THE FIJIAN NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS. FIRST NIGHT—THE WONDER OF
CANNIBAL-LAND.
You may talk till doomsday to a genuine old cannibal about the greatness
of your country and the littleness of his, before he will show the
slightest sign of yielding any credence to your story. However truthful
and astonishing may be your tales, he soon recovers from the effects
they have produced on his imagination, and turns to say something of his
own land, of which he is truly proud, and in which he thinks there will
be no difficulty in finding things as great and surprising as you have
found in yours. Tell him all you know, show him everything you have
brought with you, do something which in his eyes shall appear to be,
what he will not hesitate to call it, the work of a God; but having done
all this, you will find him obstinately clinging to the one simple, yet
natural enough idea, that his land is not to be despised after all, nor,
indeed, is it to be thought second to that of any curious foreigners who
may find pleasure in interviewing him. Tell him of one of the many
wonders of civilisation, and, if it strike his fancy, or if he has some
hidden object in view for doing so, he will become quite demonstrative
as you proceed; he will clap his hands, snap and bite his fingers, shake
them as if he had just burnt them in the fire, make clicking noises with
the tongue and roof of the mouth, pour forth a shower of interjections,
in which his language is rich, and finally declare himself dumb in your
presence, and be careful to remain so, as if your tale had suddenly
benumbed his brains, and paralyzed his tongue. This is the impression he
gives you, but it is not the correct one, for presently awakening as
from a dream or reverie, in which his memory had been at work, recalling
something learnt in younger days, and coming to the conclusion that you
have no more “lions” to show, he will begin to conjure up one, at whose
proportions, as they slowly emerge from the mist of his wordy speech,
your own quickly subsides.
Assembled one evening with a large company in Big-Wind’s house, the
conversation had flagged. The dull light from a wick in a pan of
cocoanut oil shed a faint sickly glare on the prostrate forms of the
King’s courtiers, many of whom were already asleep, when Lolóma begged
me to tell them the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with which
I had greatly interested her on a former occasion. I recited the Arabian
legend to the best of my ability, drawing on my imagination for some
details of the original which I had forgotten, and when I had finished
there were loud approving calls of “Vinaka! Vinaka!”[8] The King was so
pleased that he directed three pigs to be presented to me.
Footnote 8:
Good! Good!
This put on his mettle Trumpet Shell, the tribal minstrel, who
considered that he was entitled to a monopoly of this line of business,
and he proposed to relate the story of Prince Hightide and his Leviathan
Canoe, an ever-welcome legend in verse, which the company were never
tired of hearing.
The tribal minstrel in Fiji is a remarkable character. He is at once the
historian and poet of his people. Every clan can boast a bard of some
sort, and the office is held in high honour. On subsequently comparing
three versions of Prince Hightide in their different dialects, I
regarded their remarkable agreement as matter for surprise, especially
when it is remembered that they were never reduced to writing by the
natives, but were preserved only in the memories of a few old poets or
teachers of poetry. Such old men are very scarce in the present day.
Here and there one may yet be found, but not many days hence the “Lay of
the last Minstrel” will be sung for the last time. Already it has become
a rare thing to hear a really old song. That simple race who in Fiji
wasted “their toil”
“For the vain tribute of a smile—”
though not, perhaps, so often or with as much intellectual enjoyment as
Scotia’s bards—in a few more years will have passed away for ever.
The poets of Fiji were not necessarily either chiefs or common men. The
really popular poets were doubtless “poets born.” Such men were greatly
appreciated by all ranks of society, but were patronised mostly by great
chieftains, who were able to pay for the luxury of poetry and the honour
of encouraging it. There were poetesses too, but they were never a
numerous class.
The poet was not a man to be neglected or treated with contempt. He was
a being possessed of far higher abilities than those of ordinary men.
The poet of the day in any tribe required at least a house which was
always to be considered as sacredly set apart for his own particular
use. This abode was regarded in a very special sense as the “poet’s
corner.” His turbans and ornaments were hung here; and in no other place
in the land did he ever expect to get such gracious visitations from the
muses. When required to compose a poem and teach it—for his duty not
infrequently included both—those demanding of him a song never came to
his temple empty-handed, but laden with gifts of various sorts, and
wearing sweet-smelling garlands. The interview with his patronising
visitors over, he would fix a time for beginning the arduous task. As
soon as the appointed season arrived, he would enter his sacred room to
sleep and dream, and dream and sleep, until the song, or principal parts
of it, had dawned on his internal consciousness. At this stage he would
rise and go forth to some solitary spot where, all alone, he would train
his “imagination to body forth,” more clearly, “the forms of things
unknown,” then
“Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
Having accomplished this, he had yet to compose a tune for the words
that were soon to move his countrymen to tears or laughter.
It was held by some sagacious cannibals that while the poet slept, his
spirit, freeing itself from the flesh, wandered abroad to find and court
the muses. Others believed that the gods sometimes suggested pictures,
and dictated to the poet’s mind the words to paint them with, the poet
himself making hardly any effort at composition. If any part of a poem
thus divinely whispered, proved too difficult for the comprehension of
poet or people, the bard was sure to lay the blame on his god who was
the real author, and therefore the only party responsible. If we accept
the poet’s decision, the gods of Cannibal-land have an enormous weight
of such responsibility to bear, inasmuch as great numbers of the old
compositions are, of all the mysteries of cannibal poetic art, the most
mysterious. Not a few of Fiji’s verse-makers did their work by dint of,
for them, long-sustained and arduous mental effort. The author of the
song of Prince Hightide and his Monster Canoe, must be ranked with this
number of laborious workers. Others depended very much on fasting for
the more easy production of what they were pledged to supply. Perhaps,
however, the notion having the strongest hold on the popular mind, was
that the spirits of great poets were permitted to visit that State of
the spirit-world known to the people as the “State of Music and Song,”
and to bring to earth some of the choicest things sung in that
delightful place. To the poet it mattered little where or by what means
the song was obtained, so long as it gained the public favour, and its
supposed author the public pay. In the best days of the cannibal poets
there were songs which so won their way, and gained for themselves such
a wide popularity, that voyages were made from the most distant places
to obtain them. Trumpet Shell was a very good specimen of his class, and
he delivered his lay,—the theme of which was this wonderful canoe and
her still more wonderful captain,—with excellent effect.
It being impossible to give the reader anything like an intelligible
translation in verse, of the song referred to, it must take the form of
a tale in prose. Without doubt it is Cannibal-land’s greatest story, if
not its best poetic composition.
I gathered from the poet’s few first words, that the Ebbtide was a
monster canoe, in fact, the greatest ever known; and that her captain,
Prince Hightide, was a mighty giant and hero-god. The poet,
unfortunately I think, tells us not one word about the building of this
enormous vessel, but begins her history at the moment when her builders
declare her to be ready for launching. This is a great point with the
poet, who forthwith proceeds to show that those wise and wonderful
builders have, for certain, either woefully over-calculated the needful
degree of human muscle and bone power, or undercalculated the size and
weight of their big ship. It is quite possible, and even probable that
they did both, for such calculations are entirely outside of the range
of Fiji’s mathematical science.
This much, however, is clear, that when the day arrived for launching
the Ebbtide, she could not be moved from the stocks or rollers,
notwithstanding the application to every part of her at once, of
“A blood-power stronger than steam.”
In this fix a whole tribe of soldiers was brought up to add its strength
to that of the people now weary with trying. These united forces all
tugged and pushed and shouted, and pushed and tugged again and again,
but to no purpose. After these repeated failures, another tribe was
added to the human engine, and more rollers were placed under the
vessel; but in spite of everything, she remained like a rock, planted
where she was. This was quite beyond endurance; and the humiliating and
piteous cry arose that, for once, men had built a canoe they could not
launch,—doomed not to be wrecked at sea, or laid up to decay on land
after long and honourable service, but to rot on the very spot where her
builders laid her down, and whence they had no power to make her budge
an inch.
In this dilemma it was proposed to report progress, or non-progress
rather, to the god-descended hero, Prince Hightide, for whom this
monster of the deep was built. With this suggestion, ends the first act.
While the reporters are gone to picture this unpleasant state of things
to the Prince, a word or two may be said about this great personage.
Prince Hightide was a son of Dengeh, king of gods and men. He has,
therefore, always stood very near the top of the line of aristocratic
deities. His courage was thought to be many degrees above that of
earth’s bravest sons; nothing could daunt it; while the resources of his
massive mind, being vastly superior both in number and power to those of
all his rivals, placed him well nigh beyond the possibility of being
defeated by any difficulty. At the mere waving of his right hand all
puny tribes would stand aghast! If he could not accomplish his designs
in one way, he would in another. Now, he would assume the form of a
goddess, anon, that of some animal, or even fruit or vegetable, sooner
than give up what he had set his mind on doing. In the legends he is
spoken of as the great patron of song, and is sometimes called The
Singer. But his monster canoes, more especially the one now to be
launched, and his own gigantic strength, have placed his fame high up
out of the reach of every other aspirant after greatness in
Cannibal-land.
At the time of the departure of the builders’ messengers to report the
failure of all their attempts to launch this latest wonder, the Prince
was living in easy style a little distance inland, but there was no
keeping him there now that he knew the true position of things. Up he
rose, and went down calmly, but determinedly, to the scene of action,
where he surveyed with a sneer the ponderous thing that had balked the
world. Then he stepped forward, and, after giving the canoe a few smart
raps with his broad hand, as the manner is when getting canoes into the
water, causing her to sound like a drum, or Chinese gong of unheard-of
size—he put his own “shoulder to the wheel,” and shouting the usual
shout, “ee!—oh!—yah!—eh!” as if expecting all to help on hearing the
last syllable, he, of his own strength, sent the Ebbtide at full speed
over the rollers, dashing and splashing into the sea,
“While all the world wondered!”
Here the poet drops the curtain on the second act in the history of the
Ebbtide.
The largest canoes of modern Cannibal-land, _i.e._, Cannibal-land as
known by the white man, had but one mast, which consisted of two parts
spliced, or bound together with sinnet. But the Ebbtide, as the poet
goes on to say, had three masts, namely, a “main,” a “main-top,” and a
“main-top-gallant.” The first was made of a wood commonly known in Fiji
as the “Fiji pine;”[9] the second of a harder and darker wood;[10] and
the third of the most highly valued wood in the country.[11] Now the
mainmast was so high that from its top the land near which the canoe lay
at anchor looked somewhat hazy. From the “main-top,” a spectator could
look right over the mountains of Viti Levu (Great Fiji), and see, eighty
miles away, the island of Kandávu looming darkly up in the south. While,
stranger yet, from the “main-top-gallant-mast,” all the flats and
lowlands, that before lay hid immediately behind the above-named
mountains, came into full view.
Footnote 9:
Dammava Vitiensis, Seem; Vulgo ‘Dakua.’
Footnote 10:
C. Burmanni Whight; Vulgo ‘Damanu.’
Footnote 11:
Afzelia bijuga, A. Gray; Vulgo ‘Vesi.’
Before a canoe-sail can be hoisted to its proper place, a sailor must
climb the mast, carrying with him the halliard, which he passes through
or over the mast-head. To do this on the Ebbtide would be a thing
utterly beyond the power of the weakling climbers of modern times. And
even in those days, when giants and god-strengthened men were by no
means few, Prince Hightide, believing that for such a task one free man
was worth two pressed men, thought it prudent to appeal for a volunteer.
“Who will climb to the main-top-mast-top?” shouted the noble prince, and
paused for a reply.
“Not I,”—said one of the small-canoe men, aside,—“I know only work on
deck, my lads, and there I can serve ten bows.” Meaning by this last
statement that he could keep ten of the enemy armed with bows and
arrows, pretty fully employed.
The climbing had to be done, however; thus much was settled in the
Prince’s brain beyond a doubt; as was this also, that as difficulties
arise the men to battle with, and overcome them, will always be
forthcoming. The numerous crowds of powerful sailors that now were
gathered on the deck of the Ebbtide could not be without a man equal to
the emergency of the hour. The poet here introduces us to that man. He
was but a stripling, when compared with his great captain; but, in
comparison with ordinary men, he was a man of might, being a “chip of
the old block,” and brother of the Prince. He was known on board as the
“Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head,” on account of his wonderful climbing powers,
and his prehensile ability, which placed him side by side with the
flying-fox, with whose habits and flesh the natives are perfectly
familiar.
When this god-possessed giant sailor sprang from the crowd and clasped
the mast with his hands, at the same time pressing the soles of his feet
firmly against it, and curving his back outwards from it, in the true
Fijian climbing attitude, quite a scene took place. The climber’s mother
rushed forward to stop him from his foolhardy attempt, which she looked
upon as the act of a madman. When her maternal fury was at its sublimest
height she discharged at him volley after volley of the hardest epithets
to be found in cannibal vocabularies. Such epithets are neither few nor
weak. Then, as, a blighting climax, she told him that he was but a
“baby,” in proof whereof she called all present to witness that the
eruptive disease, which almost without exception afflicts young Fiji
from 1 to 3 years old, was not yet dry on him!
Few minds could have stood this without recoiling. But the woman’s
eloquence and impassioned manner failed utterly. She could not convince
him that youth was incompatible with climbing ability. Indeed, he did
not stay to ask whether it were or no; “for,” says the bard, “while his
mother was yet speaking, he was gone; not climbing, but literally
running up the mast!” And there was every reason why he should run, for
the journey was not to be done in a day, as we shall presently see. The
poet would have us not forget that this brother of Prince Hightide was
distinguished by the possession of many powers besides that of climbing,
one of which was a marvellous keenness of sight. His eyes could discover
small objects hundreds of miles away! But let us follow the climber up
the mast; or, better still, remain while he climbs, with the sailors on
deck, who, in the meantime will continue sculling the vessel out to sea.
At the close of his first day’s work, the “Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head,”
says, “I climbed, and climbed, and climbed all day. When at last I
halted to rest and look about me, I saw that, far down on the tops of
the screw-pine hills, and lower yet, it was blowing furiously. The
iron-wood trees were bowing and falling before the wind, which, to our
canoe, was only as a calm.”
At sea, and in a storm, there is nothing like cheerfulness, except
calmness. These two should always go together at such times. Who does
not like to hear the cheery song of our own jolly English tars, mingling
with the noise of many waters and the roar of the hurtling gale? The
cannibal sailor had his sea songs too, numbers of them.
Our model climber, now a day’s journey up, hidden in the thick darkness,
with the storm howling beneath him, would not allow himself to feel
lonely, but sang out into the night one of the cannibal-seaman’s songs,
the chorus of which, delivered of course as a solo, was clearly heard on
deck; as, indeed, it was intended to be, for the purpose of encouraging
the hard-worked men who were kept propelling this floating island of a
canoe, with their heavy sculls. He sang this chorus over and over again,
without weariness, as Fijians only can sing a couplet, for half a night
and longer, at a sitting, enjoying it more the last time than when they
began. Why, a foreigner can hardly guess, for often the words seem to
him to contain no meaning. But hark to the “Bat-o’-the-top-mast-head:”
“Scull away with a mighty hand;
Great is the calm on all the land!”
Whereas, it was blowing half a hurricane at the time. But what was that
to a big ship and brave hearts? “Only a calm!” The “land is calm,” is
the true Fijian nautical way of saying the “sea is calm” and “there is
no wind.”
The second day our young hero continued his journey upward. Likewise the
third day, and thus on for ten days! At intervals he would stay his
climbing, and directing his telescopic eye toward some remote part of
the Archipelago, report what he saw. Once he appeared to lose some of
his calmness. It was on discovering far away an assembly of chieftains
feasting delightfully on the fat of the land! “Oh,” said he, “how much I
longed to be there! At other such rests, he would declare himself able
to see places which we now know to have been at least 250 miles off; out
where, as other two lines of his express it,
“The ocean breaks in frightful form,
And none can stand before the storm.”
It was all but as bad where the Ebbtide was, but what matter? What sea
could make her roll or pitch? So his unfaltering voice would come down
again from the clouds, refreshing the weary hearts on deck, with a
“Scull away with a mighty hand,
Great is the calm on all the land!”
At length, on the tenth day, he reached the “top-mast-head,” where, as
the poet puts him before our imagination, he is somewhat nearer the moon
and stars than he had ever been before. Now he passed the halliard over
the mast-head, and at once announced his intention of dining with those
heavenly bodies before beginning his downward trip to join his captain
and comrades on deck. Here the poet once more drops the curtain, and
leaves us to picture for ourselves this banquet in the celestial sphere.
As the curtain lifts, we see that the climbing and sculling have ceased.
The poet now proceeds to show that, when the order to hoist sail was
given, all hands on board, giants though they were, failed in every
attempt. And so again when men’s hearts began to lose all hope, Prince
Hightide came to the rescue; and with one Samsonian pull of his
prodigious arm, sheeted home that sail of measureless expanse; thus
giving to the world another proof of his god-like strength, and making
more than ever clear his claim to a high position in the first rank of
the aristocratic gods of Cannibal-land.
No sooner was the sail up than into the water went a hundred steering
oars at one splash. This is the only steering apparatus the Fijian was
practically acquainted with. The number of steering oars, or long, heavy
blades, which they resemble, necessary for canoes of these later and
puny days, varies from one to six, but seldom more than two are needed.
But the Ebbtide would not answer her helm with a hundred at work. So
down went another hundred; but with no better result. Then a third
hundred, but the vessel was still in the wind. Now was the order given
for hundred after hundred to be added to the number, which soon rose to
one thousand; and still the awful sail was shaking and flapping against
the mast! At this juncture it was no small comfort to know that the
Prince had always some power in reserve, equal to any and every
emergency that might arise. And it is interesting to note how our
unknown poet displays his skill, both in the creation of emergencies for
the exercise of the Prince’s wisdom and power, and in making him ‘bide
his time,’ till the moment when he is most wanted at the front. A
thousand rudders in the water, and the unwieldy craft is as disobedient
and unanswering as ever! Here his Royal Highness rose—his countenance
all aglow with unwavering confidence in the omnipotence of mechanical
power—“Bring aft the rudder with a thousand oars;” shouted the god. The
order was no sooner given than executed. The instant this most
mysterious piece of machinery splashed into the sea, the sail filled;
and away swept the glorious Ebbtide on her first voyage to the Friendly
Islands, where we must follow her. Now the curtain falls, until we
discover her in the land of the red man.
Where the poet got his idea from, of a “rudder with a thousand oars,”
branches, tongues, divisions, or whatever they may be called, no native
mind has been able to tell us. No steering machine like it has ever been
heard of by Fijian sailors of modern days anywhere but in this great
song.
We are driven therefore to the conclusion, that it must have had its
origin in the imagination of the poet, who, thinking of the divisions in
fishes’ tails, invented a rudder with a thousand such divisions.
Arrived off Tongatabu, in the Friendly Islands, all the islanders
gathered on the shore to see this wonder from Fiji. “But,”—says our
historical bard, in order to give us a notion of the canoe’s carrying
capacity,—“the whole population of Tonga was small in comparison with
the number of passengers and crew on the Ebbtide.”
The noble prince remained on board till the great Tongan chieftains came
off to pay their respects, which they soon did, and gave him a hearty
invite to become their guest. Some difficulties now occurred on the
question of accommodation on shore for the giant captain, and his
countless company of giant attendants. The Tongan Chiefs were asked what
number of “strangers’ houses,” or as we should term them, “hotels,” were
ready. On being told that twelve commodious places were waiting for
occupants, the visitors were bold enough to advise that these should be
pulled down, and that with the materials, and others in addition, an
immense palace should be erected for the sole use of Prince Hightide,
the giant-god and wonder worker from the Kingdoms of Fiji. The
suggestion was at once acted upon, but to the infinite amazement and awe
of the Friendly Islanders, the palace was far too small for its intended
tenant. Now the poet rises to his highest efforts in exaggerated
description. It is this very exaggeration which leads to the discovery
that the poet’s hero is, in all probability, some great natural
phenomenon.
In further sketching the terrible captain, the bard says that he was in
the habit of going down on his hands and knees, and placing his head
only in the palace for shelter.
With no better hotel accommodation than this, the rest of his body was,
of course, exposed to sun and storm. While in this position during wet
weather, the rains that fell collecting in the hollow of his back and
between his shoulders, formed an extensive lagoon, where the people went
to catch fish and turtle, and double canoes went sailing up and down.
As the day drew near for the departure of these awful visitors, the
Friendly Islanders made such a farewell festival as had never before
been known throughout the length and breadth of their land. Among many
things too numerous to be named, not fewer than 2000 pigs were served
up, but only to be laughed at aside by the guests, who knew too well
that the eating capabilities of their captain were in proportion to
everything else done by him, which was always on a scale so large as to
utterly dwarf the greatest achievements of lesser mortals. The parting
came at last, however, and by no means too soon for the generous
Friendly Islanders, who, as the last act of courtesy, and to save the
credit of their nation, filed out by hundreds, headed by their chief,
and presented their parting offerings, which, in Cannibal-land, are
called “The-sending-away.” These presents consisted of two monster bales
of native cloth, each containing 20,000 yards. This cloth was for the
princely captain, who, on being dressed therein, in Fijian fashion, took
the whole 40,000 yards round him, and, even then, was declared to be but
poorly dressed, for as yet he had no train. More, however, was not to be
had of the good people of the Eastern Isles; so the god and his people
and monster canoe returned to Cannibal-land, the canoe to fall into
other hands for a brief season, and her captain to learn, from his
temporary loss, the useful lesson that there were other heroes in the
world besides himself.
Many points in this tale will have been observed by the reader, which
seem pretty conclusively to show that the author intended his
composition to be understood as an allegory, wherein he has represented
two great natural powers, or, to speak more correctly, one such power in
its two regular fluctuations, namely the tide—as the names imply—the
prince being the high tide, and the monster canoe the ebb-tide. When
man’s power failed to launch the big canoe, in came the tide and lifted
her off the land with the greatest ease. The out-going tide carried her
to sea. Fijians hardly ever think of putting their large canoes in the
water except at the time of the high tide. The reason is obvious. Then,
when at Tonga the water filled the hollow places on the prince’s back,
we have a picture of the inflow of the tide over the reefs into the
smooth lagoons formed by those coral walls—lagoons, where daily may be
seen the large canoes “sailing up and down, and the people catching fish
and turtle.”
But in the execution of his work, the poet does more than this, for he
brings repeatedly before us many of the manners and customs, with some
of the more prominent characteristics, of his country and countrymen.
That he should tell us of a chief devouring 2000 pigs, and wrapping
about his body 40,000 yards of native fabrics, yet complaining still of
scarce provisions and a want of clothes, can only be accounted for by
the fact that the cannibal is a hungry and covetous personage, according
to his own estimate of himself.
The poet, though often hiding his meaning by overdrawing, as is always
the case with savage poets, had evidently no intention that students of
his song should interpret literally its numerous pictures, which, so
interpreted, would be nothing less than frightful exaggerations.
If everything else in the performance could be interpreted as readily as
that portion which exhibits the power and usefulness of the “full tide”
in lifting weights, such as canoes, and the force of the out-going tide
in floating them to sea, the whole would become clothed with truth.
There is little doubt that the poet himself, and the more intelligent
men of the heroic days of Fiji, were well able to find the exact
counterpart of every figure and exaggerated picture in the song, the
entire drift and meaning of which they well understood.
In those parts which paint the eating propensities and capabilities,
together with the characteristic greed and generosity of the race, there
is little more—making every allowance for the savage brain that produced
it—than a well-charged caricature; just as another cannibal poet,
wishing to represent the almost unlimited extent to which polygamy was
carried in his time, asks, respecting a chief of great renown, and after
whom many chiefs have since been named—
Who is like the great Ritóva,
The chief with a million wives?
I’m weary with asking—“Who?”