THE CANNIBAL BANQUET.
What Homer says of the Cyclops, and Herodotus of the Scythians, and what
moreover we are loth to believe of the ancient Britons, must be written
against the Fijians as matters of history unmixed with myth or poetic
fiction. They were cannibals.
No cup was so highly prized by a Fiji chieftain for drinking the chiefly
drink—kava—out of, as that made from a human skull, the value of which
would be increased a hundred per cent. by its being the skull of his
greatest enemy.
If there is any reason for doubting that the ancient Scots preferred a
“ham of herdsman” to a piece of beef, or that Richard Coeur de Lion
enjoyed a Saracen’s head more than a leg of pork, there is none whatever
to doubt that to a Fijian’s taste there was nothing so delicious as the
flesh of one of his countrymen, the more so if that countryman were in
any sense his own or his country’s foe. And of the many desirable
portions, there was none he so much longed for, or ate with such gusto,
as the heart. Query? is it not highly probable that the passion of
revenge when at its height of savage success, produces an effect on the
conqueror’s appetite, whetting it to ungovernable sharpness, and giving
it a keener relish for the flesh of the victim than could ever be felt
under the influence of other passions? How else can we account for an
act like that of Sir Ewan Cameron, who declared the flesh of an English
trooper whom he had killed after a desperate struggle, to be the
“sweetest morsel he had ever tasted?” or, for the deed of one of the
French revolutionists, who ate the heart of the Princess Lamballe? or,
for the still more horrible deeds of every day life in Cannibal-land?
Be this as it may, the acts themselves are unquestionable. No war,
however insignificant, was ever waged without enemy eating enemy.
The word in general use to express the practice, is a compound of
two words, one of which means the “eating,” while the other adds to
it the idea of reciprocity. The name of the vile thing, therefore,
is the “eating-of-one-another,” even as by a similar compound the
language tells how, in battle, the work of the soldiers is the
“killing-of-one-another.”
Of the institutions peculiar to Fiji, cannibalism stood at the head. The
revolting epithet to which the practice has given rise, has been, and
will again be, applied in this work to this country of lovely isles, for
the simple reason that no other country on the face of the earth so well
deserves it. It would, however, be unfair to argue therefrom that the
Fijian race ought in consequence to be placed in the lowest rank of the
human family. So far from this being so, they are, when compared with
some other uncivilised races not cannibal, a highly civilised people.
Cannibalism amongst them is an evidence of that religious fanaticism
which originated and perpetuated it, rather than of their own high or
low position in the scale of uncivilised nations. It was a part of his
religion for the Fijian to be a man-eater, whether his victims were
slain in battle, or cast helpless shipwrecks on shore. This was but poor
cheer for the experienced and noble swimmer to strike out boldly for
dear life. Deprived of his canoe by the cruel storm, he had yet before
him many a long furlong of rough sea; shoals of hungry sharks set on
tearing him in pieces ere his feet could reach the strand; and last, and
more to be dreaded than tempest, sea or sharks, men like himself,
waiting to rob him of the life which, in spite of the leaden weight at
his heart, he had struggled so hard to keep. As he wades feebly towards
the land, he knows there is no hope, for he sees the smoke curling
upwards from the oven that is ready to receive him, and he hears the
voices of men coming from behind the bushes to greet him,—to slay and
eat him; and he knows them to be impelled to the deed, not alone by a
liking for human flesh, but also by the unsparing requirements of an
inveterate religious superstition. That this was even so there is
abundant evidence to prove. The names of gods, priests, and temples, as
likewise the character and themes of various imprecations, prayers,
benedictions, legends, songs, and witnesses of every description, lead
to no other conclusion.
The clear connection of Fiji cannibalism with religion, discovers its
relation to the cannibalism practised by the Goands of India, and the
Aborigines of America, who believed that the eating of human flesh was a
thing in which the gods delighted. Revenge, approved and even instigated
by the gods, was the great motive power which enabled the Fijian to
engage in the horrible work with zest and freedom from all
conscience-pangs. While, however, revenge was in most instances the
father of the thought to kill and eat, it should be borne in mind that
in cases of shipwreck, revenge could have little or no part in the
business, except in so far as it was mixed up in the belief of the
eaters of the shipwrecked ones, which belief taught that the gods had
taken revenge for offences committed by the castaway sailors.
It will thus appear that the cannibal of Fiji was rarely guilty of
hunting up the innocent and those who never did him any wrong, merely to
gratify his appetite for this kind of food. Such cannibalism may have
been common enough among the Kookees of India, but was not so with
Fijians.
Finally, whatever the immediate or remoter causes of individual acts of
cannibalism may have been, this much seems clear, that the strength of
the whole evil lay in the religious belief, propagated by the priests,
encouraged by the poets, and practised by the chiefs and people, that it
was an institution founded and patronized by the gods of Cannibal-land.
The Fijian man-eater was taught from early childhood, that the gods
would often punish a crime by forsaking the objects of their care,
whether on the battle-field or the briny deep, and leaving them in the
hands of other and strange gods, who, in war, were those of the enemy,
and in shipwreck, those of the tribe on whose shores they were thrown.
Everything of an untoward nature that happens to a man is, according to
the Fijian’s creed, punishment for some known or unknown sin. It was,
therefore, a most binding religious duty for the people to eat what the
gods provided, seeing that by so doing they were at most, only willing
instruments of punishment in the hands of incensed and dreadful spirits.
If in war the oven was the only grave for the fallen soldier, and in
shipwreck the only life-boat for the castaway sailor, and this,
moreover, by order of the gods, we need not be surprised at the
countless works of darkness, for which these people, in many things the
highest of uncivilised races, have made themselves notorious; for, what
will not men do when goaded on by the irresistible force of religious
superstition, and the conscientious belief that their religion not only
sanctions, but also demands and sanctifies the deed?
It was now my lot to be the witness of a cannibal orgie, the
abominations of which will never be erased from my memory.
An important preliminary to the feast was the convivial yangona or kava
ring, in which the king and the leading chiefs joined. This intoxicating
beverage, to which the Fijians are largely addicted, is an infusion of
the root of the piper methysticum, which is chewed by young men or
girls, and then strained through a handful of hibiscus fibres. A large
bowl having been filled, the process being accompanied by some set
ceremonies, the cup-bearer in a stooping attitude presented the first
cup to the king. His Majesty passed it on to the priest, who poured a
few drops as a libation on the sacred stone in his charge, called the
Fallen-from-Heaven, which preceded the army in the last engagement.
There remained a large cocoanut bowl nearly full of the liquor, and
Box-of-Tricks availed himself of the opportunity to show the young men
how well he could quaff the draught without once removing the vessel
from his lips. Taking the bowl in his hands he said: “This is the
libation to the great temple. Know that the mind of all here is that thy
people may live, and that the trees may bear abundant fruit. This is the
first offering of thy children. May our land be established, and may the
fish continue to rise up out of the sea. Then shall we live, and all
those who plot against us be clubbed.”
Raising his voice to a sort of recitative, the priest continued his
prayer:
“O ye gods whom now we honor,
Let your minds be undivided.
Give us treasure, life and pleasure.
Let our women and our children
In our houses live and prosper.
Sweep diseases from amongst us.
In the race with ev’ry evil,
Make the distance far between us.
Spare the hands that make your kava,
Spare the feet that carry water.[18]
Lead our foes astray in fighting,
Lead them where our clubs may fell them.
O ye gods who once our chiefs were,
Break the teeth of evil speakers,
Headlong cast them into ditches;
Kill our foes, but spare thy servants.”
Footnote 18:
The women, who are the drawers of water.
When the priest finished drinking, all the company clapped their hands
together quickly in time, ending abruptly with a loud shout, which was
caught up by those outside the ring, and was carried to the most distant
outskirt of the town.
This part of the ceremony reminded me of the scene in “Hamlet.”
“And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the Heavens, the Heavens to earth,
Now the king drinks to Hamlet.”
When the King drank, and those next of high rank in their proper order,
the same formulas were observed. After each draught, the string of the
kava bowl was always thrown towards the man next in rank, whose turn it
now was. Each cup, which generally measured a pint and a half, was
drained without pausing.
The male portion of the company entered the rara or square, in
procession, with spears advanced, and strips of white masi flowing from
them like pennons. They were headed by Hot-Water, whose appearance was
magnificent. This comely savage was in the flower of his age, and he
advanced with the proud step of a conqueror. His body was powdered a
glossy jet, saving his face, which was painted in diamond patterns of
the deepest red. He wore tortoise-shell armlets; his knees were bossed
with colored grasses; his brow was adorned with a frontlet of scarlet
cock’s feathers fixed on a palm leaf; and there lay on the upper portion
of his breast a large boar’s tusk suspended from his neck by a cord
braided from the ornamental tufts of hair taken from his deadliest foe’s
head. His brawny shoulder sustained his favorite club, known as
“The-Priest-is-Too-Late.” His train of native cloth, flowing from his
waist, and borne by obsequious pages, was upwards of 100 yards in
length. It was carried at the side of the following phalanx, and did not
keep the warriors in the front rank more than a few yards apart from
him.
Those who followed were in the proper order of precedence according to
the laws of Fijian chivalry. First came kings and chiefs of large
islands or districts; then chiefs of towns and districts, and
ambassadors; next were distinguished warriors of lower birth than those
who went before them, together with carpenters and chiefs of the turtle
fishermen; then the kai sis or common people, the slaves captured in the
war, and whose lives had been spared, bringing up the rear. The gay and
glittering procession marched round the square, their heads a sea of
waving tapa, and finally squatted on the turf in the form of a
semi-circle. All the women in the district, arranged in the order of
their rank, sat behind the men, having been waiting for the arrival of
the procession. The ground having a slight ascent from the inner point
of the semi-circle, the appearance presented was that of a crowded
amphitheatre. Hot-Water occupied a post of honor, reclining on a heap of
printed tapa, piled along a low platform. I was placed next the King,
and drained the kava-bowl after him.
Lolóma sat with the king’s favorite wife on an elevated point at the
right wing of the company. I was near her as a spectator, taking no part
in the martial display. She was radiant with sunny smiles, her dark
eyelashes quivering with delight in the spectacle, and her round limbs
aglow with youthful blood and passionate life. As the wild barbaric
music of conch-shells, bamboo pandean pipes, and wooden drums, awoke the
echoes in the neighboring hills, I could not help wishing that this were
a field of tourney in which all the bravery of the isle were about to
contend; that Lolóma was the elected queen of love and beauty, crowning
a noble spectacle by her presence, and whose delicate hand would award
the palm of conquest; and that the blast of conch-shells which now
pierced the air with its shrill sound were the bray of challenging
trumpets from knights of princely mien, instead of the prelude to the
ghastly formulas and the hideous banquet I was about to witness, the
thought of which, notwithstanding that I had all a young man’s taste for
the strange and horrible, filled me with loathing for the people by whom
I was surrounded, and made me sick at heart. There was one drop of
comfort in the debasing ordeal. Lolóma enjoyed the spectacle with a
woman’s fondness for display, but she was not a cannibal. No member of
her tribe ate human flesh, because the shrine of their god was human.
She would take no part in the Saturnalian rites. She would do nothing
that would revolt me.
Ovens on a large scale had been prepared. They were from 10 to 12ft.
deep, and 60ft. in circumference. These receptacles having been filled
with wood, large stones were laid in layers on the fuel, and were
covered up until thoroughly heated. Then the joints of the human bodies
were placed on the hot stones, and covered with leaves, a layer of earth
enclosing all. While the process of cooking was proceeding, green
baskets to carry the bokola were plaited; the vegetables to be eaten
were boiled in earthen pots, and taro-paste and sauce were prepared.
The steam penetrating the covering of leaves and earth, showed that the
cooking was done. The ovens were formally opened. The Tui Rara, or
master of the feast, called out in order of precedence the names of the
great personages to whom the meat was to be alloted, and their
attendants received at his hands their several portions. When a portion
was alloted to a distinguished chief, there was a loud shout from the
multitude, followed by an approving clapping of hands. The sub-division
of the meat to heads of families was made after the alloted parcels had
been received at the hands of the Tui Rara.
There were 20 bodies prepared for the feast, all the seriously wounded
prisoners having been killed to add to the number of the slain. These
miserable remains, which had been subjected to every conceivable species
of indignity, were formally presented at the temple, and accepted by the
priest as a peace offering to his god. Then they were carried on slight
hurdles (the head lolling on one side, and the legs dangling over the
other) to the public square, and set up in a row in a sitting posture.
Their faces were gaily painted with vermilion and soot, to give them a
life-like appearance as in time of war.
Next a herald advanced in presence of the multitude, and touching each
ghastly corpse in turn in a friendly way, the profoundest silence being
preserved by the spectators, harangued it in a jocular manner,
expressing his extreme regret at seeing such a fine fellow in so sorry a
plight, asking if he did not feel ashamed of himself after his recent
loud boasting from behind the fortress, and wondering why he should have
ventured so far down the hill, unless it was to see his dear friends of
Ramáka. Finally the herald addressed them in more excited strains, and
wound up by knocking the bodies down like so many ninepins, amid shouts
of laughter from the bystanders.
At length the corpses were ignominiously dragged into the shade of a
clump of iron-wood trees which skirted the temple. A sacrificial stone
marked the spot where hundreds of prisoners of war in past times had
been killed, a heap of whitening skulls attesting their number.
Here the dissecting began. It was performed with sharpened shells and
split bamboos by the dautava tamata, or cutter-up of men, who handled
his instruments skilfully. The bodies having been disembowelled, and the
head removed, the feet were cut off at the ancles, and the legs from the
knees; the thighs were dissevered from the hip joints, the hands from
the wrists; the fore arms were cut off at the elbows, and the shoulders
were taken out of the sockets—the operator, who was watched with great
interest by a crowd of onlookers, displaying no mean surgical skill.
Each of these divisions was treated as a separate joint. Having been
enclosed in green plantain leaves, the several pieces were placed in the
oven. When the stones became red hot, green leaves were put on them to
slacken the heat.
Some of the septs or families received their portion of the horrible
repast on large wooden dishes covered with a cloth of fresh leaves. I
noticed one dish 12 ft. long, 4ft. wide, and 3ft. deep. It would almost
have held an ox roasted whole. Vast heaps of yams, and walls of taro and
other vegetables had been prepared to accompany the meat. This portion
of the feast alone must have weighed several tons. I noticed that
several of the chiefs were linga tambu—not allowed to touch food with
their hands for a certain time. These were fed by one of their wives, or
a herald.
My attention was so particularly attracted to one blear-eyed old savage,
who sat cross-legged, blinking demoniacally as he cleverly picked with
his teeth the flesh from a human hand, that I asked his name. I was told
that he was the head chief of a neighbouring town, who was known by the
nickname of “Turtle Pond,” conferred upon him because of his enormous
capacity for eating bokola. The turtle pond is a pool of water fenced or
walled in to receive captured turtles, until the butcher is ready for
them. This old reprobate was said to have eaten in his time 800 men,
most of whose skulls formed a ghastly obelisk near his house. Truly, in
Shaksperian phrase, “he was a man of an unbounded stomach.”
When the banquet was at its height, a sudden commotion and loud shouting
in the direction from which the company had first entered the square,
attracted my attention to that quarter. I saw that a procession had been
formed, and that what appeared to be a chief of distinction was being
borne aloft on a bamboo-litter by four men, while a large crowd circled
round, dancing and singing in a high state of delight. The chief was in
a sitting posture. His face was painted in four diamond shapes of
alternate red and black; what I afterwards discovered to be a huge wig
was upon his head; and he bore in his hand the well-known club of
Bent-Axe, called “The Disperser,” which had so nearly sent me to my last
account, and on which still remained the blood-stains I noticed when it
fell at my feet. It was my enemy in full dress, sure enough. What could
this mummery mean? Had he surrendered and made his peace with the tribe?
The procession approached me, and I gazed intently at the figure. I was
within a few feet of it, and I now saw, horror of horrors! that there
were cracks in the face like the fissures in the crackling of baked
pork, and that the eyes had disappeared, their places being taken by a
clumsy representation in paint and clay! The case was clear. Bent-Axe
had been baked whole, and was now being paraded for the amusement of the
company preparatory to being eaten! The great chief of yesterday was
to-day a scapegoat in grimmest ironic symbol of revelry!
I turned away from the sickening spectacle. There was another wild
tattoo beaten on the lali, followed by a shrill scream from the
conch-shells, and I knew that the body was about to be divided as a
_bonne bouche_ for a few of the leading personages.
I learned afterwards that Bent-Axe was taken prisoner while trying to
escape. The gunshot wound I inflicted on him made him an easy prey,
however. He was put into the oven while still living.
At the close of the banquet there was a scramble among the common people
for the shin bones, which are valued for sail needles. The debauch ended
for the greater part of the company in a helpless lethargy, which it
took them days to recover from. I was given to understand, however, that
this carouse would always be treasured in their minds for all future
time as a great and memorable feast, just as the participants in the
brilliant tournament of feudal days rejoiced to remember “the gentle and
joyous passage of arms at Ashby.”
As I moved away from the revolting picture, the western sky was still
suffused with the sun’s last rays; a crimson haze illuminated the sylvan
cloisters at the back of the town, and as the colour gradually faded
from the gay dracænas and croton shrubs, and the innumerable laughing
ripples of the sea made answer to the murmurings of the dreamy palms, I
could not but wonder that a country which seemed suited by nature to be
the abode of the highest forms of civilisation should be inhabited by a
race of what I could only at that moment regard as the most debased and
hopeless savages; nor could I help contrasting the magnificent pageant
of the tranquil tropic evening, whose beauty is calculated to elevate
the soul of man, with the horrible orgie of which I had just been a
witness.