Painting a tapa shroud.Painting atapashroud.
Painting atapashroud.
THE LAMENT OF THE SHADES
And when the gods of Ndelakurukuru heard this song they cried, "Liku tangoi ya io," which signifies in the language of the immortals, "The mortals' way of burial is well enough, are we to condemn it for a song?"
We are sitting and the stars are appearing,My feet are in the ferry canoe,There is trampling on the Path of the ShadesThey are following the "Long Road."I go on and speak as I go,The world there is lying empty,I am standing on the firm ground,I stand on the hard path,The path that leads straight to Kauvandra,The dance of the "Mbuno-ni-tokalau" echoes,What tree shall I take shelter under,I sit under thendanindanitree,We sit there chattering,Our food is thrown away,Our children are weeping,I hate to be buried looking skywards,I hate being buried to be stamped upon,The hand with which I threw mytinkastick has been torn off,My legs have fallen off, like rotten fruit.Our bodies have been broken in half,Our teeth have showered down till not one is left,Our pupils have been turned round to show the whites,Turned so as to show the whites,The whole land is tremulous with haze,I sit down and weep with head bowed to the earth,Let us go and enter the house at Naisongolatha,Ndaunivotua has entered it (the singer of thevotua),To teach us to sing thevotua,They keep remembering as they dance,They sleep till it is daylight.
The reminiscence of Greek myth in Themba, the ghostly ferryman, and in the Water-of-Solace is, of course, mere coincidence. The republican sentiments of Charon find no echo in Fiji, for Themba reserved the hard-wood end of his craft for aristocratic passengers. The Water-of-Solace, too, was a more complex invention than the Water of Lethe, for the Fijians, whose emotions are transient, make their Lethe an excuse for the shortness of their mourning for the dead. "And his friends also ceased from weeping, for they straightway forgot their sorrow, and were consoled." The saga is valuable for the light that it throws on the moral ethics of the Fijians. Cowardice and idleness were the most heinous crimes; a life of rapine and a violent death were passports to the sacred mountain. A natural death was so contemned that the Shade was commanded by Taleya to re-enter the body and die respectably. This part of the story was of course devised to account for recoveries from trance and fainting fits. Life on earth was not a desirable possession. Seeing the misfortunes that overtook the spirit in its last journey, the Fijians might well have exclaimed with Claudio—
"The weariest and most loathed worldly life,Is Paradise to what we fear of death."
Yet so gloomy and joyless is the prospect of a return to life that the Shades who are offered the privilege by Taleya do not all obey, so "anxious are they to reach Nakauvandra."
Light is also thrown upon a fact wonderingly related by the early missionaries, that the widows of dead chiefs themselves insisted upon being strangled to his manes, although it was notorious that they did not love him. It was their good name that was at stake, for we read that when the Shade had missed his throw at the pandanus-tree, and knew therefrom that his wives would not be strangled, he went on weeping, for he had now a proof that they had been unfaithful to him in life.
THE ANCESTOR GOD
The religion of a primitive people springs from within them and reflects their moral qualities, and the modification that it receives from the physical character of the country in whichthey live is a mere colour that goes no deeper than the surface. Every turn in the "Long Road" embodies an article of social ethics. If there had been no long spur protruding from Nakauvandra into the plain the story would have been different, but the moral ethics of the race would somehow have been illustrated; the industrious and courageous would somehow have been rewarded; the man of violence would have had some advantage over the man of peace; the Shades would in some way have shown their preference for the terrors of death to the gloom of life; the idle and the cowardly would somehow have been put to shame.
Ndengei is supreme among theKalou-Vu(original gods), and his authority was recognized by the whole of Vitilevu and its outlying islands, and by the western half of Vanualevu. The oldest tradition in which his name occurs mentions him as one of the first immigrants with Lutu-na-somba-somba, but his fame far exceeded that of his companions, and so many myths gathered about his name, that when the first missionaries arrived he had come to be a counterpart of Zeus himself. In serpent form he lay coiled in a cavern in the Kauvandra mountain above Rakiraki, and when he turned himself the earth quaked. Enormous offerings of food were made to him by the Rakiraki people. Several hundred hogs and turtle were carried to the mouth of the cavern, which the priests approached, crawling on their knees and elbows. One of the priests then entered the cave to proffer the request. If it was for a good yam-crop he would reappear, holding a piece of yam which the god had given him; if for rain, he would be dripping with water; if for victory, a fire-brand would be flung out in token that the enemy would be consumed, or a clashing of clubs would be heard, one for each of the enemy that would be slaughtered. Beyond the limits of his own district he had scarcely a temple, and little actual worship was paid to him, though in the great drought of 1838 King Tanoa of Mbau sent propitiatory offerings to him; and even in Raki-raki itself, there is a humorous song in which Uto his constant attendant, is represented as visiting the public feasts for the god's portion, and returning to Ndengei with the rueful intelligence that nothing but the under shell of the turtle was allotted to him. In some versions Ndengei has the head and neck only of a serpent, the rest of his body being of stone. He is the creator of mankind, but he has no emotions, sensations, or appetites except hunger.[52]Another version describes him as sending forth his son, Rokomautu, to create the land. He scraped it up from the ocean-bed, and where his flowing garment trailed across it there were sandy beaches, and where the skirt was looped up the coast was rocky. He also taught men how to produce fire.
When the missionaries first attempted the conversion of Rakiraki the people thought that Christianity was a mere variant of their own cult of Ndengei, using the following argument: Ndengei = the True God; Jehovah = the True God; therefore, Jehovah = Ndengei. Many years later the false prophet, Navosavakandua, whose career is set forth hereafter, used a similar argument to prove that his teachings did not clash with those of the missionaries, but were merely a newer revelation.
Ndengei was a purely Melanesian deity, and therefore, as I have said, the whole of Abraham Fornander's argument of a settlement of Polynesians in Fiji from the second to the fifth centuries a.d., which is founded on the fallacy that Ndengei was of Polynesian origin, falls to the ground.[53]For the serpent-worship indicated in the serpent form of Ndengei, on which he lays so much stress, is a modern gloss, and, even if it had been ancient, it would have proved no connection with the Polynesians, since snake-superstitions are common throughout Melanesia.
THE SHOOTING OF THE SACRED PIGEON
The great saga of the war in Nakauvandra is far older than the myth ascribing serpent form to Ndengei, and there the god figures as a splenetic and irascible old man, as no doubt he was in his remote earthly career. I take the story fromthe version written down by Ilai Motonithothoko, to whom I have referred elsewhere. When Ndengei had grown old the settlement on the Kauvandra mountain consisted of several villages, one of which belonged to Rokola and his carpenter clan, and the grandsons of the first arrivals were grown men. In the village of Nai-lango-nawanawa, on the slopes of the mountain, lived two twin grand-nephews of Ndengei, named Na-thiri-kau-moli and Na-kau-sambaria, who having brought down a pigeon with an arrow without injuring it, clipped its wings and tamed it. They gave the bird the name of Turukawa, and every morning and evening, and at flood-tide and ebb-tide, its cooing resounded far and wide over the mountain. Old Ndengei, hearing its voice, sent a messenger to ask the youths to give it to him, but they were absent from home, and the messenger, assured by their father that their consent was not necessary, took the bird to his master. Ndengei wanted the bird for a practical purpose. Elderly Fijians are somnolent, and the pigeon's cooing at sunrise was useful in arousing him from slumber.
Next morning the twin brothers were startled at hearing their pigeon cooing in Ndengei's village, and when they heard that it had been taken away without their consent, they flew into a rage, crying, "Sombo! is this to be the way with us children of men?" And they made ready their bow, which was called Livaliva-ni-singa (Summer-lightning), and set forth to shoot Turukawa. And when they drew near the banyan-tree in which he was perched, they doffed their turbans; therefore the place is called Ai-thavu-thavu-ni-sala (the Doffing-place) to this day. And they shot an arrow at Turukawa, who fell dead to the ground. And they drew out the arrow, and went to the carpenters' village, Narauyamba, because it was fortified, and their own village was not fortified.
For four days Ndengei missed the cooing of his Awakener, and he sent Uto, his messenger, to see what had become of him. And Uto came to the banyan-tree, and found the body of Turukawa, and saw the arrow-wound, and said, "There is none who would so forget Ndengei as to kill his Awakener but the twin brothers whose bird he was. Why have theygone to live at Narauyamba, except it be because it has a war-fence?" And he told Ndengei his suspicions. Then he went to the brothers and questioned them, and they said, "Yes, we did shoot Turukawa."
Then Ndengei sent to them to come to him, and they refused. And his anger blazed up within him, and he cried with a terrible voice, "Go, tell them to depart to a land where I am not known!"
But this also they refused to do, and Rokola ordered his carpenters to build a war-fence ofvesitimber, very high, with neither joint nor chink in it. And when Ndengei knew that the carpenters had entrenched themselves, he sent messengers to Rokomouto to come and help him.
Then there was war in Kauvandra—such a war as has never since been seen in Fiji. Joined to Ndengei were Rokomouto and his clan, who had settled on Viwa, and together they laid siege to the fortress. Many heroes fell on either side, but never a warrior could storm the wall ofvesibuilt by the carpenters. But now Rokola devised a dreadful engine of war. Before the gate of his fortress there was a ragged rift in the mountain-side. He sent out his warriors to cut stout vines in the forest, and suspended a bridge of twisted vines over the chasm. From the tops of two stout posts, planted within the fortress, he stretched ropes that appeared to be mere supports to the bridge, but were in reality a trap such as the men of Notho use when they would snare wild duck in their taro-beds. For when a man trod upon them he was caught fast in a noose, and the defenders hauled suddenly upon the ropes, and swung him high over the rampart into their midst, where they could club him at leisure. Then warriors were sent out to flee before the enemy to entice them on the bridge, and many were caught in the trap, and swung into the fortress to meet their doom. Thus were Ndengei's forces dispirited.
THE GREAT DELUGE
There were traitors in Ndengei's camp, who were conspiring with the enemy, and carrying food to him by night. These men were seized, and being found guilty on their own confession, were exiled from Kauvandra for ever. They left themountain, some going towards Matailombau, others towards Navosa. Now, when Ndengei saw that he could not prevail against the fortress, he sought out one Mbakandroti, a man related to the carpenters, who had chosen to take part with Ndengei against his own kin, and bade him devise a plan for betraying the fortress. That night a spirit appeared to Mbakandroti in a dream, and told him to cut down avungayali-tree that grew close to the rampart. And when he had related his dream, one Vueti was appointed to cut it down. He had scarce laid his stone axe to the root when water began to gush forth from the wound. All that day the water poured into the fortress, and by nightfall it was knee-deep, and rising still. So the carpenters took counsel, and resolved to ask pardon of Ndengei, since the gods were with him. So Ndengei took counsel with his chiefs, and they said, "These craftsmen are too valuable; we cannot destroy them; let them be exiled!" The fountain had now become a mighty river flowing southward from the mountain, and the craftsmen built them canoes in haste, and embarked, and sailed down the stream till they came to a new land, and there they settled. These are the ancestors of the carpenter clan at Rewa.[54]But there was no pardon for the twin brothers; to their exile there was to be no limit. Yet, for Rokola's sake, they were given time to build their canoe. And Rokola built them a vessel such as has never since been seen in Fiji, and named it Nai-vaka-nawanawa (the Lifeboat), and sailed away down the stream into the western ocean, and were never heard of more; only the prophecy remains that one day they will come again. It will presently be related how the false teacher Na-vosa-vakandua turned this prophecy to account.
Ko Dengei sa tangi langalanga,"Bongi ndua, bongi rua ka'u yandraBongi tolu, bongi va ka'u yandra,Sa tambu ndungu ndina ko Turukawa,Isa! nonku toa, na toa turanga,Isa! nonku toa, na toa tamata,Tiko e ulunda na ka rarawa,Au lolova kina, au tambu kana,Matanivanua, mai thithi manda,Mai thithi sara ki Narauyamba,Mo tarongi rau na ndauvavana,'Kemundrua, ru vanai Turukawa?'Sa tambu ndungu ni vakamataka,Ma lolo koto Kotoinankara,Ma mbunotha no a wai ni matana,Vakasunka me ramothe mai wanka."
Thus did Dengei weep tears of annoyance,"One night, two nights have I lain awake,Three nights, four nights have I lain awake,Not once has Turukawa cooed,Alas! my fowl, my noble fowl!Alas! my fowl, my man-like fowl,Sorrow has taken possession of my brain,I am sick with it; I cannot eat,Come, herald, run,Run straight to Narauyamba,Question the archers, and say,'You, did you shoot Turukawa?Not once did he coo at daybreak,The 'Cave-dweller'[55]is still fasting,The tears are welling from his eyes;The men are off to sleep on board.'
THE CRAFTSMEN DECLARE WAR
Nonku nduri tiko ni karakaramba,Sa talaki ma Kotoinankara,"Matanivanua mai thithi manda,Mo lakovi rau na turanga,Nonku toa sa mate vakathava?Au tambu kila no a kena thala."Soraki ka tukutuku ko Mata,Ma mbolea mai ko Nakausamba,'Matanivanua, mo na ngalu manda,O kenda kethe na luve ni tamata,Oi au na luve ni mathawa,Oi au na luve ni vula thandra,Vakathambethambe nga ko Waithala,Ka levu ko cava kei Mata,Au kaya mo na sa vavi manda,Tha nde ko senga ni na laukana,Ni ko rui kaisi tha sara,Au a lenkata na vula ma thandra."Ko Nathirikaumoli ma vosaya,"Me tukuna ma Kotoinankara,Nona ruve e rawata vakathava?E kune e wai, se rawata matha?Ko la'ki tukuna me nda tu sa vala,Sa vu ni tha nga ko Turukawa,Me tawase kina ko Nakauvandra,Sa tha nondatou tiko vata,Me ngundu na masi me tou sa vala."Kena moto ma rara no kivata,Na malumu me thavu e na wakana,Ko wilika ma na sai mbalambala,Tiko sombu ndaru na okaokata,E undolu vakatini sa rawa,Me tou tinia na masi ni vala,A ndrondro a ue ki sankata.Mataisau era mbose toka,Era mbose, era ndui vosavosa,Me nkai vosa mai ko Rokola,"Mbai vesi mo ndou la'ki vonota,Matamata mo ndou la'ki karona,"Na mbongi ni vala ka sa tini toka,Kena wa ma mbuki ma so vota,Velavela ko Lutunasombasomba,Sai koya nga na ndauloloma,Nda nkai nanuma tale nona vosa,"Tou a nkai kune ka ngona,O ndou nguthe tou na mbokola,Me mai mbaleta nai votavota."E tini na vuthu ka tambu na vosa.
I am wearied with the labour of poling,Dispatched with this message from the Cave-dweller,"Come, herald, run,Summon the two chiefs to come to me,Why was my fowl slain?I know of no evil that he did."Thus the herald gave his message,Nakausamba answers him boastfully,"Herald, hold thy peace,We are all the children of men,I am the child of space,I am the child of the rising moon,Which Waithala made to rise,This herald is full of questions,My way would be to have thee roasted,It would be a pity not to have thee eaten,For thou art the worst of lowborn men;I have confined the rising moon."Then speaks Nathirikaumoli,"Tell this to the Cave-dweller,How came he by his pigeon?Found he it in the water, or found he it on land,Go, tell him that we will fight for it,Turukawa is the root of the evil,It is by him that Kauvandra is divided,It is not well that we should live together,Up with the flag and let us fight."His spear lies ready on the shelf,And his club can be snatched from the eaves,Have you counted the spear-points of tree-fern?Sit down and let us number them,Ten times one hundred in all;Let us hoist the pennants of war,The welkin rings with the tumult.The craftsmen are sitting in council,They consult, each gives his opinion,Rokola now speaks,"Go and fit close a rampart of vesi,Give special heed to the gate,"Ten days has the battle raged,The rope has snared them; they are dismembered,Lutunasombasomba is dishonoured,He it is who is to be pitied,Let us then recall his words,"We are now in terrible plight,You gloat over our corpses,Thinking how ye will dismember them for the feast."The poem is finished and there is silence.
Ndungu toka ni singa ko Turukawa,Sa tambu ndungu ni vakama taka,Tangi ko Ndengei ru sa lomana,Isa nonku toa, na toa turanga,U vula ndua koto ni tambu kana,U vula rua koto ni lolovaka,Me ndua me thithi ki Narauyamba,I tarongi rau na ngone turanga,Oi ndrua, ru vanai Turukawa,Sa tambu ndungu ni vakamataka,"Tiko i ulunda na tiko vinaka,Ru sanga voli nai vakayandra."Ra tukia ni mbongi na veivala,Ndua nai valu ma sorovi rawa.Tambu ni sorovi mo ndru la'ki kamba,Era mba nai valu i ruarua,Ndua i yaviti yae; ndua i tambili, yae,Ului Ndreketi era sa mbini.Seu nai valu i matasawa,Ia la'ki seu ki sawana,Ru la'ki samuti ko Nakauvandra,Vosa i cei a vuna vala?Thimbi koto nai valu sa rawa,Lave a osooso ni turanga,Enda vala, enda vala, enda vala—i!
Turukawa used to coo all the day long,He did not coo at daybreak,Ndengei wept for love of him,Alas! my fowl, my noble fowl,For a whole month I have eaten nothing,For two months have I fasted for him,Let one run to Narauyamba,And question the two young chiefs,Did ye shoot Turukawa?He did not coo at daybreak,"Joy possesses us,We did injure the Awakener."They joined battle at nightfall,It is a war that can never be atoned.Never atoned; go, storm the fortress,Both sides joined battle,Ah! one is clubbed, Ah! another is down,The bodies of the Ului Ndreketi are piled high.The war spreads even to the shore,Aye, spreads even to the sea-shore,The Kauvandra tribes are thrashed,Whose was the word that set the battle going?Lo! the death-dance for the ending of the war!Crash goes the club into the thick of the chiefs!We fight, we fight, we fight—i!
This poem is given in the dialect of Rakiraki. As in all Fijian poems there are no indications of the speaker, and it is as difficult to translate as a modern play would be if all the speakers' names and the stage directions were omitted. Judging by the phraseology I take it to be a late version of the ancient story, probably not more than a century old. The older poems contain archaic words whose meaning is unintelligible to the natives of these days, for the language is being steadily impoverished as the older generation is giving place to men taught in the mission schools.
THE IMMORTALITY HERESY
In 1876 the Fijians had all nominally accepted Christianity. In every village throughout the group services were held regularly by native teachers of the Wesleyan Mission; the heathen temples had been demolished; and all customslikely to keep alive the old heathen cults had been sternly discountenanced. Even the old men conformed outwardly to the new faith, and it was hoped that, as they died out, the old beliefs would perish with them. But it was not to be expected that they had really abandoned all belief in the religion of their fathers.
Towards the end of 1885 strange rumours were carried to the coast by native travellers from the mountains. A prophet had arisen, who was passing through the villages crying, "Leave all, and follow me." He had gathered around him a band of disciples on whom he was bestowing the boon of immortality (tuka), to fit them to consort with their ancestors who were shortly to return from the other world bringing the millennium with them. The Commissioner of the Province, the late Mr. Walter Carew, found the rumour to be substantially true. A man named Ndungumoi, of the village of Ndrauni-ivi in the Rakiraki district, who had been deported in 1878 to one of the Lau islands for stirring up sedition, but had been allowed to return home about three years before, had announced that he had had a revelation from the ancestor-gods. He said that the foreigners had deported him to Tonga and still believed him to be there. They had tried to drown him, he said, by throwing him overboard with the ship's anchor tied about his neck, but, beingvunde(charmed), he had swum safely ashore with his body, leaving his spirit behind to deceive the foreigners. Taking the title of Na-vosa-vakandua (He who speaks but once), the native title for the Chief Justice of the Colony, he appointed two lieutenants, who went through the mountain villages enrolling disciples and teaching them a sort of drill compounded of the evolutions of the Armed Native Constabulary and native dances. The prophet carried about with him a bottle of water, called Wai-ni-tuka (Water of Immortality), which conferred immortality upon him who drank of it. People paid for the boon at a rate varying from ten shillings' to two pounds' worth of property, and so remunerative was this part of his business, that at a feast held at Valelembo he could afford to present no fewer than four hundred whales' teeth, aking's ransom according to the Fijian standard. Fortunately for the Government, the prophet was no ascetic. He had enrolled a bevy of the best-looking girls in the district to be his handmaidens, by persuading them that his holy water conferred not only immortality, but perpetual virginity, and that they therefore ran no risk of the usual consequences of concubinage. It was through the parents of these "Immortality Maidens" that information first reached the Government officers.
Ndungumoi's teachings were an ingenious compound of Christianity with the cult of Ndengei. Recognizing probably that the Mission had too firm a hold to be boldly challenged, he declared that when Nathirikaumoli and Nakausambaria, the twins who made war against Ndengei, had sailed away after their defeat, they went to the land of the white men, who wrote a book about them, which is the Bible; only, being unable to pronounce their Fijian names correctly they called them Jehovah and Jesus. His, therefore, was the newer revelation. There was some controversy among the faithful whether Ndengei was God or Satan. Most of them inclined to the latter belief, because Satan, like Ndengei, was a serpent. They named various places round Kauvandra Roma (Rome), Ijipita (Egypt), Kolosa (Colossians), etc., and they said that if a man were bold enough to penetrate to the recesses of the great cavern he might see the flames of hell.
THE ARREST OF THE PROPHET
The prophet had more practical concerns than the discussion of problems in theology. The twin gods, he said, were about to revisit Fiji, bringing all the dead ancestors in their train, to share the ancient tribal lands with their descendants: the missionaries, the traders, and the Government would be driven into the sea, and every one of the faithful would be rewarded with shops full of calico and tinned salmon. Those who believed that he was sent before to prepare the way would be rewarded with immortality, but the unbelievers would perish with the foreigners. The white men, he said, were fully aware of what was coming, as was shown by the officers of men-of-war who, when questioned as to why they squinted through glass instruments, looked disconcerted, andsaid evasively that they were measuring the reefs, whereas in fact they were looking for the coming of the divine twins. In the meantime the faithful were to drill like soldiers, and the women to minister to them. They used a travesty of English words of command, and pass-words such as "Lilifai poliseni oliva ka virimbaita,"[56]which is not sense in any language.
Temples were built secretly at Valelembo and other places, wherein, behind the curtain, the god might be heard to descend with a low whistling sound. A white pig, a rarity in Fiji, and probably a symbol for the white men, was being fattened against the day when it was to be slaughtered as a sacrifice to the ancestors.
The prophet had fixed the day; the feasts were all prepared; threats about what was to happen to church and state were being freely exchanged, when the prophet was arrested. He then besought his guards not to send him to Suva, and so defeat all the glorious miracles he was about to work for the redemption of the race. Unless the twin gods reappeared on earth the power of Ndengei, which is the Old Serpent, would continue in the ascendant, for the twins were they of whom it was foretold that they should bruise the head of the serpent. He was a sooty-skinned, hairy little man of middle age, expansive enough with the native warders in Suva gaol, but reticent when questioned about his mission. He was deported to Rotuma, where he is still living, and the outbreak was stamped out for the time.
In 1892 the heresy broke out afresh. One of his lieutenants, who had been allowed to remain in the district, began to receive letters from him. He would stand in the forest with a bayonet, and the magic letter fluttered down from the sky and impaled itself on the point. This was the more remarkable since Ndungumoi could not write. Holy water was again distributed, there was more drilling, and the end of British rule was again foretold. This time the Government decided tolet the light and air into Ndrauni-ivi, the fount of superstition; the people, lepers and all, were deported in a body to Kandavu, and the very foundations of the houses were rased to the ground.
These false prophets were not all self-deceived, nor were they wholly deceivers. They were of that strange compound of hysterical credulity and shrewd common-sense that is found only among the hereditary priests of Fiji. They knew what strings to play upon in the native character. The people are arrogant and conservative; they secretly despise foreigners for their ignorance of ceremonial, while conforming to their orders through timidity; their nature craves for the histrionic excitement and the ceremonial proper to traffic with unseen powers. They chafe secretly at the ordered regularity imposed upon them; at the inexorable punctuality of the tax-collector, at the slow process of the courts in redressing their grievances, at the laws which forbid them to seize with a strong hand the property they covet. It would have been no disgrace to them to yield allegiance to a conqueror, but the white men never conquered them, and therefore the tribute which they pay annually in the form of taxes is an ever-recurring dishonour. They pant for change—for the coming of a time when the heroic stories that they have heard from their fathers shall be realized, and their chiefs be again lords paramount over their own lands. They have forgotten the curse of war, the horror of the night attack, the tortures, the clubbings, the ovens, the carrying into captivity, to which half at least of the tribes would again be subject if their millennium came; for all the gifts which the Empire has bestowed upon its coloured subjects, thePax Britannicais the last to be appreciated. Good government? They would welcome the worst anarchy so it were their own and not the foreigner's!
A HEATHEN REVOLT
Upon all the jangling strings Ndungumoi harped, half believing the while in the mission he professed. The Fijians secretly hated the foreigners and coveted their goods; the foreigners should be swept away, leaving their goods behind them. They found the Mission services tame; they should dabble in the black art as often as they pleased; they loved the excitement of conspiracy, and they admired the Old Testament; if they believed in him they might hatch plots against the Government with biblical sanction. Left to themselves the Tuka superstitions would have resulted in bloodshed, if not in grave political danger. To the white settlers in the outlying districts the natives are in the proportion of many hundreds to one, and these must infallibly have fallen victims to Ndungumoi's demand for blood-sacrifice. The outbreak would probably have been confined to the island of Vitilevu, and the Government could have counted on nearly one-half of the group to aid in suppressing it; but as in the case of Hauhauism among the Maoris, which the Tuka resembled, the military operations would have been protracted and costly.
The outbreak in the Mathuata province in 1895, which had no political importance, is interesting from the fact that the rebels at once returned to heathen worship and to cannibalism, as if there had not been a break of more than twenty years. The district of Seankanka includes a number of inland villages whose people scarcely ever visit the sea-coast. Split up into little communities of three or four houses, they have been as completely cut off from the influence of the Mission and the Government as if they were in another country. It may indeed be doubted whether heathen practices of some kind were not carried on continuously, although the people were nominallylotu. They were naturally a peaceable folk who only asked to be left alone, and the coast people had long been irritating them by putting upon them more than their share of the communal and tax work of the district.
On June 11, 1895, the Governor received a letter from the Roko Tui Mathuata announcing that on the last day of May a native constable sent to serve a summons at the inland village of Thalalevu had been attacked and beaten by the inhabitants, who had subsequently taken the villages of Nathereyanga and Ndelaiviti without bloodshed. The Governor,Sir John Thurston, sailed that night for Mathuata with a small force of armed constabulary, and found that the rebels had followed up their success by burning the village of Saivou, killing two of its inhabitants, named Sakiusa and Samisoni, whose bodies were afterwards found dismembered and prepared for cooking. The rebels had retired to an old hill fortress called Thaumuremure, where they were strongly entrenched. On the march inland the besiegers had to pass the grave of the late Buli Seankanka in the village of Nathereyanga, and there they interrupted some of the rebels, who had carefully weeded the grave, and were in the act of presenting kava to the spirit of the dead chief to implore his aid. The siege of Thaumuremure will not loom large in history. The garrison numbered at the most one hundred persons; they had no arms but their spears, while the besiegers carried Martini-Henry rifles. But the garrison bravely blew their conch-shells and danced the death-dance till the last. It was all over in a few minutes. Nine men were shot dead, and the rest took to their heels, to surrender a few days later, while the Government force could boast but three spear-wounds. Nkaranivalu, the arch-rebel, and the two old heathen priests, who had eaten the arms and the legs of the two victims of the outbreak, were carried to Suva to expiate their crime. The people of the scattered villages were collected into one large village under the eye of their chief, and the district was at rest.
The outbreak is only interesting in that it shows how the Fijians confuse Christianity with the Government, and cannot throw off the one without repudiating the other; and how cannibalism was a religious rite and not the mere gratification of a depraved taste.
THE RITES OF THE FIRST FRUITS
We have now to consider a cult which is remarkable in more than one respect—in its contrast to the religious system of the Fijians, its resemblance to certain Australian and Melanesian rites, and in the sidelights which it seems to throw uponthe origin of ancient monuments in Europe.[57]Fijian mythology is essentially tribal; the Mbaki took no cognizance of tribal divisions. It was rather a secret religious society bound together by the common link of initiation. The rite of initiation is a curious echo of the Engwura ceremony of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia as described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. The Nanga, the open-air temple in which the Mbaki was celebrated, has more than a slight resemblance to the alignments at Carnac in Brittany and Merivale on Dartmoor.
The Nanga was the "bed" of the Ancestors, that is, the spot where their descendants might hold communion with them; the Mbaki were the rites celebrated in the Nanga, whether of initiating the youths, or of presenting the first-fruits, or of recovering the sick, or of winning charms against wounds in battle. The cult was confined to a comparatively small area, a bare third of the island of Vitilevu. Outside this area it was unknown, and even among the tribe that built and used the Nanga there were many who knew nothing of the cult beyond the fact that a certain spot near their village might not be visited without exciting the displeasure of the gods, although members of tribes that worshipped other gods, and were frequently at war with them, resorted to the Nanga, which they were not permitted to approach. Even when the two tribes were at war those of the enemy that were initiated were safe in attending the rites, provided that they could make their way to the Nanga unobserved.
The Nangas are now in ruin. There is a large and very perfect one at Narokorokoyawa, several in Navosa (Western Tholo), and three on the south coast between Serua and the Singatoka river. On the western coast there are said to be two, one in Vitongo and the other in Momi. I have visited several whose structure was so identical that one description will serve for all. The Nanga is a rough parallelogram formed of flat stones embedded endwise in the earth, about 100 feet longby 50 feet broad, and lying east and west, though the orientation is not exact. The upright stones forming the walls are from 18 inches to 3 feet in height, but as they do not always touch they may be described as "alignments" rather than walls. At the east end are two pyramidal heaps of stones with square sloping sides and flat tops, 5 feet high and 4 feet by 6 feet on the top. The narrow passage between them is the main entrance to the enclosure. Two similar pyramids placed about the middle of the enclosure divide it roughly into two equal parts, with a narrow passage connecting the two. The western portion is the Nanga-tambu-tambu (or Holy of Holies); the eastern the Loma ni Nanga (or Middle Nanga). In the Nangas on the south coast the two truncated pyramids near the entrance are wanting. At the middle of the west end there is another entrance, and there are gaps in the alignments every six or eight feet to permit people to leave the enclosure informally during the celebration of the rites. Beyond the west end of the Nanga near Vunaniu the ground rose, and on the slope were two old graves upon which were found the decayed remains of two "Tower" muskets. It is possible that chiefs were buried near the "Holy of Holies" of all the Nangas in order that their Shades, who haunted the graves, when summoned to the Nanga by their living descendants, should not have far to come.
HOW THE RITES ORIGINATED
Attention was first called to the Mbaki cult by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, of the Wesleyan Mission, who, though he did not visit any Nanga, wrote an account of the rites in the charming style that marks all his writings.[58]He overcame the natives' reluctance to reveal these dread secrets by a ruse. While he was describing the Australian Bora rites to one of theVunilolo Matuaof the Nanga a woman passed, and, lowering his voice, he whispered, "Hush! the women must not hear these things!" Covering his mouth with his hand the old native exclaimed, "Truly, sir, you are a Lewe ni Nanga. I will tell you all about it." Mr. Adolph Joske was probably the first European to see and describe the great Nanga at Nerokorokoyawa, and he has added much to ourknowledge of the rites[59]. The two accounts vary in detail, perhaps because Mr. Fison drew some of his information from Nemani Ndreu, the Raisevu, who seems to have supplemented his ignorance of the Mbaki with excerpts from his own Kalou-rere cult, and from the rich stores of his imagination.
The tribes that used the Nanga were the Nuyamalo, Nuyaloa, Vatusila, Mbatiwai and Mdavutukia. All these tribes have spread east and south from a place of origin in the western mountain district. They are of Melanesian type, and have fewer traces of Polynesian admixture than the coast tribes. The Mbaki, while its Nanga-temple bears a superficial likeness to the Polynesian Marae, has a very strong resemblance to Melanesian institutions; its dissonance with the Fijian religious system at once suggests that there must be some tradition of its introduction from over-sea. For this we have not far to look, for the tradition is green in the memory of every initiate.
"Long ago two little old men, called Veisina and Rukuruku, drifted across the Great Ocean from the westward, and passing through the Yasawa Islands, they beached their canoe upon the little island of Yakuilau, which lies by the coast of Nandi. Veisina, who landed first, fell into a deep sleep, and slept till the coming of Rukuruku. From the spot where Veisina lay sprangthanga(turmeric), and from Rukuruku's footsteps sprang thelauthi(candle-nut—Aleurites triloba), and therefore the followers of Veisina smear themselves with turmeric, and the followers of Rukuruku with the black ash of the candle-nut, when they go to the Nanga.
"The two old men took counsel, saying, 'Let us go to the chief of Vitongo and ask him to divide his men between us that we may teach them the Mbaki.' And when they made their request the chief granted it, and gave them a piece of flat land on which to build their Nanga. There they built it and called the place Tumba-levu. The descendants of men to whom these two little black-skinned old men taught the mysteries of the Nanga are they which practise it to this day. When they left their home and travelled eastward they carriedthe mysteries with them. The Veisina do not know what the Rukuruku do in the Nanga, nor do the Rukuruku know the mysteries of the Veisina."
Here we have the earliest tradition of missionary enterprise in the Pacific. I do not doubt that the two sooty-skinned little men were castaways driven eastward by one of those strong westerly gales that have been known to last for three weeks at a time. By Fijian custom the lives of all castaways were forfeit, but the pretence to supernatural powers would have saved men full of the religious rites of their Melanesian home, and would have assured them a hearing. The Wainimala tribes can name six generations since they settled in their present home, and therefore the introduction of the Nanga cannot have been less than two centuries ago. During that time it has overspread one-third of the large island.
The following account of the rites is gathered from inquiries that I have made of old men who accompanied me to the Ndavotukia Nangas, supplemented by the full accounts written by Messrs. Fison and Joske. The Veisina and Rukuruku sects used the same Nanga, but were absolutely forbidden to reveal their mysteries to one another on pain of madness or death. In Wainimala they seem to have held their respective festivals in alternate years. But a few of the youths of each sect were initiated in the mysteries of both, in token, perhaps, of the common origin of their institutions. Mr. Joske says that no Nanga was used twice for an initiation ceremony, but I found no support for this statement among the Ndavotukia, whose Nanga was said, and certainly appeared, to have been used for generations.
THE PROCESSION
Each "Lodge" comprised three degrees: (1) TheVere Matua, all old men who acted as priests of the order; (2) theVunilolo, the grown men; and theVilavou(lit., "New Year's men"), the youths who were novices. The great annual festival was the initiation of these youths, who were thus admitted to man's estate, and brought into communion with the ancestral spirits who controlled the destinies of their descendants. The wordVilais the inland synonym for Mbaki, which, with the distributive affixya(ya-mbaki) isthe coast word for "year." TheVilavou, or New year ceremony of initiation, was an annual festival, held in October-November, when thendrala-tree (Erythrina) was in flower. The flowering of thendralamarked the season for yam-planting; the same seasons were observed by the Hawaiians and Tahitians as the New Year. The rites of the Veisina differed slightly from those of the Rukuruku, but as they were more tame and formal I will give precedence to the Rukuruku.
Preparation for theVilavoubegan months before the appointed time by putting all kinds of food and property under a tabu. On the occasion of the last ceremony a number of pigs had been dedicated by cutting off their tails and turning them loose in the vicinity of the Nanga.Masiwas beaten, clubs and spears were carved, paint was prepared for the bodies of the worshippers, and a vast quantity of yams was planted. As theVereof Ndavotukia expressed it, "If any man concealed any of his property, designing not to give it, he was smitten with madness." The same fate awaited any that killed one of the tailless pigs, or dared to dig up any plant that grew near the Nanga. Invitations were sent to the members of other Nangas, who were called theNdre, and they brought lavish contributions of property.
On the day appointed theVereand theVunilolowent first to the Nanga to present the feast and make other preparations, while in the village novices were having their heads shaved with a shark's tooth, and being swathed in coils of masi. A procession was then formed. An oldVerewent first, carrying a carved staff with a socket bored in its upper end. Blowing upon this as on a flute, he sounded a shrill whistle, and the boys followed in single file, carefully treading in his footsteps. As they approached the Nanga they heard the weird chant of theVunilolo, which was supposed to imitate the sound of the surf breaking on a distant reef. The boys flung down their weapons outside the sacred enclosure, and with the help of theVunilolodivested themselves of the huge swathing ofmasi, each lad revolving slowly on his axis while another gathered in the slack, like unwinding a reel of cotton.It being now evening, the property was stored in a temporary shelter, and the ceremony for the day was over. The ovens were opened, and all feasted together far into the night. For four successive days this ritual was repeated, until the storehouse was full to bursting. Thus were the novices made acceptable to the ancestral spirits.
On the fifth day an immense feast was prepared, and the boys were so weighted with the cloth wound about their bodies that they could scarcely walk. They followed theVerepiping on his staff as before, but as they approached the Nanga they listened in vain for the welcoming chant. The enclosure seemed silent and deserted, but from the woods broke forth shrill parrot calls, and a weird booming sound, which they presently came to know as the note of a bamboo trumpet immersed in water. The oldVereled them slowly forward to the eastern gate of the Nanga, and bade them kneel and crawl after him on all fours. Here a dreadful sight appalled them. Right across the entrance lay the naked body of a dead man, smeared with black paint from head to foot, with his entrails protruding. Above him, stretched stiff, with his head upon one pyramid and his feet on the other, lay another body, and under this hideous arch, over this revolting threshold they were made to crawl. Within the enclosure their hearts turned to water, for the dead men lay in rows, smeared with blood and entrails, and over every body they had to crawl. At the further end sat the chiefVere, regarding them with a stony glare, and before him they were made to halt in line. Suddenly he burst out with a great yell; the dead men started up, and ran to wash off the blood and filth in the river hard by. They are theVereand a few of theVunilolo, playing the part of the dead Ancestors with the aid of the blood and entrails of the pigs now baking in the ovens.