WARFARE
The state of incessant intertribal warfare in which the first
missionaries found the Fijians has led certain writers to represent them
as a bloodthirsty and ferocious race whose sudden conversion to the ways
of peace could only be accounted for by supernatural agency. There was
one missionary, however, whose zeal in the cause of his church never
obscured his natural truthfulness. "When on his feet," says Thomas
Williams, "the Fijian is always armed.... This, however, is not to be
attributed to his bold or choleric temper, but to suspicion and dread.
Fear arms the Fijian.... The club or spear is the companion of all
walks; but it is only for defence. This is proved by every man you meet:
in the distance you see him with his weapon shouldered; getting nearer,
he lowers it to his knee, gives you the path, and passes on."[35]
The same writer puts the annual losses in battle, without counting the
widows strangled to their husbands' manes, at from 1500 to 2000. But
this estimate was made when every tribe had muskets, and the possession
of fire-arms emboldened tribes to take the field who would otherwise
have agreed with their enemy quickly. None of the great confederations
existed before 1800: the influence of Mbau scarcely extended beyond the
mangrove swamps that face the island stronghold; Somosomo did not claim
sovereignty even over the whole of Taveuni; even Rewa and Verata might
have reckoned their territory in acres. In the eighteenth century,
therefore, a belligerent tribe could put but a handful of men into the
field, armed with weapons no deadlier than the spear and the club. As
late as Williams's day the great confederations of Mbau and Rewa could
not, even with the help of mercenaries from Tonga and elsewhere, raise
an army of 1500 without immense difficulty; and, if the annual slaughter
amounted to less than 2000 out of a population of 150,000 almost
constantly at war when three out of every five men carried a musket in
addition to his other arms, the mortality from war must formerly have
been quite insignificant.
It used, I know, to be said that the mortality was less with fire-arms
than with native weapons, and this was true if the victims of native
marksmanship only were taken into account, but the moral effect of
gunpowder made the club and spear more deadly. The trade muskets which
were imported in the early days by the traders in enormous quantities
were flintlocks and "Tower" muskets, and when fretted by rust were often
more dangerous to the man at the stock than to the man at the muzzle.
The native marksmanship, always erratic, was not improved by a custom,
common in Vatulele and other parts of the group, of sawing off the
greater part of the stock, and firing with the barrel poised in the left
hand at arm's length.
[Pageheader: WAR FOSTERED MORALITY]
Few native traditions have come down to us from the eighteenth century,
but there are so many references in tribal histories to an upheaval
among the inland clans obliterating all earlier historical landmarks,
that there is ground for believing that the wars before 1780 were little
more than skirmishes, and that war on a larger scale began with the
convulsion that drove so many of the inland tribes to seek asylum on the
coast, and left so profound an impression on the traditional poetry. War
on a destructive scale is impossible among a people split up into petty
joint families, each bent upon defence rather than conquest. In order to
understand the political state of Fiji two centuries ago one must
examine the institutions of other races that are still in the same
condition. The natives of the d'Entrecasteaux Islands as I saw them in
1888 afford an excellent illustration. As we travelled along the coast
we found that every village had its frontier, a stream-mouth, or a
sapling stuck upright in the sand, beyond which none would venture. The
natives did their best to dissuade us from crossing these boundaries by
representing their neighbours as thirsting for the blood of strangers.
But on the other side of the frontier we found a meek folk, lost in
wonder that we had come through the last stage of our journey unscathed,
so cruel and ferocious were its inhabitants. Every man lived in active
terror of his neighbour, and went armed to his plantation, but this did
not prevent him from being a most skilful and industrious husbandman, or
from living to a good old age. The fear being mutual, there was, in
reality, scarcely any war; an occasional attack upon a woman or an
unarmed man served to keep the hereditary feud alive.
The social evils of such a state of _morcellement_ may easily be
exaggerated. The trivial loss of life is more than counterbalanced by
the activity, alertness and tribal patriotism which are fostered in an
atmosphere of personal danger. Every man having a selfish interest in
the increase of his own tribe, public opinion compelled the observance
of those customary laws that guarded the lives of women and young
children. The lazy could not then idle away their day in philandering
with the women; the adventurous could not evade their share of the
communal labour by paying long visits to distant islands, even if they
did not find enough to sate their taste for adventure at home. The
_insouciance_ that has followed the decay of custom was impossible,
because the tribe that gave way to it was lost. The teaching of all
history is that man deteriorates as soon as he ceases to struggle either
against hostile man or unkind nature. A barren soil, an overcrowded
community, or a fauna dangerous to man will serve the need, but in a
country where there is food without tillage, land enough for twenty
times the population, and no man-eating tiger or poisonous snake, there
must be war to keep the people from sinking into paralyzing lethargy. It
must be remembered that the most devastating wars are less destructive
than mild epidemics. The slaughter in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870,
estimated at 80,000 in France alone, worked out to little more than two
in 1000 of the population--less, in fact, than in recent epidemics of
influenza.
The causes of war among the Fijians rank in the following order of
importance: Land; women; insults to chiefs (such as a refusal to give up
some coveted object--a club, a shell-ornament, or a tame bird--or the
unlawful eating of turtle, which are the chief's prerogative); wanton
violation of the tabu; despotism or ambition of chiefs whom the
malcontents hope to settle by a blow from behind in the turmoil of
battle. But the most galling insult never provoked war unless success
were assured by the oracles. An apparently restless thirst for war,
which was carefully reported to the enemy, was a mere sham to feel the
temper of the border tribes, and to frighten the other side into
overtures for pardon. The real preparation consisted in rebuilding
ruined temples, clearing away the undergrowth of shrines half-buried in
weeds, and erecting new temples to the manes of chiefs who had lately
attained the Pantheon. The issue then lay with the priests who
interpreted the will of the gods, and grew fat on the offerings
presented to their patrons.
A favourable oracle depended upon the attitude of the Mbati,[36] or
border tribes, for no priest, in the paroxysm of inspiration, ever
forgot the earthly conditions of success. The borderers in large
confederations, such as Mbau and Rewa, enjoyed extraordinary
independence. They knew their value too well to pay tribute to their
nominal overlord, who, so far from expecting it, fawned upon them, and
took care that they received the lion's share in any division of
property, for any neglect was certain to drive them into coquetting with
the enemy. Though their arrogance was sometimes difficult to bear, he
must stomach the insult, for the chief was twice lost whose Mbati went
over to the other side. On the other hand, the lot of the Mbati was not
altogether to be envied, for they had to bear the first brunt of
attack, and in the struggle between Mbau and Rewa in the second quarter
of the nineteenth century, Mbati of both sides were fighting
incessantly. The constant alarms made the Mbati the finest warriors in
Fiji. Politically they formed an _imperium in imperio_, and their
influence was paramount in the tribal councils.
[Pageheader: DECLARATION OF WAR]
Assured of the loyalty of the Mbati, the chief looked about him for
allies. To tribes with which he was connected by marriage, or by the tie
of _tauvu_ (_i.e._ common ancestry), or which owed him a debt for past
help, he sent costly presents, and the enemy, who was certain to be kept
informed of every movement, followed this by sending a costlier gift to
_mbika_ (press down) the first present, and purchase neutrality.
Councils were held, in which the entire plan of campaign was laid down,
and orders were sent to all the tributary villages to hold themselves in
readiness; a refusal always meant, sooner or later, the destruction of
the village. The Mbati and the outlying villages were meanwhile
strengthening their defences, either by entrenching a neighbouring
hill-top or by deepening the moat, and building reed fences with
intricate passages through the earthwork ramparts.
It sometimes happens that inferior combatants each pin their faith on
the aid of a superior chief, while he, for his own interest, trims
between the two, inclining to the weaker party in order to reduce the
stronger, whom he reassures with flattering messages. In promising his
aid he would, in ancient times, send a spear with a floating streamer;
more recently the custom was to send a club with the message, "I have
sent my club; soon I myself will follow." It was death for tributaries
to _kanakanai yarau_ (_i.e._ eat with both sides). The other side were
kept fully informed of these preliminary negotiations, and had made
similar preparations. No formal declaration of war was therefore
necessary, though there were instances of it. Usually the declaration
took place in more practical fashion by the surprise and slaughter of an
unarmed party of the enemy--women fishing on the reef, or a messenger
returning home in his canoe. On the news of this exploit the war-drum
was beaten and the _tangka_ was held. Thereafter no visitor, though he
belonged properly to the opposing side, might depart. Custom required
that he should fight on the side of his hosts.
The _tangka_ was a review, held on the eve of leaving the chief village,
and at every halting-place on the way to the battlefield. It was a
ceremony that appealed to the Fijian temperament with peculiar force,
since, to adapt the phrase of a classic in the literature of sport, it
was "the image of war, with less than ten per cent. of its danger." The
warriors, arrayed in all the majesty of their war-harness, met to defy a
distant enemy, to boast of their exploits on a future day, not to the
unsympathizing eyes of strangers, but to a gallery of applauding
friends. The public square of the village was lined with the townsfolk
and their women; at its further end sat the paramount chief and his
warriors. Presently the approach of a party of allies is announced with
a loud shout; led by their chief they file into the open, painted with
black and white, armed and turbaned, their eyes and teeth gleaming white
in terrifying contrast with their painted skins. The _tama_, the shout
of respect, is exchanged, and a man, who is supposed to represent the
enemy, stands forth and cries, "Sai tava! Sai tava! Ka yau mai ka yavia
a mbure!"[37]
Thereupon begins the _mbole_, or boasting. The leader first, then the
warriors next in degree singly, after them companies of five, or ten, or
twenty step forward into the open, brandishing their weapons before the
presiding chief and boasting of their future exploits at the top of
their voices. Williams records a few specimens of these _mbole_:--
[Pageheader: THE BOASTING CEREMONY]
"Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will!"
"See this hatchet, how clean! To-morrow it will be bathed in
blood!"
"This is my club, the club that never yet was false!"
"The army moves to-morrow; then shall ye eat dead men till you are
surfeited!"
(Striking the ground with his club) "I make the earth tremble: it
is I who meet the enemy to-morrow!"
"This club is a defence; a shade from the heat of the sun, and the
cold of the rain. You may come under it!"
A young man approaches the chief quietly carrying an anchor pole,
and smashing it across his knee, cries "Lo, sire, the anchor of
---- (the hostile tribe); I will do thus with it!"
These boasts are listened to with mingled laughter and applause. Thus
far and no farther does Fijian courage reach, for the performance in the
field falls woefully short of the promise. There the natural timidity
and caution of the race reasserts itself, and a reputation for desperate
valour may be cheaply won. During the _mbole_ the chief will sometimes
playfully taunt the boasters; hinting that, from their appearance, he
should have thought them better acquainted with the digging-stick than
the club. At the close of the _tangka_ the presiding chief usually made
a speech, appealing rather to the self-interest of his allies than to
their attachment, promising them princely recompense, and sometimes
giving them more definite promises, such as a woman of rank, as a reward
for valour in the field. Such a woman was called "The cable of the
Land," and was highly esteemed in the tribe to which she was given.
The armies, even of the great confederations, rarely exceeded 1000 men.
A greater number could only be assembled with an immense effort. The
chief command was vested in the Vu-ni-valu (_lit._, Root of War). The
titular chiefs of the auxiliary tribes acted as officers.
The first objective of the invading army was an outlying village of the
enemy. This might be a fortress on a hilltop, strongly entrenched by
nature, or a village in the plain, defended with an earthwork about six
feet high, surmounted with a breastwork of reed fencing or cocoanut
trunks, and surrounded by a muddy moat. Sometimes there was a double or
a triple moat with earthworks between. There is endless variety in these
fortifications, for advantage was always taken of the natural defences,
and almost every important hilltop in Western Vitilevu is crowned with
an entrenchment of some kind. Though there were generally from four to
eight gateways, defended by traverses, and surmounted with a look-out
place, some strongholds had but one gateway and that so difficult of
access as to be impracticable to the besiegers. The fort of Waitora,
situated on a hill two miles north of Levuka, is a rock about twenty
feet higher than the surrounding ground, and inaccessible save by means
of a natural ladder formed of the aerial roots of a huge banyan-tree,
which arch over at the top so as to form a tunnel just big enough to
admit the body. The great rock fortress of Na-koro-vatu on the Singatoka
river was taken in the rebellion of 1876 by surprising the only approach
on a Sunday morning, when the rebels thought that the government troops
would be in church. The besiegers crept up a jagged rift in the rock as
steep as the side of a well, and utterly impregnable against more
vigilant defenders. In the island of Vatulele, an upheaved coral reef
honeycombed with caverns, the fortress of Korolamalama was a cave
defended by a breastwork of stones, watered from a well in its inmost
recesses, and provisioned for a siege of many months. The last
stronghold of the rebel mountaineers in 1876 was a cave large enough to
contain the population of all the neighbouring villages, and impregnable
to every weapon except smoke, an expedient commonly employed by the
force attacking such defences. On the other hand, the chief towns of
large confederations, such as Mbau, Mathuata and Rewa, were not
fortified at all, because if the enemy had been victorious enough to
approach them, their inhabitants would have seen that all was lost and
would have sued for peace.
[Pageheader: TORTURE OF PRISONERS]
The first care of a besieging army is to prepare for defeat. Each
division of the army prepared its own _orua_, paths diverging from the
fortification down which they could run if assailed by a sortie, or
taken in the rear by an ambush. Sieges were never of long duration: the
attacking army, lacking any kind of commissariat, seldom carried food
for more than three days, and were in straits while the besieged were
living in comfort on their ample supplies. Like every root-eating
people, the Fijians require a heavy weight of food per head to satisfy
them, from five to ten pounds' weight of yams or other roots being the
normal daily food of a full-grown man. Consequently, if the first
assault failed, they usually retired to deliberate and secure fresh
supplies. Fortresses were seldom starved into capitulation, though, as
they were generally ill-provided with water, this method of attack, so
peculiarly suited to the native character for caution, would generally
have succeeded. It was tabu for a messenger to go direct to the army
lest he should dispirit the troops. He had first to go to the capital,
whence his message was dispatched to the Vu-ni-valu by a herald of the
town.
A siege began with an interchange of abuse. The attacking chief would
cry in the hearing of both sides, "The men of that fortress are already
dead: its present garrison are old women!" Another, addressing his own
followers, shouted, "Are those not men? Then have we nothing to fear,
for we are truly men." A warrior from within retorts, "You are men? But
are you so strong that if you are speared, you will not fall until
to-morrow? Are ye stones, that a spear cannot pierce you? Are your
skulls of iron, that a bullet will not penetrate them?" Under the
excitement of this war of words indiscreet men were betrayed into
playing with the name of the chief of the enemy. They will cut out his
tongue, devour his brains, use his skull for their drinking-cup. These
became at once marked men, and special orders were given to take them
alive. On Vanualevu the punishment that awaited them was the torture
called _drewai sasa_, to carry fuel like old women. A bundle of dry
cocoanut leaves was bound upon their naked backs and ignited, and they
were turned loose to run wherever their agony might drive them.
Meanwhile, within the fort the war-drum is beating incessantly, now
signalling for help to friends at a distance, now rattling a defiance to
the enemy, for, as in Abyssinia, the drum beats have a recognized
language. As a further provocation to the besiegers, when the wind
favours, the war-kite is hoisted. This is a circular disk of plaited
palm-leaves, decorated with streamers of bark cloth. The string is
passed through a hole in a pole or bamboo twenty or thirty feet long,
erected in a conspicuous part of the fort. The string is then pulled
backwards and forwards through the hole so as to keep the symbol of
defiance floating over the heads of the approaching foe.
Upon the stronger fortresses direct assaults were rare, but when the
attacking party felt themselves to be superior, the Vu-ni-valu issued
orders for a general advance, specifying the detachment which was to
have the honour of leading. There is nothing impetuous in the manner of
attack. The assailants creep stealthily forward until they are almost
within spear-throw, and then every man acts as if his first duty was to
take care of himself. Every stone, every tree has a man behind it, for
the Fijian can outmatch the world in the art of taking cover. Having
gone so far, the assailants shout the war-cry to encourage one another
and to intimidate the enemy,[38] and watch their chance for spearing
some one exposed on the ramparts. Sooner or later the defenders are
betrayed into a sally, each man singling out an antagonist with whom to
engage in single combat. But the assailants seldom wait for the rush,
each man trusting to his heels for safety. There is no disgrace in this,
for as the Fijian proverb has it:--
"A vosota, na mate,
A ndro na ka ni veiwale."
"To brave it out is death,
To run is but a jest!"
If, however, the defenders obstinately refuse to be drawn, and the
leading detachment has shouted itself hoarse to no effect, it is
relieved by a second, or even a third, until the siege is abandoned for
the day. In the face of a determined attack a Fijian garrison loses
heart and makes but a spiritless defence, and this explains the
universal success of the Tongans, who carried everything before them by
their spirited assault.
[Pageheader: TREACHERY HELD A VIRTUE]
More often a fastness was reduced by stratagem. The favourite method was
the _lawa_, or net, which seldom failed, for all it was so well known.
Posting a strong body of warriors in ambush on either flank, a handful
of men would approach the fort with simulated fury. Seeing their small
numbers, the defenders left their defences and fell upon them, whereupon
they took to flight and led the pursuit right into the belly of the
"net." Then the horns closed in upon them, and they were surrounded. It
was such a trap as this that compassed the destruction of the landing
party from the East Indiaman _Hunter_ at Wailea in 1813, when even that
crafty and experienced warrior Charles Savage expiated his crimes.
Cunning was more esteemed than courage; the craft of Odysseus more than
the battle-fire of Achilles. There is no equivalent in the Fijian
language for the word "treachery," for _lawaki_, the nearest synonym,
signifies a virtue rather than a crime, and a successful act of
treachery evoked the same admiration as triumphant slimness is said to
do among the Boers. It is such differences in moral ethics that make the
gulf between the East and West. Williams records how a Rakiraki chief,
Wangkawai, who had contracted to assist the chief of Nakorovatu in war,
brained him with his club during the ceremony of the _mbole_, and
massacred his people in cold blood--an act which the treacherous ally
had been planning for years; how Namosimalua, chief of Viwa, having
undertaken to protect the people of Naingani against Mbau, led them into
the jaws of the enemy, and helped to slaughter them; but the annals of
every village will supply from recent history instances quite as
striking as these. If loss of life in open fight was small, treachery
often resulted in considerable slaughter. Williams thought that the
casualties in a native war commonly amounted to from twenty to one
hundred. The largest number within his own experience was at the sack of
Rewa in 1846, when about 400, chiefly women and children, were
slaughtered.
The scenes that followed the sack of a fortress are too horrible to be
described in detail. That neither age nor sex was spared was the least
atrocious feature. Nameless mutilations, inflicted sometimes on living
victims, deeds of mingled cruelty and lust, made self-destruction
preferable to capture. With the fatalism that underlies the Melanesian
character many would not attempt to run away, but would bow their heads
passively to the club-stroke. If any were miserable enough to be taken
alive their fate was awful indeed. Carried back bound to the chief
village, they were given up to young boys of rank to practise their
ingenuity in torture, or, stunned by a blow, they were laid in heated
ovens, that when the heat brought them back to consciousness of pain,
their frantic struggles might convulse the spectators with laughter.
Children were strung up to the masthead by the feet, that the rolling of
the canoe might dash out their brains against the mast.
But little loot was taken, and every man kept what he could seize upon
for his own. At the first hint of attack the women were laden with
everything of value which could be stored in a secret magazine at some
distance from the fortress; what remained was often destroyed by the
burning of the huts. Williams sets down the loot of one chief whom he
knew as seven balls of sinnet, several dogs and five female slaves, but
he believed that part of this was pay and part plunder.
The return of a victorious party, especially if they brought the bodies
of the slain, was an extraordinary scene. The noise and confusion which
shocked the early missionaries seem all to have been part of an ancient
prescribed form. If the war-party returned by sea the dead bodies of men
and women were lashed to the prow of the canoe, while the warriors
danced the _thimbi_, or death-dance, on the deck, brandishing their
clubs and spears, and uttering a peculiar falsetto yell. The women
rushed down to the beach to meet them, and there danced and sang with
words and gestures of an obscenity never permitted at other times. In
this dance young maidens took part, and when the bodies were dragged
ashore, joined with their elders in offering nameless insults to the
corpses. Then the men, seizing the bodies by the arms, dragged them at
full speed to the temple, sometimes, as at Mbau, dashing the brains out
against a stone embedded in the earth before the shrine. All social
restrictions were then loosed, and, in the mad excitement, sexual
licence had full rein in open day.
[Pageheader: THE WAR-CRY]
Every tribe has its own distinctive war-cry, or rather death-cry, for it
is shouted only when giving the death-blow to an enemy. Though this is
distinct from the name of the tribe, and very seldom uttered, it is so
firmly fixed in the mind of every tribesman that, even in these days,
when it has not been heard, perhaps, for a whole generation, every
full-grown member of the tribe can remember the word. In Land Inquiries
I made a point of asking what was the death-cry of each claimant, and
also of questioning witnesses regarding its origin. Many of the words
appeared to be place-names, though the places could not be identified,
and few of the words could be translated, nor did any have any relation
to warfare. In not a single case could a witness offer any explanation
except that the word had been handed down by the ancestors of old time,
and the origin must therefore remain in doubt. The memory of the
death-cry is as tenacious as that of the tribal _tauvu_.
The mode of treating for peace varied with the district. Sometimes a
woman of high rank, dressed in gala costume, was presented to the
victors with a whale's tooth in her hand; sometimes an ordinary _mata_
was deputed to carry the whale's tooth. In Vatulele and other places a
basket of earth was presented in token that the soil, and all that it
produced, was at the disposal of the conqueror. The terms, especially in
cases of the last of these _soro_, were hard; the vanquished were
reduced, not merely to tribute-bearers, but to actual serfs and
kitchen-men. In a single generation their very physical bearing was
changed.
The Investiture of Koroi
The religious ceremony of _Koroi_ deserves attention as having, as far
as I am aware, no parallel among other primitive races, though the
native converts profess to see in it a close resemblance to the
Christian rite of baptism. It was rather an investiture of knighthood
for prowess in battle, accompanied with the knightly preparation of
fasting and vigil.
Every warrior who has slain his man, woman, or child in battle is
entitled to the honour, and takes a new name with the prefix _Koro-i_
(_lit._, "Village of"). Every time his club is blooded the ceremony is
repeated and a new name conferred, so that it was not uncommon for a
warrior to change his name four times or even oftener. In olden times
the slayer of ten bore the prefix _Koli_ (Dog), and the slayer of twenty
_Visa_ (Burn), but as the influx of foreigners began to check war, these
honours were granted upon easier terms. There is a proverb bearing upon
these honours: "The slayer of ten closes one house; the slayer of twenty
closes two houses."
I have tried in vain to have light thrown on the origin of this
institution, which, being religious in character, and under the control
of the priests, must have had its foundation in some historical
tradition.
Waterhouse, who seems to have been an eye-witness, thus describes the
ceremony as practised at Mbau:--
"The ceremonies last for four days. When a war-party returns the
canoes are poled to Nailusi. The warriors who have killed their
man, bedaubed with paint, and clothed in new _malos_, rush ashore
carrying reeds with streamers attached. These they fix vertically
in the posts of the temple of Thangawalu, the war-god. When they
return to their canoes the whole army advances, the novices armed
with spears decorated with pennons bringing up the rear. As they
approach the square they execute the _thimbi_--death-dance, a sort
of Fijian _Carmagnole_. The elders who have stayed behind to guard
the town then demand the names of the new _koroi_, and give each of
them a new weapon. At night the _wati_, or dance of the knights, is
performed. The spectators form a ring round the dancers, who are
divided into three companies--(1) the candidates; (2) the
consecrated knights and warriors; (3) a select body of women.
During the night the candidates break their fast for the first
time, and the dancing is kept up till late in the following
morning. In the afternoon vast quantities of plantains are
presented to those who have played esquire to the candidates.
"On the third day is the _Ngini-ngini_, or consecration. Each
candidate marches separately into the square at the head of his
personal friends, who are loaded with property. As he approaches
the temple of the War-god, the officiating priest announces his new
name, which the people then hear for the first time, although the
candidate has himself chosen it on the previous evening. Piling
their presents in a heap, the new knight and his party retire to
make room for another candidate. This ceremony is conducted in
silence with a stately dignity and decorum in curious contrast with
the hideous licence and uproar of the _thimbi_ death-dance of the
first day.
"The last day is the Day of Water-drinking. Early in the morning
canoes are sent to fetch the water from a certain stream on the
mainland. When they round the point a great shout is raised, 'Lo!
the water-canoes!' and every one shuts himself fast behind doors,
for now every noise, even the crying of children, is tabu. In this
strange silence the water is carried to the temple where the new
knights are assembled, and there they drink it.
"For several days they are kept in the temple under the usual
restrictions laid upon persons who are tabu. They may not use their
hands to feed themselves, nor wash themselves."
[Pageheader: AN ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD]
John Williams thus describes the ceremony as he saw it in Somosomo:--
"The king and leading men having taken their seats in the public
square, fourteen mats were brought and spread out, and upon these
were placed a bale of cloth and two whale's teeth. Near by was laid
a sail-mat, and on it several men's dresses. The young chief now
made his appearance, bearing in one hand a large 'pine-apple' club
and in the other a common reed, while his long train of _masi_
dragged on the ground behind him. On his reaching the mats, an old
man took the reed out of the hero's hand, and dispatched a youth to
deposit it carefully in the temple of the war-god. The king then
ordered the young man to stand upon the bale of cloth; and while he
obeyed, a number of women came into the square, bringing small
dishes of turmeric mixed with oil, which they placed before the
youth, and retired with a song. The _masi_ was now removed by the
chief himself, an attendant substituting one much larger in its
stead. The king's _mata_ next selected several dishes of coloured
oil, and anointed the warrior from the roots of his hair to his
heels. At this stage in the proceedings one of the spectators
stepped forward and exchanged clubs with the anointed, and soon
another did the same; then one gave him a gun in place of the club;
and many similar changes were effected, under the belief that
weapons thus passing through his hands derived some virtue. The
mats were now removed, and a portion of them sent to the temple,
some of the turmeric being sent after them. The king and old men,
followed by the young men and two men sounding conches, now
proceeded to the seaside, where the anointed one passed through the
ancients to the water's edge, and, having wet the soles of his
feet, returned, while the king and those with him counted one, two,
three, four, five, and then each threw a stone into the sea. The
whole company now went back to the town with blasts of the
trumpet-shells and a peculiar hooting of the men. Custom requires
that a hut should be built, in which the anointed man and his
companions may pass the next three nights, during which the
new-named hero must not lie down, but sleep as he sits; he must not
change his _masi_, or remove the turmeric, or enter a house in
which there is a woman, until that period has elapsed. In the case
now described the hut had not been built, and the young chief was
permitted to use the temple of the god of war instead. During the
three days he was on an incessant march, followed by half-a-score
of lads reddened like himself. After three weeks he paid me a visit
on the first day of his being permitted to enter a house in which
there was a female. He informed me that his new name was 'Kuila'
(Flag)."
It is a remarkable fact that once in Fijian history an European was made
_koroi_, for among the Fijians foreigners were outside the pale of
tribal society, and could never aspire to enjoy the freedom of the
tribe. But in 1808, when Charles Savage, the Swede, escaped with his
musket from the wreck of the brig _Eliza_, and enabled Mbau to conquer
her great rival, Verata, with the aid of his new and terrible weapon, he
was made _koroi_ against his will. I had the details of the ceremony
from the old men of Mbau, who had the tradition from their fathers.
Jiale (Charlie), as they called him, submitted to be stripped to the
waist and smeared with turmeric and charcoal, but insisted on retaining
his trousers during the procession. And when he found that he was to
abstain from eating and drinking for three days, he shamefully broke the
tabu, burst out of the temple in a rage, and went to his own home, a
fact that was not likely to be forgotten.
The decay of custom in warfare began with the introduction of fire-arms,
which first made the establishment of great confederations possible, and
so diminished war. The musket made the task of the early missionaries
easier, for when they had won over the chief of a confederation, the
vassal tribes followed like a flock of sheep, and so the musket
ultimately put an end to war. The inland tribes, who could get few
muskets, and whose frontiers, therefore, were the limits of the village
lands, were the last to embrace Christianity.
There are pathetic stories of the terror inspired by the musket. At the
siege of Verata men held up mats to ward off the bullets; at Nakelo,
Savage was carried into action in an arrow-proof sedan chair of plaited
sinnet, from which he picked off the defenders until they surrendered
and were clubbed.
The rise of confederations changed everything. A village knowing itself
weak in numbers and in arms, did not dare to defy the might of a power
like Mbau or Rewa, and hastened to put itself under the protection of a
powerful chief, paying tribute to him as a member of his confederation.
Thus, while gunpowder increased the number of combatants engaged on
either side, it almost put an end to the internecine struggles of
village against village.
[Pageheader: WAR CUSTOMS CHANGED BY FIREARMS]
Between 1860 and 1870 native warfare underwent a more drastic
modification by the formation of Thakombau's army organized, officered
and drilled by Europeans. When led by Europeans, the natives developed
an unexpected courage in the field, and the campaign against the hill
tribes of Navatusila impressed the whole group with the superiority of
European methods. The Armed Native Constabulary, established immediately
after annexation, and recruited from widely distant districts, tended to
make drill so popular that the first step of any native conspirator has
been to teach his followers evolutions compounded of native war-dances
and European drill, in which the Fijians see a close resemblance.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: _Fiji and the Fijians_, p. 43.]
[Footnote 36: The name _Mbati_ has been erroneously derived from Mbati =
Tooth, and _Mbati-ni-vanua_ is sometimes translated "Teeth of the Land."
The true derivation is, of course, from Mbati = Edge or Border, _i.e._
Border of the land. Borderers have ever been broken reeds to lean upon
from their proneness to consult their own interests by going over to the
stronger side.]
[Footnote 37: An archaic phrase, whose meaning is now lost. Williams
translates it "Cut up! Cut up! The temple receives," which perhaps is
near enough, the meaning being that the bodies of the slain will be
dismembered, cooked, and presented to the gods.]
[Footnote 38: When the story of the _Iliad_ was being translated into
Fijian I asked a Fijian what part of the story most appealed to his
people. He said at once that it was that which describes Achilles
putting the whole Trojan army to flight by merely shouting to them from
the bank of Scamander.]