THE AGE OF MYTH
Of all inhabited countries in the world Fiji is probably the poorest in
history. No European, who left a record behind him, had intercourse with
the natives until 1810, and the historical traditions of the natives
themselves scarcely carry back their history beyond the middle of the
eighteenth century. While the chiefs of the Marquesas and Hawaii are
said to recall the names of their ancestors for seventy-three
generations,[1] the chiefs of Mbau cannot give the name of any of their
predecessors before Nailatikau, who reigned during the last quarter of
the eighteenth century, and the earliest name recalled by other tribes
of longer memory is only the sixth generation from the reigning chief.
It is not that the Fijians were less prone than other islanders to
embody their tribal history in traditional poetry, but that the
political _morcellement_ of the tribal units left the poets nothing to
record. A century ago Mbau was nothing but a petty fortified village in
the interior, governed by chiefs whose names were unknown three miles
from its public square. The chiefs of Rewa were equally obscure, and the
songs which celebrated their petty achievements died with the generation
that sang them. When the great wave of unrest in the interior of
Vitilevu sent them forth to fight their way to a new home on the coast,
and to found confederations of the tribes they had subdued, their
history was born; and at its birth died the old traditions of the tribes
they conquered, for vassals in Fiji have nothing to do with memories of
departed greatness.
[Pageheader: THE BOND OF _TAUVU_]
Besides the historical _meke_ there remain a few mythological sagas
which refer to a far older period. With ancestor-worshippers like the
Fijians the founders of their race attain immortality denied to their
descendants, who at the most become demi-gods enjoying a place in
mythology only as long as their deeds on earth are remembered. The
founders of the Fijian race are known as _Kalou-Vu_--Gods of Origin--and
the sagas that relate their exploits, overlaid as they are with glosses
by the poets, undoubtedly contain the germ of traditional history of a
very ancient date. The historical outline of the Nakauvandra sagas is
supported by another class of evidence, namely the _tauvu_.
The word _tauvu_ means literally "Sprung from the same root," or "of
common origin." It is applied to two or more tribes who may live in
different islands, speak different dialects, and have, in short, nothing
in common but their god. They do not necessarily intermarry; they may
have held no intercourse for generations; yet, though each may have
forgotten the names of its chiefs three generations back, the site of
its ancient home, and the traditions of its migrations, it never forgets
the tribe with which it is _tauvu_. Members of that tribe may run riot
in its village, slaughter its animals, and ravage its plantations, while
it sits smiling by; for the spoilers are its brothers, worshippers of
its common ancestor, and are entitled in the fullest sense to the
"freedom of the city." In several instances I have traced back the bond
of tauvu to its origin, the marriage of the sister of some high chief
with the head of a distant clan. Her rank was so transcendent that she
brought into her husband's family a measure of the godhead of her
ancestors, and her descendants have thenceforth reverenced her
forefathers in preference to those of her husband. But in the majority
of cases--and it is the exception to find a clan which is not tauvu to
some other--the bond is too remote for tradition to have preserved its
origin, and in these the two clans were probably offshoots from the same
stock. Perhaps there was a quarrel between brothers, and one of them was
driven out with his family to find another home; or a young swarm from
an overcrowded hive may have crossed the water to seek wider planting
lands for their support, as the first Aryan emigrants burst through the
barriers of their cradle-land and overran Europe. Had the Aryans been
ancestor-worshippers Rome would have been _tauvu_ with Athens, and the
descendants of the youths driven forth in the Ver Sacrum _tauvu_ with
Rome.
The general tendency of the bonds of _tauvu_ in the western portion of
the group is to confirm the sagas of Nakauvandra in suggesting that the
cradle-land of the Fijians was the north-western corner of Vitilevu,
whence the tide of emigration set northward to Mbua, eastward along the
Tailevu coast, and south-eastward down the Wainimbuka branch of the Rewa
river. Besides the saga of Turukawa, printed in another chapter, there
are fragments of a still earlier poem relating the first arrival of the
_Kalou-Vu_ in a great canoe, the _Kaunitoni_, tempest-driven from a land
in the far West. The fragmentary saga of the _Kaunitoni_ must be
accepted with caution, since it was committed to writing so late as
1891, when educated Fijians were already aware that Europeans were
seeking evidence of their arrival in the group.
But there is proof enough of the western origin of the Fijians in the
fact that they are the eastern outpost of the Melanesian race and
language, that their blest abode of spirits lies beyond the setting sun,
and that the Thombo-thombo, or Jumping-off-places of the Fijian shades,
all point westward; there is proof enough of the Nakauvandra range being
their cradle-land in the belief that the shades of the people of the
Rewa delta must repair to Nakauvandra as the first stage in their last
sad journey.
[Pageheader: FIJI PEOPLED FROM THE WEST]
The following is a translation of an ingenious commentary upon these
fragments, written by Ilai Moto-ni-thothoka (Eli Stabbing-spear)---
"Long ago in a land in the far West there were three great chiefs,
Lutu-na-sombasomba, Ndengei, and Wai-thala-na-vanua; of these
Lutu-na-sombasomba was the greatest. And they took counsel together
to build a vessel in which they might set sail with their wives,
their children, their servants, and their dependants, to seek some
distant land where haply they might find a good country where they
might abide. So they sent a messenger to a chief named Rokola
bidding him build them a vessel. And Rokola told his clan, who were
the carpenter clan, the orders of the chiefs, and the carpenters
built a vessel and called it the _Kaunitoni_. And when the vessel
was made ready, they prepared their provisions and their freight,
and went on board. Now there were many other families that made
ready their vessels to accompany them. In the _Kaunitoni_ went
Lutu-na-sombasomba and his wife and five children, together with
his chest of stone in which were stored many things--his patterns
of work (_Vola-sui-ni-thakathaka_) and his inscribed words, and
many other inscriptions.[2] And with them went Ndengei and
Wai-thala-na-vanua and other families, a great company of men and
women. And the chief Rokola went also with his family. After
sailing many days they came to a land which seemed pleasant to many
of them, and these beached their vessels, and abode there. But the
remainder kept on their course. Perhaps this land at which the
others stayed was New Guinea. And as they sailed on, lo! another
land was sighted, and some of them, being eager to land there,
beached their vessels and occupied it. Perhaps this land was New
Britain. And they came upon other lands at which some tarried until
there was left only the _Kaunitoni_ and a few other vessels. And
these launched forth into the boundless ocean where they found no
land. And the sky grew dark, so that the vessels parted company,
for tempestuous weather was upon them. It was no common storm, but
a great cyclone that struck them, for it was the wind called
_Vuaroro_ or _Ravu-i-ra_ (west-north west). And the blast struck
the _Kaunitoni_, so that they were sick with terror, and could
think of nothing but that they must die.
"In the blackness of the storm the vessels were scattered, and the
_Kaunitoni_ drifted ever eastward down the path of the storm. And
as the hurricane continued for thirty days, and the vessel ran
before the wind without finding any land, Lutu-na-sombasomba's
chest of inscriptions fell overboard into the sea. But on the
thirtieth night the keel of the vessel struck upon a rock, and she
lay fast, and immediately the storm abated. Then they saw land
before them, and knew that they were saved. And in the morning they
went ashore and built shelters there: therefore the place was
called _Vunda_ (_Vu-nda_--lit. 'Our Origin'), because it was the
first village that they built, and they rejoiced that they were
saved from the hurricane that had beset them.
"This is the _meke_ of the cyclone that struck them--
"'Rai thake ko Ndaunivosavosa,
Na vua ni thagi lamba sa toka,
Na kena ua ma mbutu kosakosa
Na _Kaunitoni_ ka sa vondoka,
Na kena ua ma rombalaka toka,
Tangi mate ko Lutunasombasomba,
Nonku kawa era na vakaloloma,
Nonku kato vatu ka mai tasova,
Mai lutu kina na nonkui vola,
Da la' ki moce ki ndaveta ni kamboa.'
"'Lutunasombasomba gazed afar,
Behind him gathered the scud of the hurricane
The mighty rollers battered him,
And beat upon the _Kaunitoni_,
The mighty rollers burst over him,
Lutunasombasomba cried a bitter cry,
Alas! Alas! for my descendants,
My chest of stone is overset,
My inscriptions (_vola_) have fallen out of it,
Let us go and sleep in the harbour of the Kamboa (a fish).'
"And all the time they tarried at Vunda, the chief
Lutu-na-sombasomba could not rest for thinking of his inscriptions
that had been lost in the sea. And he sent some of his young men to
go and seek them,[3] for he reflected that his descendants would
grow up ignorant if these inscriptions were indeed lost to them. So
the young men set out with their sail close hauled, and as they
voyaged they were astonished at the sight of islands right in their
course to the westward, and disputed among themselves, some
affirming these to be the islands at which some of their company
had landed before the hurricane struck them, while others cried,
'Impossible; they were far away.' So they called the islands Yasa
yawa[4] (Yasawa). Long did they scull the vessel up and down the
sea seeking the lost inscriptions, but finding them not. And then
he who commanded the _Kaunitoni_, and was named Wankambalambala
(Tree-fern-canoe), spoke, and said that they should return to Vunda
and tell their Lord, Lutu-na-sombasomba, that his inscriptions
could not be found. For they were wearied with rowing up and down,
and the wind had failed them. Then one of them called
Mbekanitanganga climbed the mast to look for the ripple of the
wind, and saw a puff of wind coming up from the west, and when this
reached them Wankambalambala, the sailor, ordered the great sail to
be hoisted and they set their course for Vunda. But they knew not
where Vunda lay, and they beached the vessel at an island, and
landed upon it, wondering at the fertility of the place, and they
said 'Let us stay here awhile (tiko manda la eke) and presently we
will seek the land where Lutu-na-sombasomba is, to tell him that we
cannot find the inscriptions we were sent to seek.' But
Wankambalambala said that they should go first, and afterwards
return to live on the island 'Manda-la-eke.' So they composed a
song telling how they found Manda-la-eke, and since the name was
too long for the rhythm of a song they shortened it to Malake to
suit the rhythm, as they also shortened the name Yasa yawa to
Yasawa. This is the song they made--
"'Rai vosa ko Lutunasobasoba,
I Ragone, dou vakarau toka,
Na _Kaunitoni_ mo dou tavotha,
Mo nou yara manda nai vola,
Nodratou latha ratou thokota,
Ra tathiri ni lutu ni iloa,
Sokosokoni mbongi ma siga vaka,
Sa siri ko Natu Yasawa,
E ruru na thangi ka thiri na wanka
Mai kamba ko Mbeka ni tayanga
Me sa la' ki lewa thangi toka manda,
Yau koto na nde ni thangi thawa,
Mbula koto mai na thangi raya,
Ninkai vosa ko Wankambalambala,
Mai mua ki vanua nonda wanka,
Latha levu era vakarewataka,
Rai ki liu na nkoluvaka,
Ka kuvu tiko na muai manda,
Ucui Malake ka kombuata,
Uru ki vanua me ra thambe sara,
Yanuyanu ka ra volita manda,
Sa nkai ndua na koro vinaka,
Era siro sombu ki matasawa,
Na tokalau ka yau talatala,
Sa thangi tamba na soko ki raya,
Ka ndromu na singa e vakana nawa.'
"'Then Lutunasombasomba spoke,
Make ready boys,
Haul down the _Kaunitoni_,
And go and seek the inscriptions,
Bend our sails to the yards,
They drifted hither and thither till all landmarks were lost,
The Yasawa group is seen on the horizon
The breeze dies away; the vessel is becalmed,
Bekanitanganga climbs aloft,
To sit and look for signs of wind.
The flying wrack of the hurricane is at hand,
A breeze from the west is freshening
Then speaks Wankambalambala
Set our course towards the land,
They hoist the great sail,
We shout as we look ahead,
The spray shoots up from our prow,
We make the cape of Malake
And lower the sail to go ashore,
They make the circuit of the island,
This is indeed a pleasant land,
They go down to the landing-place,
This wind is in exchange for the south-east wind,
A wind permitting no westward voyage,
The sun sets in the ocean gulf.
And they set out from Malake and sculled[5] their vessel to the
mainland; and there they met Ndengei standing on the shore, having
come to explore the country. Him they told of their discovery of a
very fair island. And they asked him of Vunda, and were directed
towards the west. So Ndengei came on board and they coasted
westwards to Vunda. And when they told Lutu-na-sombasomba how his
inscriptions were lost for ever, he was sore grieved, and from this
time his body began to be infirm because his heart was grieved for
his lost inscriptions.
[Pageheader: THE FIRST SETTLEMENT]
"And when Ndengei saw that Lutu-na-sombasomba grew infirm he
commanded that they should abandon Vunda, and remove to a fair land
that he had seen, lest the old chief should die and never see it.
So he bade the chief Rokola to build other canoes to be tenders to
the _Kaunitoni_ in the eastward voyage. And as soon as all these
canoes were built they poled them along the coast, and beached them
opposite the land they wished for, and their stuff they carried up
into the hills, and the first house they built was for
Lutu-na-sombasomba. The posts and the beams of this house were all
of pandanus trunks. In this house, therefore, abode their chief,
and he called the whole land Nakauvandra (Pandanus Tree) to be a
memorial of the first house built there which was built of pandanus
trunks. And therefore, the country is called Nakauvandra even to
this day."
Although, as I have said, this commentary is to be received with
caution, there can be no doubt that a few years ago there were still to
be found on the north-east coast of Vitilevu fragmentary traditions of a
voyage to Fiji undertaken by the personages mentioned in the poem, and
the name, Vunda, which is still attached to the north-western corner of
Vitilevu certainly indicates that it was the earliest settlement of some
party of immigrants. It would, indeed, be strange if the westerly winds,
that sometimes blow steadily for days together during the summer months,
had not brought castaway canoes to a group of islands which cover five
degrees of longitude. Instead of one arrival there must have been
several, and whether Ndengei came in the first or a later company is not
important. The subsequent superiority of Ndengei as a _Kalou-Vu_ over
his chief Lutu-na-sombasomba may be accounted for by his heroic exploits
in the great civil war that divided Nakauvandra as related in the epic
of Nakavandra which is given in another chapter.
* * * * *
[Pageheader: ANTIQUITY OF THE FIJIANS]
In attempting to fix a date for the first Melanesian settlement in Fiji
the widest field lies open to the lover of speculation, for it is
unlikely that when a few years have passed, and the last guardians of
tradition have made way for young Fiji, any fresh evidence will come to
light. The only monuments of a past age are rude earthworks in the form
of moats and house foundations, a few stone enclosures known as _nanga_,
no older than the period covered by tradition, and a stone cairn or two
erected by the worshippers of the _luve-ni-wai_. The Melanesians buried
their dead in their own houses if they were chiefs, leaving the house to
fall to ruin over them; in the open if they were commoners, or in
limestone caves wherever there were to be found, and there is no trace
of tombs or hewn stone such as are found in Tonga and other islands
colonized by Polynesians. Until the stalagmitic floors of the limestone
caves have been examined systematically it is not safe to say that
Paleolithic Man never inhabited the islands, but it is at least very
unlikely. The earliest trace of human occupation yet discovered is a
polished hatchet found in alluvial deposit on the bank of the River Mba
about twelve feet below the surface, during excavations carried out in
the erection of a sugar mill; but in a river subject to heavy annual
floods, during which great quantities of soil are brought down from the
hills, the depth is no proof of age. In the island of Waya (Yasawa) a
_cache_ of polished hatchets was discovered in 1891. Three of these were
gouge-shaped for cutting away the wood on the inside of canoes or drums,
and of elaborate finish, but there was nothing to show that they were of
ancient date.
On the other hand, if the islands were peopled from a single immigration
as native traditions seem to show, or even by successive arrivals of
castaway canoes, many centuries would be required to raise the
population to a total of 200,000. The widespread bond of _tauvu_ between
tribes speaking different dialects, and already showing divergence of
type as in the cases of Nayau and Notho, and Mbau and Malake, sets back
the original immigration many generations. There is nothing in Fijian
tradition corresponding to Mr. Fornander's discovery in Hawaiian myth of
a culture among the early immigrants superior to their condition when
Europeans first came among them. Mr. Fornander believes that the
Polynesians were acquainted with metals in their old home and navigated
in large vessels built of planks. Their degeneracy was the natural
result of their new surroundings, for if we were to take a number of
European craftsmen, carpenters, smiths and fitters, and transport them
with their families to an island destitute of metals, where they would
be cut off from renewing their tools when worn out, we should find them
in the second generation with nothing left of their former culture but
the tradition, and perhaps the name of the metals their fathers used.
This was the case with the Hawaiians. The tradition survived, and they
had a name for the iron tools which they saw in the hands of their
Europeans visitors. But the Fijians had no name for metal. Their first
iron tools were brought to them by the Tongans, and they adopted the
Tongan name, with the prefix of _Ka_, "thing--"_Ka-ukamea_ (Kaukamea),
"iron thing," just as their name for Europeans--_Vavalangi_--was taken
from the Tongans from whom they first learned of the existence of the
white race.
[Pageheader: FORNANDER'S THEORY]
It is impossible to discuss the age of the Melanesian settlement in Fiji
without considering the traditional history of the Polynesians, and it
is with real regret that I am driven to disagree with the bold
conclusions of the principal authority on Polynesian history--Mr.
Abraham Fornander.[6] The true value of his book lies in the
preservation of the ancient genealogies and songs of the Hawaiians,
which would otherwise have died with the generation of bards who chanted
them, and in its ingenious reconstruction of the native history of
Hawaii. The industry and research which he has brought to bear upon the
kinship of the Polynesians with the Cushite races of the old world have
resulted in little more than the collection of a mass of undigested
evidence. There is no close chain of deduction to bind the whole, and
nothing stands out from the confusion except the undoubted fact that the
Polynesians are an offshoot from one of the ancient Asiatic races, and
that they reached their present widely scattered abodes by way of the
Malay Archipelago. If Mr. Fornander had not insisted upon a prolonged
sojourn (_sejour_ he prefers to call it) in Fiji before they colonized
the eastern groups, as the principal link in his chain of argument, it
would not be necessary to review his opinions here; and, so high a
respect is due to his knowledge of the Hawaiian myths and so wasteful of
energy is controversy between two workers in the same field, that I
should allow his assertions to pass unnoticed but for the fact that they
undermine the very foundations of Fijian history and ethnology. As it is
I shall confine my criticism to the portion of his argument based upon
Fiji, and leave the rest of his work to be reviewed by Polynesian
ethnologists. Fornander's temptation lay in knowing Hawaii thoroughly,
the other Polynesian groups imperfectly, and Fiji not at all. Making his
deduction from Hawaii, he sought his proofs from the others by
guesswork. The true history of a native race can never be written by one
who is not thoroughly soaked in the traditions and language of the
people, and since no one man can be an authority upon more than one
branch of a people so widely scattered as the Polynesians, a perfect
treatise will not be written until Fornanders shall be found
contemporary in Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas,
Rarotonga, Futuna, Wallis, and Hawaii, and collaboration arranged
between them. To such a task the Polynesian Society in Wellington might
well devote its energies.
Fornander's conclusions may be summarized as follows--
(1) That the Polynesians are of pre-Vedic Aryan descent.
(2) That at from a.d. 150-250 they "left the Asiatic Archipelago
and entered the Pacific, _establishing themselves in the Fiji
Group_, and thence spreading to the Samoan, Tonga, and other groups
eastward and northward."
(3) That about the fifth century a.d. Hawaii was settled by
Polynesians who reached the group by a chain of islands that have
since disappeared, and were isolated there for some six centuries.
(4) That in the eleventh century began a period of unrest, during
which there was frequent intercourse between the Marquesas,
Society, Samoan and Hawaiian peoples for five or six generations.
I quote the fourth conclusion because I believe that it has a bearing
upon the Polynesian strain of blood which we find in the eastern portion
of the Fiji islands.
Now, Fornander's route for the Polynesians rests upon the assumption
that they sojourned for more than three centuries in Fiji after the
country had been settled by Melanesians, and that they were driven out
bag and baggage by the Melanesians with whom they left behind nothing
but their mythology and customs. If this is true the first arrival of
the Melanesians in Fiji is set back beyond our era; if it is false,
Fornander's theory falls to the ground. He bases his belief not upon any
indisputable references to Fiji in Polynesian traditions, but upon "the
number of Polynesian names by which these islands and places in them are
called, even now, by their Papuan inhabitants,"[7] and upon the
Polynesian words and folklore to be found incorporated in the language
and Mythology of Fiji.[8] Upon this he estimates the Polynesian sojourn
in Fiji to be thirteen generations, and says that these alleged facts
"argue a permanence of residence that cannot well be disputed."[9] And
so they would if they were true, but, unhappily for his argument, they
are not. He conjectures the Polynesian's landing-place to have been in
the western portion of Vitilevu, where, with one exception, the local
and tribal names are pure Melanesian, and this exception--the tribe of
_Noikoro_ in the centre of the inland district--has a well-preserved
tradition of emigration from the south-eastern coast of the island.
Moreover, the dialects of Western Vitilevu are Melanesian, with less
infusion of Polynesian words than any of the languages lying eastward of
them. And lastly, it is impossible to believe that so momentous an event
as the struggle between the two races, and the final expulsion of one of
them, would have left no trace behind it in the traditions of the
victors, when so insignificant an event as the arrival of two castaways,
the missionaries of the Polynesian cult of the _Malae_ is recorded in
detail. Had Fornander had the talent for sifting evidence he held the
clue in his hand when he wrote, "The large infusion of vocables in the
Fijian language, and the mixture of the two races, _especially in the
south-eastern part of the group_, indicate a protracted _sejour_, and an
intercourse of peace as well as of war," for it is in this very fact
that the Polynesian infusion is strongest on the eastern margin of the
group, and wanes with every mile we travel westward, until it is lost
altogether, that the real truth lies. It is this. The Melanesians landed
on the north-western shore of Vitilevu, and thence spread eastward
throughout their own group. At the islands of the Lau group they met a
check in the 400 miles of open ocean that lay beyond, swept by the
contrary wind of the south-east trades. Meanwhile the Polynesians,
having long colonized the eastern groups, perhaps by way of Micronesia
or Futuna or even by the north-eastern islands of the Fiji group, but
certainly not by Great Fiji, entered on their period of navigation which
Fornander assigns, I believe erroneously, to the eleventh century, were
carried westward by the south-east trades, by single canoes whose male
castaways were generally killed and eaten, but whose females were taken
to wife by the chiefs. The superior attractions of their lighter
coloured progeny led to the women of the mixed race being in request as
wives among the darker Melanesians to the west. Many such castaway
colonies are referred to in Tongan tradition. Early in the sixteenth
century King Kauulu-fonua pursued the murderers of his father through
the islands of the Samoan group to Futuna in vessels more seaworthy than
the Tongiaki of Cook's day.[10] Kau Moala, the navigator, voyaged to
Fiji at the close of the eighteenth century,[11] when we learn that the
_grand tour_ for a Tongan gentleman included a campaign in Fiji.
[Pageheader: POLYNESIAN CASTAWAYS]
The people of Ongtong Java ascribe their origin to a Tongan castaway
canoe; the names of the Tongan ancestors of the Pylstaart Islanders
(since removed to Eua in Tonga) are recorded, though their shipwreck is
two centuries old. The people of the reef islands of the Swallow group,
though purely Melanesian in everything but their tongue, have traditions
of castaways who were influential enough to impress their language, but
not their blood upon their entertainers, just as the Aryan immigrants
impressed their customs, folklore and language upon the Neolithic
peoples they found in Europe.[12] The natives of Rennell I. and Bellona
I. in the Solomons have preserved the physical characteristics of
Polynesians. It is far more probable that Nea and Lifu in the Loyalty
Islands, and Numea (Noumea) in New Caledonia received their Polynesian
names from such chance settlement, than that they are, as Fornander
would have it, echoes of permanent colonies which passed away more than
fifteen centuries ago. Turning to Fiji itself we find innumerable
traditions of such Polynesian visitors, though never a trace of the far
more important event of a Polynesian occupation. The chief family of
Nandronga traces its descent from a single Polynesian castaway who was
washed up by the sea about 1750. The chief of Viwa three generations ago
took to wife a Tongan girl, the only survivor of a murdered crew. The
chiefs of Thakaundrove claim relationship with the kings of Tonga
through an ancestress of that family who was cast away early in the
eighteenth century and saved by clinging to the deck-house when all her
companions perished.[13]
These are only a few out of a series of Polynesian immigrations that may
be numbered by hundreds, of which a tithe would suffice to account for
the Polynesian language and blood to be found in Fiji. A stepping-stone
in Fiji was necessary to Fornander's theory of Polynesian migrations,
and if he had not been blinded by his desire to find it, he would have
seen the obvious import of his declaration that in the eleventh century
the Polynesians had a _renaissance_ of navigation. Such a period of
unrest, of distant voyages undertaken with no compass but the stars, in
clumsy craft, on seas swept continually by a south-east wind, must have
resulted in numerous shipwrecks on the eastern shores of islands lying
to the westward.
His work contains but three appeals to Fijian folklore, which are,
besides, the only evidence he stops to specify. "In the Fijian group,
where much of ancient Polynesian lore, now forgotten elsewhere, is still
retained, the god 'Ndengei,' according to some traditions, is
represented with the head and part of the body of a serpent, the rest of
his form being of stone." This he regards as a trace of serpent-worship,
a "peculiarly Cushite out-growth of religious ideas." If this be
evidence of Polynesian kinship, then were the ancient
serpent-worshippers of Kentucky also Polynesian, together with a host
of other races, who, being human, evolved the religious ideas common to
humanity. Moreover, the serpent nature of Ndengei is a modern gloss
added by the poets of Raki-raki after the Ancestor-god had been
consigned to the gloomy cavern of Nakauvandra, for to the Fijian of the
west every cave has a monstrous eel or serpent lurking in its recesses,
and issuing to glut its maw upon unwary mortals who venture too near.
[Pageheader: TRADITION OF A DELUGE]
Fornander's second quotation from folklore is designed to prove no less
than a Polynesian reminiscence of the Hebrew legend of the building of
Babel, forgotten by the Polynesians, but "stowed away" by them in the
memory of their former hosts, the Fijians. Thomas Williams is
responsible for this tradition of a vast tower erected on a great mound
in Nasavusavu Bay, Vanualevu, which collapsed, scattering the builders
to the four winds. No trace of this tradition is now to be found, and
one cannot but remember that Williams drew his information from his
converts, to whom he was teaching that the Mosaic books related the
genesis of their own race, and who knew that a confirmation drawn from
their own traditions would be highly comforting to their missionary. But
though there was no great mound to point to, and the existence of any
such tradition may be doubted, to what, even if true, does it amount? To
a coincidence such as is to be found in many primitive religions, or, if
you will, to a suggestion that the Fijians are an offshoot of the
Semitic stock, but scarcely to evidence that the Polynesians, who have
no tradition of the kind, bequeathed it to the Fijians.
Fornander's third link is the tradition of the Deluge which is found in
the folklore of both races. This, as might be expected, is quite
sufficient evidence for him, not only of a Polynesian sojourn in Fiji,
but of Polynesian descent from the "Cushite-pre-Joklanite Arabs," who,
it is true, have no such traditions themselves, as far as we know, but
certainly ought to have been at least as well favoured in this respect
as the Semites and Aryans.[14] This is not the place to discuss the
Deluge traditions. It is enough to say here that every island in the
cyclone-belt is subject to destructive floods, that every district in
Fiji has its own distinct tradition, and that in the provinces of Rewa
and Mbua floods that are known to have occurred within the last 125
years have already been canonized in the realm of myth. If the Fijian
and Polynesian heroes had sent forth a dove, which was the distinctive
feature in both the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts, owing to the custom
of the Semitic navigators carrying doves as part of their necessary
equipment to ascertain the proximity of land, then something might be
said for the traditions as evidence. But to quote so universal a human
tradition as the Deluge-myths as evidence of intercourse or common
origin is as rational as to draw such deductions from the belief in
malevolent deities.
[Pageheader: DATES CALCULATED FROM GENEALOGIES]
Now, although Fornander's chronology has no direct bearing upon the date
of the Melanesian arrival if, as I have shown, the Polynesians had no
settlement in the group, the method of calculating dates should be the
same for both races. Our only guide for events that happened in
Polynesia before Tasman's voyage, 1642, is in the natives' genealogies,
calculating by generations. They contain two obvious tendencies to
error. It was very rare for a man of consequence to carry the same name
throughout his career. Adoption, any notable exploit, or succession to a
title were constant excuses for such changes, and it is quite possible
that in the older genealogies the same hero is recorded twice under
different names. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the names were
not those of the reigning chiefs, and seeing that the succession often
went to the next brother when the son was not of an age to wield the
power, it is highly doubtful whether every name represented a
generation. I know one genealogy where, in the portion relating to
historical times, one of the recorded names was younger brother to the
chief who precedes him.[15] This may account for the great diversity of
readings found in the same genealogy, one version being shorter than
another. On the other hand, there is the tendency to omit the names of
remote personages whose short reign or insignificant character have
failed to stamp themselves on the memory of posterity. There is thus a
double tendency to error--on the one side to multiplication of
generations, and on the other to curtailment by omissions. But even
supposing that Fornander's genealogies are correct, it is difficult to
see how he could arrive at an approximate date without showing more
discrimination in fixing the length of a generation. All his dates are
calculated upon a generation of _thirty years_, because that is the
average length generally assigned in Europe. But Polynesia is not
Europe, and generations in Polynesia, where men marry much earlier, are
less than thirty years, as he might have discovered by taking the
average in historical times. This I have done both in Tonga and Fiji,
with the result that the generations in both races average from
twenty-five to twenty-seven years. The Tui Tonga family is a very fair
guide, because the office went invariably from father to son, and the
holder was so sacred that he was never cut off by a violent death. The
generations of this family since 1643 average twenty-seven years, while
those of the temporal sovereign, the Tui Kanakubola who were often the
victims of rebellion, average only twenty years apiece. The history of
Hawaii was so bloodstained, that it is unlikely that Hawaiian
generations averaged more than twenty-five. Five years in a generation
makes a vast difference, for the date given by Fornander for the
Polynesians' arrival in the Pacific is set forward from the fifth to the
seventh century, and for their arrival in Hawaii from the eleventh to
the thirteenth.
Abraham Fornander has done inestimable service to future students of
Oceanic ethnology by preserving for their use songs and traditions that
would otherwise have passed into oblivion, but he will be used as a
storehouse of data rather than as an exponent of history, and I feel
that I am best serving his reputation by cutting away the false
deductions that would have tainted the sound and wholesome facts which
form the larger portion of his work. I cannot leave him without wishing
that he had made better use of Bancroft's saying, which he printed as
his text on the title-page, "It is now a recognized principle in
philosophy that no religious belief, however crude, nor any historical
traditions, however absurd, can be held by the majority of a people for
any considerable time as true, without having in the beginning some
foundation in fact."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: _The Polynesian Race_, by A. Fornander, Vol. i, p. 193.]
[Footnote 2: We detect here a flavour of the commentator's superior
education.]
[Footnote 3: A somewhat futile proceeding unless they were of wood.]
[Footnote 4: Distant land]
[Footnote 5: Fijian canoes are sculled with long oars worked
perpendicularly in a rowlock formed by the cross-ties of the outrigger,
or of the two hulls in a twin canoe. With powerful scullers a speed of
three miles an hour is attained in a dead calm.]
[Footnote 6: _The Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations._ London,
1880.]
[Footnote 7: _The Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations_, Vol. i,
p. 33.]
[Footnote 8: _Ibid._, Vol. i, p. 167.]
[Footnote 9: _Ibid._, Vol. i, p. 33.]
[Footnote 10: See my _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p. 308.]
[Footnote 11: Mariner's _Tonga_.]
[Footnote 12: _The Melanesians_, Codrington.]
[Footnote 13: Tukuaho, Premier of Tonga, and descendant of the Tui Tonga
and Tui Haatakalaua families, was staying with me at Auckland, N.Z.,
when Ratu Lala, Tui Thakau, of Fiji, arrived in the town. Both chiefs
asked me to bring about a meeting on the ground of their relationship.
Though each could speak the language of the other their shyness led them
to insist that I should interpret the conversation, which was carried on
in Fijian and Tongan. After the usual formalities the two chiefs spoke
of the adventures of their Tongan princess through whom they were
related, and the Tongan and Fijian versions of the tradition were
substantially identical.]
[Footnote 14: "Unfortunately we have no well-preserved account of the
Flood from the Cushite-Arabian quarter; but I am inclined to consider
the Polynesian version as originally representing the early traditions
on this subject among the Cushite-pre-Joklanite Arabs."--_The Polynesian
Race, Its Origin and Migrations._ London, 1880, p. 90.]
[Footnote 15: The Vunivalu geneology of Mbau.]