THE FIJIS AND THE TONGAS
The ports of Australia and New Zealand swarm with sea captains,
traders, and others, who know the South Seas as you know the palm of
your hand. The Canadian Pacific steamers plying between Vancouver and
Sydney by way of Hawaii call at the Fijis, and the Tongas are easily
reached from Auckland, New Zealand. During my stay in these waters I
have had the many talks about these far-away islands that form the
basis of what follows.
I have spoken of the Tongas as being easily reached from New Zealand.
This seems a strange statement when I tell you they are about as far
from Auckland as New York is from Cuba. Distances mean little in the
South Seas, however. The Fijis are eleven hundred miles from Auckland
and the Tongas are only a few hundred miles nearer, yet New Zealand
once wanted them put under its government. The idea was to establish
here a British Island Empire which should be two thousand miles in
length, or longer than the distance from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The project fell through, and the two archipelagoes are still crown
colonies, the Tongas being under the British High Commissioner for the
Western Pacific, who is also Governor of the Fijis.
There are men still living who can tell stories of the days when the
Fijians were the most bloodthirsty cannibals on earth. They made
human sacrifices, and widows were burned on the funeral pyres of their
husbands. When a chief built a home he planted a living victim under
each post, and when his canoes were launched he used men as rollers
upon which the craft slid down into the sea. When he died his wives
were strangled to line his grave; such a thing as killing a baby was
too common for notice.
The last king of the Fijis, Thakombau, was the son of Tanoa, a
notorious man eater. Thakombau himself was something of a cannibal, but
his father craved human flesh as a matinée maiden craves candy. He sent
his war canoes about the South Sea Islands for victims, and they often
brought back cargoes of dead men, women, and even babies. Upon their
return everyone joined in a feast of human flesh.
One can still see on the islands the ovens in which the cooking was
done. They were filled with red-hot stones, and it is related by the
missionaries that victims were often roasted alive. At one time fifty
bodies were cooked, and at another eighty women were strangled for a
single feast. Whenever the stock of dead enemies ran low, the king used
to send his men to the watering places to lie in ambush for fishermen
or for women who had gone down to bathe.
King Thakombau killed his first victim when he was six years old, and
he was famous as a cannibal until the time of his conversion by the
missionaries. It was after he reformed that he made the treaty which
gave these islands to England. The story of this treaty is interesting.
The home of a white trader named Williams, who was acting as United
States consul to Fiji, was burned, and the natives stole some of the
furniture and stores while the house was ablaze. Williams demanded
three thousand dollars damages. The Fijian king refused. Then Williams
got the backing of the United States government, and finally the sum of
forty-five thousand dollars was demanded. It was out of the question
for the savage king and his subjects to raise this sum, so when certain
money-lenders of Australia offered to settle the claim in return
for two hundred thousand acres of his best land, Thakombau joyfully
accepted. But the British government would not permit this transaction.
Thereupon Thakombau agreed to cede the Fijis to Great Britain if she
would pay the debt. A commission visited the islands and reported
adversely on the proposal, but in 1874, convinced that the islands
needed the rule of a civilized power, the British made a treaty with
Thakombau annexing his whole domain. Meantime, the claim of the United
States had been allowed to drop during our Civil War, and was never
revived.
Though no longer master of the Fijis after the British took possession,
Thakombau continued to live in royal state. At his death his mantle
fell to his son, the high chief Ratu Epele Nailatikau, who kept up
all the show of royalty. He possessed no real power, but he made the
natives treat him with the most abject respect. Only the highest chiefs
were permitted to enter his house at Mbau, and even they must crouch
silently against the wall and await his invitation to speak. Whenever
he was through smoking a cigar, he would indicate by a nod which chief
might have the honour of finishing the butt. A new clean mat was
unrolled for his dinner table about which crept the men and women who
bore him food. No commoner was allowed to eat in his presence.
Canoes loaded down with yams, coconuts, turtles, and yaqona root for
making the native drink, kava, were constantly landing at Mbau. The
offerings were carried humbly to the door of Ratu Epele and the natives
crouched outside, gently clapping their hands, until their tributes
were graciously accepted. In the days of his grandfather, Tanoa, any
island that failed to furnish the expected tribute was frightfully
punished. When the people of the island of Maliki, designated to
provide turtles for the king, so far forgot themselves as to eat some
of their catch, Tanoa sent a fleet of war canoes. Every man and woman
on the island was killed, while the children were taken captive to Mbau
so that the boys there might earn their titles as killers of men by
clubbing them to death.
The Fijians of to-day are among the most civilized of all the South Sea
Islanders. They have been converted to Christianity and have their own
native preachers. They are divided among a half-dozen denominations,
with the Methodists claiming the largest number of converts. The oldest
established church in the islands is that of the Methodist mission
founded in 1825.
The missionaries established the first schools in the Fijis and until
a few years ago the education of the natives was left entirely to the
Methodists and the Catholics. The government now maintains a high
school near the town of Suva, where the sons of chiefs are trained,
and it also helps other schools that comply with its requirements. At
an industrial school near Suva the islanders are taught boat building,
iron working, and other manual arts. Boys are entered for terms of
five years. Children of European residents are educated at government
expense in separate institutions.
The Fiji Islands were discovered in 1643 by Tasman, the Dutch
navigator, the same man who discovered Tasmania and New Zealand. Their
area is less than that of New Jersey, and their total population is
little more than that of Dayton, Ohio. Only about half the people are
native Fijians. For some years their number decreased steadily, but
this decline seems now to have been checked. The people are especially
subject to epidemics. In 1875 measles was brought into the islands by
sailors from a British ship. The disease took a most virulent form and
killed forty thousand natives in a short time. Great numbers of them
died when influenza swept the world in 1917 and 1918.
The Fijians are strong and well built, and in appearance far superior
to our American Indians. They have dark copper skins and frizzly hair,
which stands up about their heads in enormous mops, making them seem
tall. In order to get their hair to stick up, they plaster it with
damp lime, which bleaches it to an auburn shade, so that they look
very grotesque. When young, the women are handsome, having pretty eyes
and well-moulded faces. In the settled regions they wear loose cotton
gowns, but back in the interior the usual attire is a fringe of grass
about the waist, a string of beads, and a fan. The men wear about the
same costume.
One frequently sees a native with a long pin, or scratcher, thrust
through his hair. This weapon is used to make war upon the vermin with
which almost every head is infested. Sometimes the irritation gets
beyond the scratching point, and in desperation the man so attacked
kindles a fire of banana leaves and, lying down with his head near the
fire, thus smokes out his unwelcome visitors.
The Fijians are good-natured. They are cleanly and spend a great part
of their time in the water. After every bath they rub themselves down
with coconut oil, the rancid odour of which enables one to smell a
native long before seeing him.
Though they are practically all Christians, the natives cling
stubbornly to many of their old customs. One of these is the
performance of the fire walkers. On the island of Beqa is a circular
pit about twenty feet in diameter. The bottom is lined with volcanic
stones and when a fire walk is to be staged the pit is filled with
dry sticks and a fire is kept up until the stones are red hot. Then
the glowing coals are brushed aside and out of the forest comes a
procession of young men, their bodies gleaming with coconut oil and
garlanded with flowers. Slowly they tread over the hot stones, singing
as they go. Then they vanish into the dense woods, apparently unhurt.
After they have gone, whole pigs and vegetables are put on the hot
stones and covered with leaves and earth. Soon a well-cooked feast
is ready for both spectators and performers. Scientists say that the
volcanic stones used are poor heat conductors and that they radiate
heat quickly. Thus the surface cools sufficiently to permit the fire
walkers to tread the stones, though they retain enough heat inside to
cook the feast. At any rate, nothing will persuade the fire walkers to
step on hot limestone, which is a good conductor and a poor radiator.
The thickness of the skin on the soles of the natives’ unshod feet no
doubt accounts in great measure for the “miracle.”
Many natives live in and about Suva and Levuka, the principal towns,
but most of them dwell in villages scattered over the islands. A Fiji
village consists almost entirely of thatched huts with walls of woven
bamboo built without the use of nails. The roofs are thick and the
thatch is so skilfully put on that it seems to be woven. Some of the
houses are conical in shape, others oblong, and others oval. The usual
hut has but one room, in which the whole family stays in the daytime,
when it rains, and where all sleep at night. The bed is a mat on the
floor, and the pillow a bamboo log, which is placed under the neck in
order to keep the sleeper’s headdress well up from the ground. There is
but little cooking, as raw fruit forms a large part of the diet of the
people.
The chief ports of the Fijis, Suva and Levuka, have steamship service
to Sydney, Auckland, the Tongas, and the Samoa Islands. An excursion
to Suva, which is also the capital, is a popular winter trip for New
Zealanders. Besides the natives, about a thousand Europeans live
there, most of them in well-built modern houses. Its chief street,
the Victoria Parade, is lined on one side with rain trees whose thick
foliage protects one from the sun, and on the other side with hotels
and business houses. The British governor has his office at Suva. He
lives there like a little king in a palace that cost about a hundred
thousand dollars.
The Governor of the Fijis is appointed by the King of England, and gets
a salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year, besides the five thousand
he is paid as High Commissioner of the Western Pacific. He has a sort
of cabinet, or executive council. The laws for the islands are made
by a legislative council, of which he is president. There are a large
number of district chiefs and native magistrates, and seven of the
provinces have resident supervisors to assist the chiefs. In ordinary
matters the native laws and customs are respected as far as possible.
There is a constabulary of Fijians and East Indians, besides the
defence force, which is composed of Europeans, half-castes, and natives.
Most of the money made in the Fijis comes from sugar plantations and
coconut groves. Upon the higher portions of the islands coffee is now
being grown, and yields about five hundred pounds to the acre. A large
number of tea gardens have been set out, and some planters are making
money from rubber.
Each coconut tree has an average yield of a hundred nuts per annum,
and brings in about a dollar per year net. At this rate, a grove of
ten thousand trees will mean ten thousand dollars a year, and as the
trees are set close together ten thousand do not take up any great
area. After the trees are once planted, little needs to be done until
they begin to bear at the end of from five to seven years. The nuts are
broken open and the meat is cut up and dried, to be shipped abroad as
copra, for use in making soaps, hair restorers, and “nut” butter.
Nearly all the profitable enterprises in the islands are owned or
backed by Englishmen. The chief difficulty that confronts them is the
labour problem. Having few wants and being blessed by nature with the
means of supplying them without much trouble, the Fijians feel no need
to work. Sustained effort they abhor, although in their own way they
are industrious, and are the best native carpenters and canoe builders
in the South Seas.
[Illustration: Though the largest island in the Samoan group, Savii has
few inhabitants. It is volcanic and parts of it are often enveloped in
clouds of steam caused by boiling lava rushing down into the sea.]
[Illustration: The native church at Apia is well attended, the Samoans
being fond of religious ceremonies. Most families also hold daily
prayer services in their homes.]
[Illustration: At mission schools natives are trained in wood-working
and boat-building, but the islanders as a rule are not industrious and
work only enough to supply their simple needs.]
It was just a year after the British took over the islands that the
measles epidemic decimated the population, so that, what with the
decreased number of the Fijians and the natives’ distaste for work,
the plantation owners had to import labourers. Workers were brought in
from India, the Solomon Islands, the Gilberts, and the New Hebrides.
The government regulated the employment of imported labour. It cost
about seventy-five dollars to bring in a native from the New Hebrides,
and forty dollars to get one from the Gilberts, and the employer had
to agree to return the labourers at his own expense at the close of
their engagement. It cost more to import the East Indians, but they
were usually hired for terms of five years, on the understanding that
they should have food free for six months after their arrival, and
free lodgings and medical care for the whole term. Their wages were
paid weekly, the men receiving twenty-five cents a day and the women
eighteen cents.
More and more coolies were imported from India, while the numbers
brought from other islands fell off. At the close of their terms of
service many of the East Indians took up little plantations of their
own, where they grew rice, sugar, coconuts, and bananas. There are now
upward of sixty thousand of them in the islands, compared with about
ninety thousand Fijians, five thousand Europeans, and a sprinkling of
half-castes, Polynesians, and Chinese. As in other British colonies to
which they have been admitted, the East Indians have bred a serious
race problem, and their further importation has been stopped. They
declare themselves as good as the whites and demand equal rights with
them. A few years ago half the Indian population went on a strike,
which reached such a climax of violence that it had to be put down with
military force.
Eighty per cent. of the trade of the Fijis is with Australia and New
Zealand, and the total amounts to about twenty-two million dollars
a year. Some of the imports come from the United States. We supply
them with timber, oil, hardware, and cheap clocks and watches. The
Fijian will use none but an American axe, which he likes because it is
light, sharp, and well tempered. He likes also American-made knives or
machetes, with blades about fifteen inches long, with which he clears
his fields and gathers his bananas and coconuts. The people buy about
one and a half million dollars’ worth of cottons yearly and there is a
demand for canned meats and flour.
As High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, the British governor of
the Fijis looks after the Tongas, which lie about two hundred miles
southeast of the nearest of the Fijis. They still have a native ruler,
Salote, the Queen of the Tongans, who handles native matters through
her high chiefs. The government is, in fact, a sort of hereditary
monarchy under the British crown.
The Tongas have a total area about one tenth that of Connecticut. The
largest of them is only twenty miles long, and many are little more
than atolls and coral rocks rising out of the sea. Some of them are
volcanic, but their soil is well suited to growing coconuts and sugar.
The entire population would hardly make a city of twenty-five thousand
inhabitants, and there is only one town, Nukualofa, the capital. It has
a race track and cricket grounds, and claims some of the finest motor
roads south of the Equator.