SOUTH SEA YARNS
[Illustration: “_While the men were digging the oven and lining it._”]
SOUTH SEA YARNS
BY
BASIL THOMSON
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCXCIV
_All Rights reserved_
TO
MY WIFE
INTRODUCTION.
In the great _bure_ of Raiyawa there was a story-telling. The
lying-places filled three sides of the house--mats spread upon grass
four feet wide,--and between each lying-place was a narrow strip of
bare earth sprinkled with wood-ashes, on which three logs, nose to
nose, were smouldering. A thin curl of blue smoke wreathed upwards
from each to the conical roof, where they met and filtered through
the blackened thatch; so that from outside the _bure_ looked like a
disembowelled haystack smouldering, ready to burst into flame. On
the fourth side was a low doorway, stopped with a thick fringe of
dried rushes, through which ever and anon a grey-headed elder burst
head-foremost, after coughing and spitting outside to announce his
arrival. Beside the doorway was a solitary couch, the seat of honour,
to which the foreigner, footsore and weary with his tramp across the
mountains, was directed, having in his turn dived trustingly through
the rushes like the rest. The couches were filling, and the elders were
settling down in twos to rest, slinging their legs over the fender-bar
that lay conveniently on its forked supports, and turning to the
grateful glow that part of his anatomy that man delights to roast--for
the night was falling, and a chilly mist was rising from the river.
Then one of them rose and made with his hand a tiny aperture in the
rush-screen, through which the dull twilight showed white. “Beat!” he
cried; and the rest beat the reed walls with their open palms, and
the house was filled with the angry hum of a myriad mosquitoes, that
flew into the smoke and out towards the king-post, and then, seeing
the twilight and the fresh air, sailed in a compact string through
the opening, so that in three minutes there was not one of them left.
Thereafter one might sleep in peace without slapping the back and the
bare thighs, for the rushes brushed them from the body of each incomer,
and their furious hum outside was impotent to hurt.
At length every place was filled, and from the darkness Bongi began
and told of the mountain-paths--how the foreigner would rest before the
hill was climbed, gasping like a fish, and asked many foolish questions
of the old time and the present; and of the courts, how Bitukau had
had his hair cropped, having been taken in sin and judged; and of how
the foreigner had given him strange meats to eat that were enclosed in
iron, having first broken the iron and cooked the meats on a fire.
“Yes,” said Bosoka, “such were the meats that a foreigner gave to the
men of Kualendraya, bidding them heat the meats on a fire and eat;
but when they did so, the meats blew up like a gun, and scalded them
grievously. Foreigners must be strong indeed to eat such meats.”
“And the foreigner told me tales,” continued Bongi--“wonderful tales,
hard to believe: of stone houses larger than this whole village; of
strings going under the sea to other lands by which men talk, sending
no ship to bear the tale; of steamers that go on land faster than a
horse can run.”
“Foreigners are great liars,” said old Natuyalewa, sententiously. “But
the land steamers may be true, for at Nansori it is said the sugar-cane
is carried by steamers on the land. Tomase, who worked there, told me
of this; and it may be true that they talk with strings, for a man may
make many signs by jerking a sinnet cord which another holds, pulling
harder at times and then softly. But the stone house--such tales as
these they tell to increase their honour in our eyes, but they are
lies, for there is no land so great as Great Viti.”
Now the foreigner feigned sleep and listened.
“Well,” cried Ngutu from the corner, “the teacher says that our fathers
lied about Rokola’s canoe--that the mast fell at Malake and dented the
mountains of Kauvandra. He says that a canoe cannot sail so far in a
day, even with the wind on the outrigger.”
“The teachers are the foreigners’ mouths, and bark at all our ancient
customs, seeking to dishonour them,” growled Natuyalewa. “I am growing
old, and the land is changed. When I was young we listened to the words
of our elders, but now the young men----”
“Ië! Tell us tales of the old time,” interrupted Bongi: “we will each
bring _nambu_: mine shall be the _sevu_ of my yams.”
The elders grunted approval from the darkness.
“My _nambu_ shall be fish.” “A bunch of white plantains.” “Mine shall
be prawns from the stream,” cried several.
“I want no _nambu_,” replied Natuyalewa, with dignity; “the _nambu_
should be given to those who tell tales for gain, seeking to entertain
the chiefs, that mats, and fine _masi_, and other property, may be
given to them. These will tell of gods and giants, and canoes greater
than these mountains, and of women fairer than the women of these days,
and of doings so strange that the jaws of the listener fall apart.
Such a one gains great honour, and the chiefs will promise him _nambu_
before they even hear his tale, remembering the wonders of the last.
And he, being known for a teller of strange tales, must ever lie more
and more, lest, if he turn back to the truth, the chiefs hearing him
may say, ‘This fellow’s tales were once like running water, but now
they are like the village pool: why give him _nambu_?’ But I will ask
no _nambu_, for I can only tell of that I have seen with my own eyes or
heard with my ears; and though I tell you tales of the old time or of
distant lands, yet can I tell only of the doings of men and women like
to yourselves, who did deeds such as you yourselves do; and when all
is told, you will call the tale emptier than the shell of the Wa-Timo
fruit.”
Then Natuyalewa began to tell of Rusa, the fisherman of Malomalo, and
the foreigner, himself a story-teller in Natuyalewa’s line of business,
thought ruefully of the wonder-mongers of his own land, and the _nambu_
they won, and so pondering, fell asleep.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A COURT-DAY IN FIJI, 1
THE LAST OF THE CANNIBAL CHIEFS, 17
TAUYASA OF NASELAI, REFORMER, 37
A COOLIE PRINCESS, 47
LEONE OF NOTHO, 61
RALUVE, 68
THE RAIN-MAKERS, 111
MAKERETA, 125
ROMEO AND JULIET, 130
THE WOMAN FINAU, 142
IN THE OLD WHALING DAYS, 173
THE FIERY FURNACE, 195
FRIENDSHIP, 208
THE HERMIT OF BOOT ISLAND, 254
THE WARS OF THE FISHING-ROD, 261
THE FIRST COLONIST, 288
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“WHILE THE MEN WERE DIGGING THE OVEN AND LINING
IT,” _Frontispiece_
“ON THE NIGHT OF EACH RETURN FROM THE CAPITAL,” 38
“AND THEN RALUVE CAME IN, SHYLY FOLLOWED BY TWO
ATTENDANTS OF DISCREET AGE AND MATURE CHARMS,” 76
“THE CANOE WAS AFLOAT, AND LADEN WITH SUCH OF THE
LOW-BORNS’ HOUSEHOLD GODS AS THEIR ARISTOCRATIC
VISITORS THOUGHT WORTH TAKING AWAY,” 84
MAKERETA, 126
FRIAR LAURENCE’S HOUSE, 134
“NOTHING NOW REMAINS OF KOROLAMALAMA BUT THE NAME
AND A FEW MOUNDS,” 178
“WHEN THE WOOD WAS ALL OUT THERE REMAINED A CONICAL
PILE OF GLOWING STONES,” 202
LEVUKA, 248
“RASOLO, BEING SWIFTEST OF FOOT, REACHED THEM FIRST,
AND SLEW THEM WITH HIS THROWING-CLUB,” 268
SOUTH SEA YARNS.
A COURT-DAY IN FIJI.
A bright sky vying with the sea for blueness, a sun whose rays are not
too hot to be cooled by the sea-breeze, the distant roar of the great
Pacific rollers as they break in foam on the coral-reef, the whisper
of the feathery palms as they wave their giant leaves above yonder
cluster of brown native huts,--all these form a picture whose poetry
is not easily reconciled with the stern prose of an English court of
law. It is perhaps as well that the legal forms we are accustomed to
have been modified to meet the wants of this remote province of the
Queen’s dominions, for the spot we are describing is accounted remote
even in remote Fiji, and the people are proportionately primitive. The
natives of Fiji are amenable to a criminal code known as the Native
Regulations. These are administered by two courts--the District Court,
which sits monthly and is presided over by a native magistrate; and
the Provincial Court, which assembles every three months before the
English and native magistrates sitting together. From the latter there
is no appeal except by petition to the governor, and it has now become
the resort of all Fijians who are in trouble or consider themselves
aggrieved.
For several days witnesses and accused have been coming in from the
neighbouring islands, and last night the village-crier proclaimed the
share of the feast which each family was called upon to provide. The
women have been busy since daylight bringing in yams, plantains, and
taro from the plantations, while the men were digging the oven and
lining it with the stones that, when heated, will cook the pigs to a
turn.
But already the height of the sun shows it to be past ten, and
the District Court has to inquire into several charges before the
Provincial Court can sit. The order is given to the native police
sergeant to beat the _lali_, and straightway two huge wooden drums boom
out their summons to whomsoever it may concern. As the drum-beats
become more agitated and pressing, a long file of aged natives, clad in
shirt and _sulu_ of more or less irreproachable white, is seen emerging
from the grove of cocoa-nut palms which conceal the village. We have
but just time to shake hands with our dusky colleague, a shrewd-looking
old man with grizzled hair and beard carefully trimmed for the
occasion, when the crowd begins to pour into the court-house.
The gala dresses are not a little startling. Here is a dignified old
gentleman arrayed in a second-hand tunic of a marine, in much the same
plight as to buttons as its owner as to teeth; near him stands a fine
young village policeman, whose official gravity is not enhanced by the
swallow-tailed coat of a nigger minstrel; while the background is taken
up by a bevy of village maidens clad in gorgeous velvet pinafores,
who are giggling after the manner of their white sisters until they
are fixed by the stern grey eye of the chief policeman, which turns
their expression into one of that preternatural solemnity they wear
in church. The court-house, a native building carpeted with mats, is
now packed with natives, sitting cross-legged, only a small place
being reserved in front of the table for the accused and witnesses.
The magistrate takes his seat, and his scribe, sitting on the floor
at his side, prepares his writing materials to record the sentences.
The dignity with which the old gentleman adjusts his shirt-collar and
clears his throat is a little marred when he produces from his bosom
what should have been a pair of _pince-nez_, seeing that it was secured
by a string round his neck, but is in fact a Jew’s-harp. With the soft
notes of this instrument the man of law is wont to beguile the tedium
of a dull case. But although the spectacle of Lord Coleridge gravely
performing on the Jew’s-harp in court would at least excite surprise
in England, it provokes no smile here. The first case is called on.
Reiterated calls for Samuela and Timothe produce two meek-faced youths
of eighteen and nineteen, who, sitting tailor-fashion before the table,
are charged with fowl-stealing. They plead “Not guilty,” and the owner
of the fowls being sworn, deposes that, having been awakened at night
by the voice of a favourite hen in angry remonstrance, he ran out of
his house, and after a hot chase captured the accused red-handed in two
senses, for they were plucking his hen while still alive. Quite unmoved
by this tragic tale, Vatureba seems to listen only to the melancholy
notes of his Jew’s-harp; but the witness is a chief and a man of
influence withal, and a period of awed silence follows his accusation,
broken only by a subdued twanging from the bench. But Vatureba’s eyes
are bright and piercing, and they have been fixed for some minutes on
the wretched prisoners. He has not yet opened his lips during the case,
and as the Jew’s-harp is not capable of much expression, it is with
some interest we await the sentence. Suddenly the music ceases, the
instrument is withdrawn from the mouth, the oracle is about to speak.
Alas! he utters but two words, “_Vula tolu_” (three months), and there
peals out a malignantly triumphant strain from the Jew’s-harp. But the
prosecutor starts up with a protest. One of the accused is his nephew,
he explains, and he only wished a light sentence to be imposed. Three
months for one fowl is so severe; besides, if he has three months, he
must go to the central jail and not work out his sentence in his own
district. Again there is silence, and the Jew’s-harp has changed from
triumph into thoughtful melancholy. At length it is withdrawn, and the
oracle speaks again, “_Bogi tolu_” (three days).
The prisoners are pounced upon and dragged out by the hungry police,
and after a few more cases the District Court is adjourned to make
way for the Provincial. The rural police--a fine body of men dressed
in uniform--take up positions at the court-house doors, and we take
our seats beside our sable colleague at the table. A number of men
of lighter colour and different appearance are brought in and placed
in a row before the table. These are the leading men of the island
of Nathula, who are charged with slandering their Buli (chief of
district). They have, in fact, been ruined by a defective knowledge
of arithmetic, as we learn from the story of the poor old Buli, whose
pathetic and careworn face shows that he at least has not seen the
humorous side of the situation. It appears that a sum of £70, due to
the natives as a refund on overpaid taxes, was given to the Buli for
distribution among the various heads of families. For this purpose he
summoned a meeting, and the amount in small silver was turned out on
the floor to be counted. Now as not a few Fijians are hazy as to how
many shillings go to the pound, it is not surprising that the fourteen
or fifteen people who counted the money made totals varying from £50 to
£100. They at once jumped to the conclusion that the Buli, who was by
this time so bored with the whole thing that he was quite willing to
forego his own share, had embezzled the money; but to make suspicion
certainty they started off in a canoe to the mainland to consult a
wizard. This oracle, being presented with a whale’s tooth, intimated
that if he heard the name of the defaulter who had embezzled the
money, his little finger, and perhaps other portions of his anatomy,
would tingle (_kida_). They accordingly went through the names of all
their fellow-villagers, naming the Buli last. On hearing this name the
oracle, whose little finger had hitherto remained normal, “regardless
of grammar, cried out, ‘That’s him!’”
On their return to Nathula, they triumphantly quoted the oracle as
their authority for accusing their Buli of embezzlement. The poor old
gentleman, wounded in his tenderest feelings, had but one resort. He
knew _he_ hadn’t stolen the money, because the money hadn’t been stolen
at all, but then who would believe his word against that of a wizard?
and was not arithmetic itself a supernatural science? There was but
one way to re-establish his shattered reputation, and this he took.
His canoe was made ready, and he repaired to the mainland to consult
a rival oracle named _Na ivi_ (the ivi-tree). The little finger of
this seer was positive of the Buli’s innocence, so that, fortified by
the support of so weighty an authority, he no longer feared to meet
his enemies face to face, and even to prosecute them for slander. As
the Buli was undoubtedly innocent, and had certainly been slandered,
the delinquents are reminded that ever since the days of Delphi seers
and oracles have met with a very limited success, and are sentenced
to three months’ imprisonment. And now follows a real tragedy. The
consideration enjoyed by the young Fijian is in proportion to the
length and cut of his hair. Now these are evidently dandies to the
verge of foppishness. Two of them have hair frizzed out so as to make a
halo four inches deep round the face, and bleached by lime until it is
gradated from deep auburn to a golden yellow at the points. Pounced on
and dragged out of court by ruthless policemen, they are handed over to
the tender mercies of a pitiless barber, and in a few moments they are
as crestfallen and ridiculous as that cockatoo who was plucked by the
monkey. The self-assurance of a Fijian is as dependent on the length of
his hair as was the strength of Samson.
But now there is a shrill call for Natombe, and a middle-aged man of
rather remarkable appearance is brought before the table. He is a
mountaineer, and is dressed in a rather dirty _sulu_ of blue calico,
secured round the waist by a few turns of native bark-cloth. He is
naked from the waist upward. The charge is practising witchcraft (_drau
ni kau_), a crime which is punishable with twelve months’ imprisonment
and forty lashes; for the Fijians are so persuaded that a bewitched
person will die, that it is only necessary to tell a person he is
bewitched to ensure his death within a few days from pure fright.
The son of the late Buli of Bemana comes forward to prosecute. The
substance of his evidence is as follows: Buli Bemana, who was quite
well on a certain Saturday, was taken ill on the Sunday, and expired
in great agony on the Monday morning. The portion of his people to
whom the accused belongs had complained more than once of the Buli’s
oppression, and desired his removal. It is the custom for a wizard
who has compassed the death of a man to appear at the funeral with
blackened face as a sign to his employers that he has earned his
reward and expects it. The accused attended Buli Bemana’s funeral
with blackened face. Moreover, an old woman of Bemana had dreamed
that she had seen Natombe bewitching the Buli, and the little fingers
of several Bemanas had itched unaccountably. These last the witness
considered were convincing proofs. The accused, in reply, stated that
he was excessively grieved at the Buli’s death, and that his face at
the funeral was no blacker than usual. Several witnesses followed, who
deposed that the accused is celebrated throughout the district for his
skill in witchcraft, and that he had boasted openly in days gone by
that he had caused the death of a man who died suddenly.
Now, as stated above, the belief in witchcraft among Fijians is
so thorough, and the effects of a spell upon the imagination of a
bewitched person so fatal, that the English Government has found it
necessary to recognise the existence of the practice by law. It is,
however, none the less wise for the Government officials, without
pooh-poohing the existence of witchcraft, to attempt to discourage
the belief in its efficacy. Accordingly we call for evidence as to
the particular manner in which the alleged spell was cast. There was
no caldron nor blasted heath in this case; indeed the whole ceremony
was a decidedly tame affair. It was only necessary to procure some of
the Buli’s hair or the portions of his food left untasted, and bury
them with certain herbs enclosed in a bamboo, and death would ensue
in a few days. To our question whether the Buli himself thought he
was bewitched we receive a decided negative; indeed, we happen to know
that the poor old man died of acute dysentery, brought on by cold, and
that in this case, if witchcraft had been really practised, the death
was a most unfortunate coincidence. As no evidence more incriminating
than dreams and the finger-tingling is forthcoming, the accused is
acquitted, to be condemned by the other tribunal of public opinion,
which evidently runs high. When he has left the court we address the
chiefs of Bemana upon the subject of witchcraft generally, as if
seeking information. Upon this a number of white-haired old gentlemen,
whose boredom has been for some time exchanged for somnolence, wake
up and hold forth upon the relative value of hair and nail-parings as
instruments for casting spells. While the discussion becomes animated
and the consensus of opinion appears to be gathering in favour of
toe-nails, we electrify the assembly by suggesting an experiment.
They are to select two of their wisest wizards, we are to supply the
necessary means, and they are to forthwith cast their most potent spell
over us. On the result is to rest their future belief in witchcraft.
If we have not succumbed in a month’s time there is no truth in the
practice. If we do die, they may not only believe in it, but they will,
of course, be held guiltless of our death. A dead silence ensues. Then,
after much whispered conversation, an old man addresses the court,
pointing out that white men eat different food from Fijians, for do
they not live upon flour, tinned meat, rice, and other abominations?
And do they not despise the succulent yam, and turn up their noses at
pork, dried lizard, and tender snake? Therefore is it not obvious that
the powers of witchcraft will be lost upon such beings? Now we have
with us a Tongan servant, by name Lijiate (being the nearest Tongans
can get to Richard). This man, being half-educated, and above all a
Tongan, is full of contempt for Fijians and their barbarous customs. He
has long talked contemptuously of witchcraft, which he considers fit
only for the credence of heathens, not of good Christians like himself.
Here is a chance for Richard to distinguish himself and us. We make the
offer. Richard is to be bewitched on the same terms as ourselves. He at
least does eat yams and pork, and though he has not yet taken kindly
to snake, the difference is trifling. But we have counted without our
host. “_Fakamolemole_” (pardon), says Richard, “I almost believe in it
myself. I pray you have me excused.” This spikes our gun, for though,
doubtless, some of our Fijian servants would consent to be experimented
on, they would probably pine away and die from pure fright, and
re-establish the belief in witchcraft for ever.
Our discomfiture is best covered by attention to business. Two more
cases of larceny are heard and disposed of, and now two ancient
dames, clad in borrowed plumes, consisting of calico petticoat and
pinafore, are led before the table. Grey-headed and toothless, dim
as to sight and shapeless as to features, they look singularly out
of place in a court of law. Time was (and not so very long ago) when
women so decrepit as these would have had to make way for a more
vigorous generation by the simple and expeditious means of being
buried alive, but now they no longer fear the consequences of their
eccentricities. One of these old women is the prosecutrix, and the
charge is assault. We ask which is the prosecutrix, and immediately
one holds out and brandishes a hand from which one of the fingers has
been almost severed by a bite. She has altogether the most lugubrious
expression that features such as hers can assume, but with the bitten
finger now permanently hung out like a signboard, words of complaint
are superfluous. The other has a truculent and forbidding expression.
She snaps out her answers as if she had bitten off the ends like the
prosecutrix’ finger, and shuts her mouth like a steel trap. The quarrel
which led to their appearance in court might have taken place in
Seven Dials. Defendant said something disparaging about prosecutrix’
daughter. Prosecutrix retaliated by damaging references to defendant’s
son, and left the house hurriedly to enjoy the luxury of having had
last word. Defendant followed and searched the village for her, with
the avowed intention of skinning her alive. They met at last, and
having each called the other “a-roasted-corpse-fit-for-the-oven,” they
fell to with the result to the prosecutrix’ finger already described.
The mountain dialect used in evidence is almost unintelligible to us,
so that our admonition, couched in the Bauan, has to be translated
(with additions) by our native colleague. But our eloquence was all
wasted. Defendant utterly declines to express contrition. Our last
resource must be employed, and we inform her that if she does not
complete the task imposed on her as a fine she will be sent to Suva
jail, there to be confined with the Indian women. This awful threat
has its effect; and the dread powers of our court having thus been
vindicated, the crier proclaims its adjournment for three months. The
spectators troop out to spend the rest of the day in gossiping about
the delinquents and their cases. The men who have been sentenced
are already at work weeding round the court-house, subjects for the
breathless interest and pity of the bevy of girls who have just emerged
from court and are exchanging whispered comments upon the alteration
in a good-looking man when his hair is cut off. None are left in the
court-house but ourselves, the chiefs, and the older men. The table is
removed, and the room cleared of the paraphernalia of civilisation.
Enter two men bearing a large carved wooden bowl, a bucket of water,
and a root of _yangona_, which is presented to us ceremoniously, and
handed back to some young men at the bottom of the room to chew.
Meanwhile conversation becomes general, witchcraft is discussed in all
its branches, and compassion is expressed for the poor sceptical white
man; _sulukas_ (cigarettes rolled in banana leaves) are lighted; the
chewed masses of _yangona_ root are thrown into the bowl, mixed with
water, kneaded, strained, and handed to each person according to his
rank to drink; tongues are loosened, and it is time to draw the meeting
to a close. The sun is fast dipping into the western sea when the
last of our guests leave us, and we have a long moonlight ride before
us. There is but just time to pack up our traps and have a hasty meal
before we are left in darkness, but the moon will rise in an hour, so
we may start in safety in pursuit of the train of police and convicts
who are carrying the baggage.
THE LAST OF THE CANNIBAL CHIEFS.
When Swift wrote his “Modest Proposal,” and argued with logical
seriousness that the want and over-population in Ireland should be
remedied by the simple expedient of eating babies, the satire was
not likely to be lost upon a people who regarded cannibalism with
such horror and loathing as do the European nations. The horror must
of course be instinctive, because we find it existing in the lowest
grades of society; but the instinct is confined to civilised man.
The word cannibal is associated in our minds with scenes of the most
debased savagery that the imagination can picture; of men in habits
and appearance a little lower than the brute; of orgies the result of
the most degrading religious superstition. It is not until one has
lived on terms of friendship with cannibals that one realises that the
practice is not incompatible with an intelligence and moral qualities
which command respect. And after all, if one can for a moment lay aside
the instinctive horror which the idea calls up, and dispassionately
consider the nature of cannibalism, our repugnance to it seems less
logically grounded. It is true that it must generally entail murder,
but that is certainly not the reason for our loathing of it. It is
something deeper than this; and the distinction we draw between the
flesh of men and of animals is at first sight a little curious.
One can imagine the inhabitants of another planet, whose physical
necessities did not force them to eat flesh,--to take life in order to
live,--regarding us with much the same kind of abhorrence with which we
look on cannibals. Most of our natural instincts are based upon natural
laws, which, when broken, are sure to visit the breaker with their
penalties. The eating of unripe fruit, of putrid meat, or poisonous
matter, are some of these. But no penalty in the shape of disease seems
to be attached to cannibalism.
What, then, are the motives that lead men, apart from the pressure
of famine, to practise cannibalism? Among certain African tribes,
and lately in Hayti, it has been the outcome of a debased religious
superstition, or that extraordinary instinct common to all races
which leads men to connect the highest religious enthusiasm with the
most horrible orgies that their diseased imagination can conceive. The
feeling that leads members of sects to bind themselves together by the
celebration of some unspeakable rite perhaps led to the accusations
laid against the Christians of the second century and the Hungarian
Jews of the nineteenth. But in the South Seas, although the motive has
been falsely attributed to a craving for animal food, it was generally
the last act of triumph over a fallen enemy. Thus Homer makes Achilles,
triumphing over the dying Hector, wish he could make mince-meat of his
body and devour it. Triumph could go no further than to slay and then
to assimilate the body of your foe; and the belief that, by thus making
him a part of you, you acquired his courage in battle, is said to have
led a chief of old Fiji to actually consume himself the entire body of
the man he had killed, by daily roasting what remained of it to prevent
decomposition.
This is not a very promising introduction to a paper intended to
show that some cannibals at least may be very respectable members of
society. But it must be clearly understood that the eccentricity which
seems so revolting to us is not incompatible with a strong sense of
duty, great kindness of heart, and warm domestic affection.
Out of the many cannibals and ex-cannibals I have known, I will choose
the most striking figure as the subject of this sketch. I first met
the Buli of Nandrau in the autumn of 1886, when I took over the
Resident Commissionership of part of the mountain district of Fiji.
His history had been an eventful one, and while he had displayed those
qualities that would most win the admiration of Fijians, to us he
could not be otherwise than a remarkable character. Far away, in the
wild and rugged country in which the great rivers Rewa and Singatoka
take their rise, he was born to be chief of a fierce and aggressive
tribe of mountaineers. Constantly engaged in petty intertribal wars,
while still a young man he had led them from victory to victory, until
they had fought their way into perhaps the most picturesque valley in
all picturesque Fiji. Here, perched above the rushing Singatoka, and
overshadowed by two tremendous precipices which allowed the sun to
shine upon them for barely three hours a-day, they built their village,
and here they became a name and a terror to all the surrounding
tribes. A few miles lower down the river stood the almost impregnable
rock-fortress of the Vatusila tribe, and these became the stanch allies
of Nandrau. Together they broke up the powerful Noikoro, exacted
tribute from them, and made the river theirs as far as Korolevu;
together they blotted out the Naloto, who held the passes to the
northern coast, killing in one day more than four hundred of them, and
driving the remnant as outcasts into the plain. Long after the white
men had made their influence felt throughout Fiji,--long after the
chief of Bau was courted as King of Fiji,--these two tribes, secure
in their mountain fastnesses, lived their own life, and none, whether
Fijian or white man, dared pass over their borders.
But their time was come. The despised white man, whom they had first
known in the humble guise of a shipwrecked sailor or an escaped
convict, was soon to overrun the whole Pacific, and before him the
most dreaded of the Fijian gods and chiefs, the most honoured of their
traditions, were to pass away and be forgotten.
In the year 1867 a Wesleyan missionary named Baker, against the advice
of all the most experienced of the European settlers and the native
chiefs, announced his intention of exploring the mountain districts
alone. He said that he would take the Bible through Vitilevu. What
good to the missionary cause he hoped for from his hazardous journey
it is difficult to imagine. The harm that would certainly result to
his fellow-missionaries if he were killed, and the loss of life that
must ensue, must have been apparent to him and to every one else. But
in spite of every warning, he persisted in his foolhardy enterprise,
and he paid for it with his life and with the lives of several hundred
others. He ascended the river Rewa with a small party of native
teachers, but when he passed into the mountain district a whale’s tooth
followed him: for the power of the whale’s tooth is this--that he who
accepts it cannot refuse the request it carries with it, whether it
be for a mere gift, or for an alliance, or for a human life. So he
went on, while tribe after tribe refused to accept the fatal piece of
ivory; but none the less surely did it follow him. At length one night,
while he slept in a village of the Vatusila, the whale’s tooth passed
on before him to the rock fortress of Nambutautau, and their chief,
Nawawambalavu, took it. When, next morning, Baker resumed his march,
this chief met him in the road, and together they crossed the Singatoka
river. As they climbed the steep cliff which leads to Nambutautau, it
is recorded in a popular song of that time that the chief warned him
ironically of his impending fate. “We want none of your Christianity,
Mr Baker. I think that to-day you and I shall be clubbed.” Suddenly,
at a spot where the path lies between high reeds, on the edge of a
precipice, an attack was made upon them, and they were all struck down
except two native teachers who crawled into the thickest of the reeds
and made their way, the one to Rewa and the other to Bau, hiding during
the day-time and travelling under cover of the darkness. Baker’s body
was flung over the precipice, and the great wooden drum boomed out
its death-beat to the villages far down the valley. That night the
stone-ovens were heated for their work, and the feast was portioned out
to the various allies. But the most honourable portion--the head--was
sent to Nandrau, the subject of my sketch. At first he refused it,
disapproving of the murder, which his foresight warned him would bring
trouble upon them. But as his refusal threatened to sever the alliance,
he afterwards accepted it. It is recorded that the feet, from which the
long boots had not been removed, were sent to Mongondro, whose chief, a
melancholy, gentle-mannered old man, was much disappointed at finding
the skin of white men so tough.
After terrible hardship and danger, the wounded teacher made his way to
the coast, and carried the news to Bau. A strong alliance was at once
formed among the coast tribes to avenge the murder, and to crush the
power of the mountaineers. There is in this part of Fiji no gradation
between the plains that fringe the coast and the mountains. A sheer
barrier of rock, looking like the ruins of a gigantic fortification,
rises boldly from the plain, broken only by the valleys which form the
river-beds. Behind this wall lay a land of mystery, whose inhabitants
were invested with superstitious terrors, to which their ferocity and
the extraordinary appearance of their huge mops of hair had doubtless
contributed.
The attacking party was divided into three forces. One of them was to
advance up the Singatoka from the south, a second to enter the “Devil”
country by way of the Rewa from the east, and the third, commanded
by the King of Fiji in person, was to surprise the valley of Nandrau
from the northern coast. With the two first we have nothing to do,
because they were defeated by the intervening tribes and turned back
long before they reached their destination. The third, hoping to form
a junction with their allies, advanced boldly through the mountain
passes. The country seemed deserted. They burned two or three abandoned
villages, and emboldened by their success, they pressed on, more
like an eager rabble than a military force, each man hoping to be
the first to secure plunder. As they straggled over the grassy hills
that surround Nandrau, suddenly from every clump of reeds big-headed
warriors sprang up; they found themselves hemmed in, and Nandrau,
headed by their chief, spent the day in slaughtering the flower of
the Bau army. A remnant fled to the coast, hotly pursued by the
mountaineers; and so crushing was the defeat that the king, Thakombau,
narrowly escaped death at the hands of his vassals of Tavua.
Not long after this victory, which had so firmly established his
prestige in the mountains, Buli Nandrau seems to have become favourably
inclined towards the Europeans; and when a joint expedition of whites
and natives was despatched to reduce Nambutautau, he seems to have
been permitted to remain neutral. Nambutautau was burnt, and the
Vatusila and Noikoro tribes compelled to sue for peace. In 1874 Buli
Nandrau met Consul Layard, and promised his allegiance to the British
Government. Teachers were allowed to enter the principal mountain
villages, and until the year 1875 the mountaineers became nominal
Christians. In that year an event occurred which severely tried the
firmness and good sense of Buli Nandrau. The islands had been annexed
to Great Britain, and the mountain chiefs were invited to meet the
first Governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, at Navola on the southern coast.
Some of them accepted the invitation, among whom was Buli Nandrau, who
was anxious to judge for himself what the new order of things really
was. He frankly gave his allegiance to the Government, and in spite
of the strongest temptation he never wavered afterwards. For in the
same year a terrible epidemic of measles, introduced accidentally from
Sydney, carried off 40,000--nearly one-third of the whole population
of the islands. It was natural that the mountaineers, perishing under
this relentless and unknown disease, should have regarded it as the
vengeance of the gods they had so lately deserted. If Christianity were
a good thing, they said, why could it not save their children from
death?
And so, early in 1875, most of the mountain tribes threw off the _sulu_
(the Christian dress), and returned to the worship of their heathen
gods. Only Buli Nandrau, seeing what the end must be, remained stanch,
and by forming a barrier between the revolted tribes and those still
wavering in their loyalty, prevented the disaffection from spreading.
An expedition was despatched under Captain, now Major, Knollys, and,
with the assistance of the native allies, soon reduced the rebels to
submission. They all nominally again embraced Christianity, and an
entrenched camp, garrisoned by an armed native force, and commanded by
a Resident Commissioner, was established to ensure the future peace of
the district.
Protected by their isolation from the vices of civilisation, and
enjoying a large share of self-government, these reformed cannibals are
to-day the most contented and prosperous of all the Queen’s subjects
in Fiji; and if ever it has been necessary to adopt measures for their
good which they could not understand at the time, the Commissioner has
been always sure of the support and influence of Buli Nandrau.
I first saw him at the Provincial Council at Navola in 1886. He had
no sooner arrived with his retinue than he sent his _mata_ (herald) to
announce him, and in a few minutes entered my house alone. He was a
very tall, erect old man of about sixty-five or seventy--grey-haired,
keen-eyed, and intelligent-looking. After the usual ceremonies
inseparable from Fijian etiquette, he sat down and spoke of the
politics of the district. It appeared to me remarkable that a man who
had only left his native mountains two or three times, to take part
in the great Council of Chiefs, should be so well acquainted with the
history and political situation of the coast tribes of Fiji. He spoke
with great affection of Sir Arthur Gordon and of the ex-Commissioner,
and bewailed the death of the great mountain chiefs whose places were
now inadequately filled by their sons.
He was never absent from his place for a moment during the three days
the council lasted, and his interest in the trivial affairs of other
districts never flagged. It was curious to observe the great deference
paid to his opinion by the other chiefs. When one of them, Buli Naloto,
was found to have failed in his duties, Nandrau was appointed to
reprove and caution him. His speech, which was short and to the point,
was a model of that kind of eloquence. “Art thou,” he said, “a chief
in thine own right, to make war and to make peace as it pleases thee?
Where was thy tribe before the Government came? A scattered remnant,
seeking refuge on the plains from the vengeance of Nandrau! But the
Government has taken pity on thee, and the land is at peace. Why art
thou then disobedient to the Government, who has made thee a chief,
and re-established thee in the lands of thy fathers?” This reproof was
received by Buli Naloto with the most abject humility.
Not long after this, Buli Nandrau consulted me about the projected
marriage of his daughter with the provincial scribe, who lived with me.
He wished, he said, to cement by this marriage the ancient ties between
Nandrau and Noikoro, but the day had passed for marrying girls against
their will. His elder daughter had been a great grief to him. She had
been so married, and had not long ago put an end to her life. Did I,
he asked, from what I knew of Durutalo, think that Janeti would be
happy with him?[1] This was not the only example I had of his strong
domestic affection.
In the spring of the following year he wrote to me, asking for medicine
to relieve a pain in his jaw, and from this time he was unable to
leave his village. At length, one day early in July 1887, I received a
pathetic letter from him, asking me to lose no time in coming to him.
“I am very ill,” he wrote, “and I would have you see my face before I
die.”
As the messenger, when questioned, made light of his illness, and I was
myself not well enough to undertake so tiring a journey, I determined
to wait until I was sure that his urgency was not merely the result of
low spirits. But late on the following Sunday night I was awakened by
the challenge of the sentry, and immediately afterwards the deep cry
of respect, known as the _tama_, sounded outside my sleeping-house.
Lights were brought, and on the doorstep crouched a man, muddy,
travel-stained, and exhausted by a long journey. I recognised him as
a native of Nandrau, who was selected for his fleetness as district
messenger, and when I saw that his hair and beard were cut short, I
knew the nature of his errand.
“The chief is dead,” he said; “and he told Tione not to bury him till
you, sir, had seen his face. Tione sends you this message.”
There was another reason that required my presence at Nandrau: Tione
was not the only claimant to the succession, and I must be there to
prevent a disturbance. The messenger would not even wait for food, but
returned at once to announce my coming.
In a moment the camp was all awake, and the men turned out to prepare
for the journey. The horses were brought in and saddled, and the
baggage rolled up in parcels to be carried over the mountain roads.
Before daybreak we were fording the river with an escort of some
thirty armed constabulary and baggage-carriers. The road lay for some
miles along the crest of a forest-clad ridge more than three thousand
feet above the sea-level, and when it emerged near the old site of
Nambutautau into open country, nothing could exceed the grandeur of the
scenery. Two thousand feet below us on the right rushed the Singatoka,
foaming among great boulders of rock, and still towering above us was
the great wooded range that formed the watershed of the island; while
far away before us rose the mountain-wall which separated Tholo from
the plains, seeming with its bare masses of castellated rock like a
great ruined fortification. And now the road began to descend, and
following a precipitous path, which momentarily endangered the legs
of our horses, we plunged into the cool shadow of the precipices
that overhung Nandrau. At a turn in the road we saw below us the now
historical village, jutting out over the river upon a broad ledge of
rock. The _rara_, or village square, was crowded with people, and I
noticed a train of women descending the sheer face of the opposite
cliff, with loaded baskets on their backs, holding on to stout vines
to steady themselves. Here we halted to give time to a messenger to
announce our arrival, according to native custom. We watched him
enter the village, and saw the people vanish as if by magic into the
houses, or sit in groups at the foot of the cocoa-nut palms, and then,
in perfect silence, we passed through the village. At the fence that
separated the dead chief’s enclosure from the square we dismounted, and
were conducted by his eldest son, Tione, to the clean matted house in
which we were to lodge.
All through the night there was an incongruous mixture of the sounds
of merriment and sorrow. On the river-bank behind our house the five
widows of the dead chief, with their women, howled and wailed till
morning, like animals in pain. Sometimes the wails would die away into
faint moans, and then a wild shriek from one of them would set them all
going again. But on the other side stood the great _bure_, where all
the funeral guests were feasting and drinking _yangona_ in honour of
the departed spirit.
Early next morning a messenger came to the door of our hut to ask if
we would see the Buli’s face. Followed by several of my men carrying
the funeral gifts, I climbed to a small house built upon a high stone
foundation. The inside was crowded with the neighbouring chiefs,
and I took my seat in silence. At the far end, wrapped in folds of
native cloth and the finest mats, lay the body. The whale’s tooth
and funeral gifts were now brought in and formally presented by the
_Mata-ni-vanua_, and accepted by an old man in the ancient Nandrau
dialect, of which I could scarcely understand one word. And then, when
a costly _Rotuma_ mat had been given for the body to lie upon in the
grave, I made a short speech in the Bau dialect, and was conducted to
see the face uncovered.
At mid-day the great wooden drum was tolled, and the armed
constabulary, looking very neat in their white _sulus_ and blue tunics,
were drawn up as a guard of honour near the cairn which was to form the
grave. At length the body, wrapped in mats, and followed by the wives
and relations of the dead chief, passed slowly to the grave. Among all
the mourners, I only noticed one case of genuine grief--the chief’s
daughter, Janeti; all the others, as is usual in Fijian funerals,
appeared to wail in a prescribed form. Indeed one of the widows, having
probably seldom seen a white man before, stopped wailing for a moment
to point me out eagerly to the other mourners. Then the body was
carried into the little hut that surmounted the cairn, and we stood in
the broiling sun until a native teacher had delivered a sort of funeral
sermon.
When all was finished, every one acted according to the old proverb,
“Le roi est mort!--Vive le roi!” and the question of whom I would
appoint as his successor became the subject of discussion. When I
returned to my house, I saw the widows at the water’s edge breaking up
a number of carved wooden utensils with stones. These were the cups
and dishes of their dead husband, which no man must henceforth touch
lest their teeth drop out or they be bewitched. For if a man should
drink from the cup of one who has eaten his relation, such evil will
certainly befall him. But as I was exempt from this danger, the cup and
the platter and fork, used by the Buli in old days for human flesh,
were presented to me.