self-sacrifice and bravery down to selfish motives, had been discussed
and expressed in mythology and heathen song by the cannibalistic bards
and philosophical savages at the bokai feasts of those heathen lands.
Lands where maidens gave their lives for their lovers, and wives for
their husbands, for it had been the custom that when a chief died his
wife should be buried alive with him; and so strong was the faith of
these people that they met their terrible end bravely, and sang death
songs, which could be heard faint and muffled as the tombstone closed
over them. It was even then the custom of maids to die and be buried
with their dead lovers, their belief being that they appeared before the
gods as they died. Those who thought themselves young and beautiful
sacrificed themselves, so that in spirit-land they might be ever young
and fortunate in their love affairs. Often I saw skeletons in caves,
which were the remains of old age; they had been strangled by their
relatives to avoid further trouble from the complainings of their
infirmities.
On the night preceding my last day with the old missionary Mabau, the
native girl, came to him as sunset was fading over the seas. As the
shadows crept and thickened around the hermit’s home a noise of naked
feet in the jungle grass disturbed us. A gentle tap at the door revealed
Mabau’s dusky face. I understood little that she said, for she spoke in
her own language to my host, but I saw by her eyes and trembling lips
that she was sorely troubled. After hearing the Father’s advice she
became calmer, and falling on her knees kissed his extended hand and
bearded face as a child would kiss its father; then, without speaking a
word, she ran off swiftly into the forest.
The old missionary asked me many questions as to where I was staying,
upon which I told him of Mr Bones. Hearing this, he gravely shook his
head and scanned me solemnly. “You look an honest lad and well able to
take care of yourself,” he said; and then I explained to him how I had
left my ship at S—— because I could not stand a drunken crew, and that
was the true reason for my accepting the Organization’s hospitality.
From him I heard that a week or so before I arrived a fugitive had
appeared at the Organization and the second day after had shot himself.
Bones had hastily called on the Father, who delivered the Sacrament to
the dying man, who, ere his breath ceased, made his confession. The
Father did not reveal the facts to me, but I heard them from the lips of
a high-caste Fijian with whom I stayed between my visits to the
Organization’s shanty. For after the first few days I only called upon
Mr Bones as a visitor, taken there through my adventurous spirit, and
for the novelty of associating with old villains and seeing the sad
fugitives who arrived from the far-off cities of the world.
That night as I lay by my hermit host I watched him as he quietly slept
on his sleeping-mat; moonlight streamed through the tiny window hole and
revealed his careworn, bearded face. Still as death he lay as the breeze
crept into the open door and stirred the few grey hairs above his lofty
brow. The beating of the seas on the shore sounded at intervals and died
away; the shadow leaves of the palms outside moved gently over the
wooden moonlit walls, over his grey-bearded face and crossed hands. I
felt that I was back in the Middle Ages, in some mysterious mediæval
monastery, instead of in that heathen land of dying crime and
bloodthirsty cannibalism, where but a few years before Thakambau, the
warrior king, who now lay in the grave not far off at Bau, sailed forth
from the creeks below to give battle to rival kings, accompanied by his
armada of outrigged canoes. As I dreamed I heard the restless seas
below, I saw those primitive fleets of canoes fading in the sunset,
filled with dark, savage, patriotic faces, and the stalwart cannibal
king leaning on his war-club and gazing proudly as he stood eyeing the
canoes of his warriors paddling along to meet the tribal foe. It was
almost unbelievable how swiftly change, through the coming of the white
men, had overthrown the cannibalistic festivals and heathen customs: at
Levuka, Viti Levu and Suva church spires were rising where the bokai
feast and fierce songs once broke the silence; from native homes now
come the strumming of cheap German pianos and lotu songs sung by mouths
that a few years before had eaten those they had loved.
At daybreak Father Anster, the old missionary, rose and prepared
breakfast, after which he took his flute from the shelf and played one
tune over and over again continually; and the old featherless parrot in
the cage tried desperately to repeat the notes through its tuneless beak
and, to tell the truth, made as much mess of the melody as my host did;
for though he had music in his soul, his lips were unable to express it.
There he sat, holding the flute to his aged lips and blowing away; and
though I know he must now be dead, hallowed dust somewhere near that
spot where I saw him years ago, still I can see him sitting by his
little doorway, and see the kind look in his eyes as I bade him farewell
and passed away into the forest, with the thought and promise to see him
again in a few days.
As I strolled along under the palms and big tropical trees I fell into
deep thought; everything was silent, except a few birds singing to the
sunset, which they could spy from the topmost boughs whereon they sat.
Suddenly I was startled by hearing a noise, and crossing the gullies I
went down a steep slope and peeped through the jungle thickets of bamboo
beneath the coco-palms to see what was about, and there, romping in the
deep fern grass, was a flock of naked native children, tiny wild faces,
boys and girls. As I watched my foot slipped. In a moment they all
looked up and their bright eyes spied me. Like a drove of rabbits off
they bolted, their little brown shoulders and tossing heads of frizzly
hair just reaching the fern-tops as they raced away and faded in the
distant forest gloom, frightened out of their lives. A stream of sunset
out seaward crept through the wind-blown forest boughs and glinted over
them as they ran, till they looked like tiny wood-elves racing across
fairyland! I never saw such a pretty sight. In fun I ran after them, and
two little stragglers left behind, seeing me run, screamed; then through
the bushes in front of me suddenly poked the heads of mop-haired mothers
and fierce dark men. I had come across a native village!
At first I felt a bit frightened; but as soon as those wild-blooded
parents saw my white face and youthful look they smiled, for their
instincts are swift and true. I stepped into the village, and soon we
were all good comrades. It was there that I met a missionary who lived
not far off, and was adviser and preacher to the native village. He was
a good man at heart, but extremely bigoted, and when I asked him about
Father Anster he yawned and evaded my questions, told me that he was
considered a mild kind of lunatic. I did not argue the point, but
nevertheless I saw the way the wind blew and thought a good deal. I
realised there was no love lost between my old host and the new
missionaries, who did not care for hermits who toiled and lived
completely by themselves.
The hot season was at its height, and not till the sun had set and the
sea winds gently blew over the isle did I feel comfortable. One is
forcibly reminded when travelling in the South Sea Isles that the
natives in complete undress are utilising their own skins to the best
advantage: often I envied them their scanty _sulu_ (loin-cloth), as my
white duck trousers and shirt flopped and steamed with perspiration as I
sweated onwards. I stayed for several hours at the village I had
stumbled across. Round the native huts the evening fires blazed as
squatting by stone bowls the families ate their supper; dipping their
fingers into the steaming mixture, they pushed worm-like stuff into
their dark mouths. The toothless old chiefs and mothers were waited on
by the children, who often sulkily helped them, hastily pushing what
looked like long white worms, that hung from the aged mouths, in between
the mumbling lips.
Close by, in one of the conical, thatched dens, loudly wailed a windy
harmonium, played by a young aspirant for musical fame. The selling of
harmoniums in the South Seas in those days was a paying business: a
native would work for three years on a plantation, without wages, to
possess one of those instruments of torture, and a family that possessed
one obtained a social distinction equal to the Order of the Bath in
Great Britain. It was the celebrated High Chief Volka who owned this
particular terrible thing.
While the huddled natives chattered and gorged over their calabashes of
hot mystery this chief led me round and proudly showed me the sights.
Sunset had died, and the stars were beginning to peep through the dusky
velvet blue skies that could be seen in many patches above the scattered
waveless palms and banyan-trees. Chief Volka was a true survival of the
barbaric age, six feet in height, scarred and tattooed from his brow to
his knees. He had lost one eye in battle, and the other, through double
use, bulged considerably. Leading me into his ancestral halls—three
thatched rooms—he stood beside me, as his mop-head touched the low roof,
and pointed to a ponderous war-club that hung on the wooden wall. Round
it was a grim collection of spear-headed weapons. Standing by my side,
with his shoulders majestically lifted and his chest blown out, he
proudly told me of the wounds that implement had inflicted, and of the
many lives it had, with sudden force, sent hastily to heathen-land. His
one eye flashed with revived memories, and then that old veteran of some
past Fijian Waterloo told me how his civilised tribe had exterminated
the uncivilised foe in a mighty battle, and of the benefit the great
victory had conferred upon humanity. For did not the victory overthrow
tribal men who ate their wounded on holy days?—thus angering the gods by
not keeping them in pickle till the Fijian Lent had passed!
He stood there, drawn up to his full height, his shrivelled but
erstwhile muscular arm outstretched, as he told me of the overthrow of
tribes on neighbouring isles who had aspired to dominate the whole
Fijian Group by militarism. With forgivable pride he took down the huge
club that had brought the ambitious leader of the hated hordes to the
earth with a smashed skull. It was a mighty weapon, and the bare-skinned
youth beside him gazed upon it with awestruck eyes as I said: “And what
happened after that victory?” “We had ten years of great peace, many
feasts and many wives, and our gods were pleased till came your race and
overthrew them.” And then he continued in this wise: “Alas, our great
civilisation has passed away; revered customs, creeds and mighty
histories of my race are forgotten with the old winds. Ah, your white
race tramples on our old dynasty of supreme goodness!”
I gazed silently as he spoke and wondered much, for I knew that the
foundation of civilisation, and all that is called best, is built on
man’s attempt to ward off impending disaster. As I thought I wondered
how much wisdom lay in his natural vanity, for the warriors of old had
died out and the new race looked cute, flabby, and quite devoid of
energy. Outside old men and youths smacked their lips and grunted as
they nibbled coco-nuts and chewed tobacco; the grandees drank new rum,
and the old women and maids of fashion whispered scandal and scratched
their mop-heads delicately with one outstretched finger.
Brilliantly the moon shone through the forest trees as I strolled from
scene to scene of that South Sea village. By tiny camp fires sat the
elder members of the various households; the little children were fast
asleep by them on small mats. Some gazed into the fire ash, spat and
chewed, others chatted, and on the hill-side sat several groups singing
softly so as not to awaken the sleepers. They were strange, weird
melodies that I listened to; and as I stood alone in the shadows I knew
that I heard in those primeval wails of joy and sorrow the youthful
voice of music and poetry as it was ere it attained the artificial
development expressed in Europe, tricked out and dressed in all the
artistries to suit applauding conventionality. Old women wailed songs
that told of dead children, dead husbands or lovers, and all the many
griefs that flesh is heir to. I think the sad old missionary with whom I
had stayed had awakened in me a note of deeper thought than was usual in
my reflection. On my memory are still vividly engraved the scenes of
that night; the moonlight over the trees, the stars and the squatting
groups of the village natives are all still mine, and the atmosphere is
as clear as, yet somewhat sadder than, of yore, like a melody heard
again, after many years, in another country. I seemed to know that the
wild life and scenery round me was similar to the embryo life of modern
civilisation; and there was something real and innocent in that Fijian
Arabian night that made the modern world of life look intensely vapid. I
still see the women of Fijian fashion, with their legs outstretched
before the dying fires, each attired in some sailor’s cast-off
undershirt or a portion of a white woman’s garment. Some strutted under
the palms and gazed almost disdainfully upon maidens and mothers who
only wore the native grass-weaved sulu. I knew that I gazed upon the
first leaders of Fijian fashionable society, society that has reached
the zenith of vanity in Europe. I saw budding knighthoods fanning flies
and mosquitoes from the high chief’s oily body. His eyelids blinked
approval as the aspirants to royal favour lifted his fat feet, which
rested on a little mat, and blew their cooling breath on them.
Poor relations carried refuse in large stone bowls to the village
cesspool. Pet mongrel dogs snapped at the hovering ring of flies and
sniffed at the stench as they passed it, whilst the rich relations
lolled under the sunlit tropic palms. At the far end of the village, on
a stump, stood the fanatic, shouting in Fijian, “Taho-ai-Oa,” and
shrieking and stamping to entice the straggling villagers to come to his
special mission class. Swarthy Solomon Islanders and Indians with
brilliant dark eyes gazed at the maids. Under the palms sat the
full-lipped youth, Lota-Mio; oblivious of all around him, he toiled on
with his rusty nail, carving on a sea-shell the outlines of a maiden’s
face; the work revealed wonderful talent. Maidens and youths embraced
and gazed with shining eyes at each other as the shaggy-headed Fijian
poet pointed to the evening star imaged in the still lagoon, for it
shone in the fairyland of still waters. They peered over the water’s
brink and wondered to see their dark faces under the imaged trees that
were upside down; then the branches stirred as the mirrored winds blew
in the water and their imaged faces broke up and disappeared!
I got the old chief to see me safely on the road home; for though I
trusted the Fijians, I did not like the look of the imported Indians,
who crept about the village selling sham jewellery and tempting the
maids with trifles and trinkets. They were stealthy-looking men, dark
and masterful in appearance. Their creeds were slowly overthrowing
Christianity, for the natives were weak, and Mohammedanism was more in
harmony with their secret cravings and requirements. Also the colour of
the turbaned teachers matched their own skins. White men can hardly
blame the childish Fijians for embracing Mohammedanism as readily as
they turned to Christianity, for in London town the Islamic creed is
being preached and is finding numerous adherents, gathered from the
so-called high-class Christians, who gain greater comfort from Mahomet
than from the sorrow of Calvary.
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