FOOTNOTES:

THAKOMBAU CONVERTED

On April 28, 1854, the momentous decision was made. Assembling his chiefs he read the two letters to them, and announced his decision, reminding them of the prosperity of Tonga since the adoption of Christianity. On the following Sunday he attended service with about three hundred of his chiefs and retainers, all clad in waistcloths, for the missionaries had ordained that the outward sign of conversion should be clothes. As soon as the people had recovered from their astonishment there was a convulsion that nearly cost Thakombau his life. Rewa was still stoutly heathen, and all the malcontents in Mbau flocked to the enemy. The island of Koro also rose. Mbau was now hemmed in, and for the first time since 1835 it was put into a state of defence. But there were traitors within. Yangondamu, Thakombau's cousin, won over by two of the king's brothers who had joined the enemy, had engaged to assassinate him. His house was crowded with young chiefs anxious to pay court to the rising power, while Thakombau sat alone, deserted by all but the missionary and a faithful Tongan. This immediate peril was averted by the dispatch of Yangondamu in command of a force to reduce the Koro rebels, and while he was away a Captain Dunn arrived from America with a cargo of arms, which he insisted upon selling to the Mbauans despite the entreaties of the Europeans.

The missionaries had already made a clean sweep of cannibalism, the slaughter of prisoners, and the strangling of widows, but when they tried to force a constitution on European lines upon the king they found him obstinate. "I was born a chief, and a chief I will die," he said, and his firmness, distasteful as it was to the missionaries, saved, not only himself, but also the cause of the mission; for, as Waterhouse himself records, "the populace, long favourably inclined towards the new religion, now hated Christianity because it was the religion of Thakombau," and if Thakombau had added to the other sins the abdication of his authority, nothing could have saved him or the cause of his foreign advisers.

On November 8, 1854, Thakombau was induced by Captain Dunn to hold a conference with his brother, Ratu Mara, on his ship, theDragon. This meeting, effected with so much difficulty, resulted in nothing but a profession of reconciliation. Thakombau had so far humbled himself as to sue his enemy, the king of Rewa, for peace, but his overtures were haughtily rejected. In the same month he attended an inquiry held by Captain Denham on H.M.S.Herald, at which he formally withdrew all the charges he had made against the Europeans, much to the chagrin of the missionaries, who had forwarded them to the commander. The Europeans had sent three representatives, who roundly charged the king with the burning of Levuka, but of this charge he seems to have cleared himself. This was the first occasion on which he officially stated the limits of his dominions. He had explained the suzerainty which he claimed over Somosomo, Lakemba and other states, but when asked point-blank to declare the limits of the territory in which he would undertake to protect the Europeans, he indicated a territory no larger than an English country parish, and his reply was disconcerting to those who had been styling him Tui Viti, King of Fiji.

A DEATH PORTENT

His conciliatory spirit, being set down to fear, had availed him nothing, and in the last months of 1854, the fate of Mbau still hung in the balance. Ratu Nkara had offered to end the contest by a duel between the two kings. "It is shameful," he said, "that so many warriors should perish; let youor me die": but Thakombau replied, "Are we dogs that we should bite one another? Are we not chiefs? Let us fight with our warriors like chiefs."

But in January, 1855, the low tide of Thakombau's fortunes began to turn. Rewa was stricken with alarm at the news of a portent. Andi Thivo, one of the Rewa queens, noticed that tears were exuding from one of the roots of taro set before her. She addressed it, asking why it wept. Was Rewa to be destroyed? Was her father about to die? Was Thakombau? Were any of the chiefs whom she named? But the taro made no sign. Was her lord, the king of Rewa, near his death? A voice from the taro said "Yes," and the weeping ceased. The report spread through the length and breadth of the land, and the people waited in hushed expectancy. To them their king was already dead. Suddenly the war-drums themselves were hushed. The omen was fulfilled; Ratu Nkara, "the Hungry Woman," "the Long Fellow," was no more. A mighty man, Thakombau's only dangerous enemy, had fallen. He died of dysentery on January 26, 1855, having in his last moments promised to turn Christian if he recovered, swearing nevertheless to have the blood of Thakombau. But he was speechless during his last moments, and could not bequeath a continuance of the war to his chiefs.

Though he had shown the missionaries many kindnesses and allowed them to live with him, though he had had more intercourse with white men than any other chief, he died in the faith of his fathers. In the last months of his life he was with difficulty restrained from wading into the river, where sharks were seen, in order to prove to the missionary, Moore, that his person was sacred to them. A fortnight before his death he completed the building of two heathen temples to ensure his victory over Mbau, and sent a polite message to the missionary asking him to hold his services in another part of the town, "lest the gods should be angry at the noise." He said that he did not intend any disrespect to Jehovah, but was putting his own gods on their last trial, and desired to give them every chance of success. Though his chiefs were still heathen, out of respect for the missionary only one of his wiveswas strangled, and she, as they explained, was old and already half dead.

On the death of Thakombau's personal enemy Rewa was glad enough to make peace with Mbau, but the Mbau rebels, who had to fear reprisals, continued the struggle. But in March King George of Tonga arrived at Mbau with forty large canoes to take away the war-canoe presented to him by Thakombau. After trying in vain to bring about a reconciliation, and suffering the loss of one of his own chiefs through the treachery of the rebels, King George agreed to lend his troops to Thakombau. The prospect of this foreign interference so incensed the people that tribes which had hitherto taken no part in the struggle threw in their lot with the rebels, and every one who opposed Christianity, or had anything to fear from Mbau, joined the enemy. The priests were inspired; the oracles spoke. The Tongan fleet would be derelict at Kamba for want of hands to work the sails after the battle. It was to be a death-struggle between the old gods and the new.

The promontory of Kamba was to be the battlefield, and the fortress at its extremity swarmed with warriors. For three days the allied fleets waited near the fort in the hope that it would capitulate without a siege, but on April 7 they bore down upon the promontoryâ€”a formidable spectacle. They were received with a volley of musketry. By all the rules of Fijian warfare this should have checked the landing for that day, but to the astonishment of the Kambans it did nothing of the sort. The sails were lowered, and, leaving their dead and wounded to the care of their women, the Tongans rushed to the attack. There were more surprises in store for the garrison; instead of hiding behind trees, and trying to scare the defenders into flight, the Tongans advanced to the assault in the open, and recked nothing of the men who fell. King George, who commanded in person, had decided to invest the town by throwing up fortifications fronting the defences, and to starve it into submission, but the Vavau warriors pressed on, and took the place by assault. They afterwards defended themselves for this act of insubordination by saying that theywere looking for the defences, and, taking the rampart for mere outworks, had found themselves in possession of the town before they were aware of their mistakeâ€”a familiar form of Tongan boasting. The Tongans lost fourteen killed and thirty wounded; the Mbauans, who had been mere spectators, escaped almost scatheless. More than two hundred of the enemy were killed, the greater part by the heathen Fijians on the Mbau side, and two hundred prisoners were taken. Thakombau was willing to spare all but Koroi-ravula, but King George interfered to save his life, which was justly forfeited by European as well as Fijian law. The submission of the rebels was complete. No less than twenty thousand natives proved their allegiance to Thakombau by accepting Christianity and adapting their customs to the wishes of the missionaries.

THE TONGANS TAKE KAMBA BY ASSAULT

It is not to be understood that the conversion of Thakombau was the first success of the missionaries. A printing press had been at work for many years, and, even in the Mbau territory, many hundreds of the natives had been taught to read and write. There were mission stations in Lakemba, Somosomo, Rewa, Levuka and Mbua, and in many of the coast villages there were native teachers, the Christian and heathen natives living amicably side by side. The Christians claimed immunity from war service, and it was therefore not to be wondered at that Thakombau showed indecent glee when appealed to by the missionaries for help against persecution at Mbau. "You have often refused to fight for me, and now you have a war of your own on your hands, and I am glad of it." But the Lau group professed Christianity to a man; in the Lomaiviti islands the heathen were in a minority, and now, by Thakombau's conversion, the north-east coast of Vitilevu adopted the new faith. Only the inland and western tribes of the two large islands continued in the faith of their fathers, and these were soon obliged to fight for their religion.

In 1858 Thakombau's peace of mind was again rudely disturbed. Williams, the United States Consul, whose enmity against Thakombau was personal, had never relaxed his efforts to bring about foreign intervention. During the Fourth of July festivities in 1849 Williams's house on the island ofNukulau had been burned to the ground, and though report attributed the fire to pure accident during a display of fireworks by its convivial master, Williams laid his loss at the door of Thakombau. There were other claims by American citizens, and Williams's persistency at length induced the American Government to send a frigate to make inquiries. Commodore Boutwell had visited Mbau in 1855. His high-handed treatment of Thakombau, and his ready acceptance of theex partestatement of the claimants, passed almost unnoticed in that eventful year, but in 1858 the king was made to realize that the American award of Â£9000 as compensation to American residents was no empty threat, but was a claim that must be met. He had had a sinister experience of the danger of levying from his subjects contributions not sanctioned by custom, and he knew that the task was hopeless.

But this was not all. A new star had risen on the eastern horizon, and Mbau was now threatened by the Tongans. Occasional intercourse between Tonga and Fiji had taken place for perhaps three or four centuries, through canoes plying between the different Tongan islands having been driven westward by the trade wind, but it was not until later in the eighteenth century that it became regular. At the time of Cook's visit in 1772 it had become as much a part of every young chief's education to take part in a warlike expedition to Fiji as it was in England a little later to make the grand tour. The Tongans steered for Lakemba, where they took part with one or other of the factions that happened to be at war, and, having taken the lion's share of the loot, and built themselves new war-canoes in Kambara ofvesi, a timber very scarce in Tonga, they set sail for their own country. But not a few stayed behind, and gradually a little colony of Tongan-speaking half-castes established itself in all the principal windward islands.

THE TONGAN CONQUESTS

In 1837 the influence of the Tongans in Fiji received an unexpected impetus from the arrival of the first Wesleyan missionaries, who sailed from Tonga to Lakemba with a retinue of Tongan teachers. They were at once joined by all the resident Tongans, who were now as zealous in convertingthe Fijians to Christianity as they had formerly been in converting their property to their own use. The countenance and encouragement of the white missionaries fostered their natural arrogance, and, when persuasion failed to effect conversion, stronger methods were sometimes resorted to. By the year 1848 the Tongans had got thoroughly out of hand, and King George, who was not yet secure against conspiracy, foresaw that any rival who might choose to recruit partisans in Fiji could return to Tonga with a formidable army. In order to provide a legitimate outlet for the ambition of his cousin Maafu, he dispatched that redoubtable warrior to Fiji ostensibly as governor of the Tongan colony, in reality as conqueror of as much of the group as he could take. Maafu's strong personality, aided by the lash, soon reduced the turbulent Tongans to order, and island after island of the eastern group went down before him. The Tongan teachers, now established in most of the western islands, acted as his political agents, and the missionaries were powerless to discountenance aggressions that were avowedly made with the object of spreading the Christian faith. So horrible were the excesses of his warriors in these raids that the Wesleyan authorities were occasionally obliged to wash their hands of him, but their somewhat half-hearted protests did not prevent Taveuni and the greater part of Vanualevu from falling under his control.

The Tongans had carried all before them by their superior courage and dash in frontal attack, and by their intelligent use of European weapons.[30]In 1858 Maafu's cruisers were ravaging territory claimed by Mbau, and the two powers stood face to face. Thakombau was wise enough to see that, in the event of an open rupture, even if he should gain an initial advantage over Maafu's warriors, he could not hope to stand against a power that had all Tonga to draw upon for recruits, and that with America pressing for its debt, and Maafu bent upon conquest, he had every prospect of finding himself invassalage to one or the other. In his extremity he turned to Mr. Pritchard, the English Consul, who, having a firm belief in the future of the islands as a cotton-growing country, was anxious to attract immigrants with capital. On Mr. Pritchard's advice, Thakombau executed a deed of cession, offering the sovereignty of the group to England on condition that he should retain the rank and title of Tui Viti (King of Fiji) accorded to him by the American Government,[31]and that, in return for 200,000 acres of land, the British Government should satisfy the American claims.

Some pressure was put upon the Home Government from the Australian colonies to induce it to accept the offer upon the ground of the high price to which cotton had risen in consequence of the disturbances in the Southern States of the Union. Colonel Smythe, R.A., was sent out to report upon the proposal, but, in the face of his assurance that Thakombau's authority controlled less than half the group, the Government, already embarrassed by the expenses of a Maori war, could not entertain the offer.

The prospect of annexation had attracted from New Zealand a large number of Englishmen, some of whom settled in the island. In 1861 the European colony numbered 166 adults, of whom the majority were respectable people. They bought large tracts of land from the native chiefs, who sold recklessly whether the land belonged to them or not.

ANNEXATION

From 1861 to 1869 the Europeans increased to 1800, and the control of political affairs passed from the native chiefs to Europeans, who served as a check upon Maafu's ambition. The mission spread rapidly, until by 1870 all but a few of the inland tribes were nominally Christian. Various unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a settled government, but in 1871 Thakombau was declared constitutional sovereign of the entire group, with a ministry and two houses of parliament, a form of government ridiculously unsuited to the needs of thecountry, seeing that the natives, who numbered nearly one hundred to one, were to have no votes. Thakombau had an army officered by white men, and made abortive attempts to conquer the interior, but the new government did little beyond plunging into debt, and splitting the country into factions. In 1873 the political state of the group had become intolerable, and on British Commissioners being sent to inquire into the matter on the spot, the chiefs were induced, after some hesitation, to cede the sovereignty to England unconditionally. The Deed of Cession was signed in September, 1874. No doubt the chiefs acted to some extent under pressure from the Europeans, who had purchased land which they could not enjoy while it was in occupation by natives, and for which they desired to have titles. The Lands Commission had a task of extraordinary difficulty. Tracts had been sold by chiefs who had no title to them, and sometimes the same land had been sold to two or more purchasers. Many of the deeds produced could never have been understood by the natives who signed them, and often the boundaries were imperfectly described. Sir Arthur Gordon,[32]the first Governor, wisely decided to govern the natives as far as possible through the machinery that he found in operation, and it encountered no open opposition with the exception of an insignificant rising in the western interior of Vitilevu, where the tribes, provoked by the encroachments of their neighbours on the coast, and alarmed at the ravages of the measles, reverted to their heathen gods for a few months. This outbreak was put down by native levies.

Thakombau, who received a pension of Â£1500 a year, was loyal to the British Government, and, both in the administration of his own province and in his intercourse with other chiefs, used his immense influence to promote the contentment of his people under their new rulers. At his death in 1882 the last of the great chiefs passed away, for Maafu had died in the preceding year.

FOOTNOTES:[16]One of them, having thus smeared his head, stooped to the fire to dry it; the powder flared up, and he leapt forth into therarasinged bare to the scalp.[17]The native poems of the time refer also to a hailstorm, which destroyed the plantations, a hurricane which caused a tidal wave and a great flood, and raised the alluvial flats of the Rewa delta several feet, a tradition which has support in the fact that a network of mangrove roots underlies the soil at a depth of four or five feet. The hurricane is said to have carried the pestilence away with it.[18]They boarded her and directed her to the sandal-wood district in Mbau, returning to the shore with a pig, a monkey, two geese and a cat, besides knives and axes and mirrors. The native historians name her captain "Red-face."[19]It is well here to correct an error for which Thomas Williams was originally responsible, and which has been copied by almost every writer on Fiji since his day, namely, that "about the year 1804 a number of convicts escaped from New South Wales, and settled among the islands." The only foundation for this story is that "Paddy" Connor, who was actually a deserter from a passing ship, was popularly supposed to have "done time," and that the morals of the early settlers were such that if they were not convicts they ought to have been. Putting aside the extreme improbability that escaped convicts should beat 1200 miles in the teeth of the prevailing wind, while so many eligible hiding-places lay near at hand, it is certain that the first white settlers were all shipwrecked sailors, deserters, or men paid off at their own request.According to M. Dumont d'Urville, two escaped convicts named "Sina" and "Gemy" (? Jimmy) were concerned in the seizure of theAimable Josephinein 1833.[20]Among the settlers in 1812 was one who was believed to be secretly addicted to cannibalism, and was ostracized by his own countrymen.[21]The story of this adventure, as narrated by Dillon, in hisVoyage in the South Seas, is the most dramatic passage in Polynesian literature.[22]The same Maraia who was afterwards forcibly married to the captain of a Manila ship.[23]Cakobau, according to Fijian spelling.[24]Now included in the grounds of Government House.[25]The massacre took place on the site of the present residence of the manager of the Bank of New Zealand, and four hundred persons were massacred without distinction of sex or age.[26]SeeThe King and People of Fiji, by Joseph Waterhouse.[27]Waterhouse, p. 188.[28]The second rebel chief of that name.[29]Author ofThe King and People of Fiji.[30]Maafu was the first to employ cannon in native craft in Fiji. He had two small pieces mounted on the decks of canoes, which, if they did but little execution in a bombardment, often ended a siege by striking terror into the hearts of the garrison.[31]Mr. Miller, the British Consul in Hawaii, first addressed Thakombau as "Tui Viti" (King of Fiji) in a letter written in 1849 on the subject of the American claims, it being the policy of the claimants to make one chief responsible for damages sustained in every part of the group, however remote from the frontiers of Thakombau's territory.[32]Now Lord Stanmore.

[16]One of them, having thus smeared his head, stooped to the fire to dry it; the powder flared up, and he leapt forth into therarasinged bare to the scalp.

[17]The native poems of the time refer also to a hailstorm, which destroyed the plantations, a hurricane which caused a tidal wave and a great flood, and raised the alluvial flats of the Rewa delta several feet, a tradition which has support in the fact that a network of mangrove roots underlies the soil at a depth of four or five feet. The hurricane is said to have carried the pestilence away with it.

[18]They boarded her and directed her to the sandal-wood district in Mbau, returning to the shore with a pig, a monkey, two geese and a cat, besides knives and axes and mirrors. The native historians name her captain "Red-face."

[19]It is well here to correct an error for which Thomas Williams was originally responsible, and which has been copied by almost every writer on Fiji since his day, namely, that "about the year 1804 a number of convicts escaped from New South Wales, and settled among the islands." The only foundation for this story is that "Paddy" Connor, who was actually a deserter from a passing ship, was popularly supposed to have "done time," and that the morals of the early settlers were such that if they were not convicts they ought to have been. Putting aside the extreme improbability that escaped convicts should beat 1200 miles in the teeth of the prevailing wind, while so many eligible hiding-places lay near at hand, it is certain that the first white settlers were all shipwrecked sailors, deserters, or men paid off at their own request.According to M. Dumont d'Urville, two escaped convicts named "Sina" and "Gemy" (? Jimmy) were concerned in the seizure of theAimable Josephinein 1833.

According to M. Dumont d'Urville, two escaped convicts named "Sina" and "Gemy" (? Jimmy) were concerned in the seizure of theAimable Josephinein 1833.

[20]Among the settlers in 1812 was one who was believed to be secretly addicted to cannibalism, and was ostracized by his own countrymen.

[21]The story of this adventure, as narrated by Dillon, in hisVoyage in the South Seas, is the most dramatic passage in Polynesian literature.

[22]The same Maraia who was afterwards forcibly married to the captain of a Manila ship.

[23]Cakobau, according to Fijian spelling.

[24]Now included in the grounds of Government House.

[25]The massacre took place on the site of the present residence of the manager of the Bank of New Zealand, and four hundred persons were massacred without distinction of sex or age.

[26]SeeThe King and People of Fiji, by Joseph Waterhouse.

[27]Waterhouse, p. 188.

[28]The second rebel chief of that name.

[29]Author ofThe King and People of Fiji.

[30]Maafu was the first to employ cannon in native craft in Fiji. He had two small pieces mounted on the decks of canoes, which, if they did but little execution in a bombardment, often ended a siege by striking terror into the hearts of the garrison.

[31]Mr. Miller, the British Consul in Hawaii, first addressed Thakombau as "Tui Viti" (King of Fiji) in a letter written in 1849 on the subject of the American claims, it being the policy of the claimants to make one chief responsible for damages sustained in every part of the group, however remote from the frontiers of Thakombau's territory.

[32]Now Lord Stanmore.

Chiefsâ€”The Growth of the Confederationâ€”The Confederation in Decayâ€”Lala, Communal and Personalâ€”Community of Property through Kerekere.

The principal authority upon the state of society among the Fijians when Europeans first came into contact with them, is the Rev. Thomas Williams, a man possessing intelligence and observation and the instinct of anthropological research without the training necessary for systematic inquiries. Belonging to the pre-speculation period, he described what he found and not what he wished to find, and in this respect he is a valuable witness, but, like other missionaries, he used a loose terminology in describing Fijian society, making the word "tribe" serve any group of men from a family to a state. His manuscript fell upon evil days. His scientific instinct of accuracy and detail was ludicrously out of keeping with the spirit of the missionary publications of those days, in which any customs that did not suit the English middle-class notions of propriety were either passed over as heathen wickedness too deplorable for description, or set forth (with a rich commentary of invective) in an obvious spirit of exaggeration to show the subscribers at home how perilous were the lives of missionaries, and how worthy the labourer of his hire. In his simple love of truth, Mr. Williams had forgotten to point the usual moral, and when Mr. Calvert brought home his manuscript in 1856, the Missionary Society decided that it must be edited with vigilance. A Bowdler was found in the person of a Mr. George Stringer Rowe, otherwise unknown to fame, who re-wrote most of what was supplied to him, he apparentlyhaving no special knowledge of the subject. "But here," says this maiden-modest editor, whenever the outspoken Williams dares to touch upon the marriage laws, "even at the risk of making the picture incomplete, there may not be given a faithful representation."

SINISTER FATE OF WILLIAMS' MS.

The manuscript has long disappeared, and now we can never know exactly what was Williams and what was Rowe. In respect of its scientific accuracy, it may be questioned whether it did not find in Rowe a worse fate than the "Scented Garden" met at the hands of Lady Burton. Fortunately for science the loss of Williams's manuscript is not as irreparable as a distinguished anthropologist would have us believe. Mr. McLennan, in rating Mr. George Stringer Rowe for his meddlesome editing, remarks, "The natives were speedily converted first, and slowly extinguished afterwards. Comparatively few of the natives remain, and our chance of knowing well what were their laws and customs is perhaps gone for ever."[33]Upon this curious assumption, he treats "Fiji and the Fijians" as modern Biblical critics treat the Pentateuchâ€”namely, as an obscure treatise whose loose terminology can only be read by the light of internal evidence. Had he taken the trouble to ascertain that the Fijians, so far from being extinguished, still number more than two-thirds of their strength when Williams wrote, and maintain their old tribal divisions and some of their social organization intact; had he cared to look through the mass of evidence collected since the cession of the islands in 1874, he would have spared his readers a lengthy commentary, and himself a number of errors which go far to explain his unscientific attitude in his great controversy with Morgan on the classificatory system of relationship.

The key to the Melanesian system of government is Ancestor-worship. Just as every act in a Fijian's life was controlled by his fear of Unseen Powers, so was his conception of human authority based upon religion. Patriarchy, if not the oldest, is certainly the most natural shape into which the religious instinct of primitive man would crystallize. First there was the familyâ€”and the islands of the Pacificwere probably peopled by single familiesâ€”ruled absolutely by the father with his store of traditions brought from the land whence he came. His sons, knowing no laws but those which he had taught them; planting their crops, building their huts and their canoes under his direction, bringing their disputes to him for decision, have come to trust to him for guidance in every detail of their lives. Suddenly he leaves them. How are they to believe that he whose approval they courted, and whose anger they feared but yesterday, has vanished like the flame of yesterday's fire? His spirit has left his body; yet, somewhere it must be watching over them still. In life he was wont to threaten them with punishment for disobedience, and even now, when they do the things of which he disapproved, or withhold their daily offerings of food at his tomb, punishment is sure to followâ€”the crops fail; a hurricane unroofs the hut; floods sweep away the canoe. Thus they come to propitiate the spirit armed with such powers to harm, and, in response to their prayers, victory is given them over their enemies. When they are beaten back, he is frowning upon them: when the yams ripen to abundant harvest he is rewarding their piety.

In this most natural creed was the germ of government. Each son of the dead father founded his own family, but still owed allegiance to the earthly representative of their deified fatherâ€”the eldest sonâ€”on whom a portion of the father's godhead had descended. Generations came and went; the tribe had increased from tens to hundreds, but still the eldest son of the eldest, who carried in his veins the blood of the common ancestor in its purest form, was venerated as the head of the tribe. The ancestor was not forgotten, but he was now translated into Kalou-vu (lit. Root-God) and had his temple and his priests, who had themselves become a hereditary caste, with the strong motive of self-interest for keeping his memory green. His descendant, the tribal chief, is set within the pale of the tabu: his will may not be disobeyed, nor his body touched without incurring the wrath of the Unseen. The priests and the chief give oneanother mutual support, the one by threatening divine punishment for disobedience; the other by insisting upon regularity in bringing offerings to the temple.

RISE OF THE CHIEF'S POWER

Had there been no war in Fiji the power of the aristocracy would have been limited. Among the mountain tribes of Vitilevu, who seldom extended their borders by conquest, the chief, while enjoying some measure of religious veneration, can issue no important order without the consent of the council of elders. He can exact no truckling homage where every member of the tribe is a blood relation. But for conquest, Fiji would have been a country of tiny independent states, no larger than a single village could contain. From conquests sprang the great confederations. The chief of a conquering tribe rose to be head of a complicated social body; the members of his tribe an aristocracy supported by the industry of an alien plebs composed of tribes they had conquered and fugitives from other conquerors. These too had had their tribal gods and tribal chiefs, but what have men, reduced to open slavery, to do with such dignities? A generation of ill-usage sufficed to wipe out the very memory of independence. For god and chief alike they had their suzerain, upon whose indulgence their lives depended.

Besides the fortune of war, the chiefs owed much of the enormous increase in their power to their system of land tenure. The land boundaries of the tribe were telescopic. Every tribe owned as much land as it could defend against the encroachments of its neighbours. There was, as will presently be explained, individual ownership of land actually under cultivation, but all waste land was held, theoretically, in common. And, since the mouthpiece of the tribal will was the chief, the waste lands were at his disposal. So long as he gave it to his own people to use he gained no power, but as soon as fugitives, driven out by other conquerors, began to run to him for protection, and were granted land on which to settle, he found a body of tenants springing up who regarded him as their personal overlord. It was to him that they paid their rent in kind and in labour; it was to him, and not to the tribe, that they gave feudal service in war. Thechief of a great federation had thus two distinct classes of vassalsâ€”serfs conquered in war, and feudal tenants.

Before the advent of Europeans and the introduction of firearms, the confederations were never very large. Tribe fought with tribe on equal terms; the besieged had an advantage over the besiegers. Every tribe had a natural stronghold, stored with food and water for many weeks, into which it would retire in times of danger. If they did not carry it at the first assault, by surprise, or by treachery from within, the besiegers went home to await a better opportunity, for the slow starvation of a garrison by organized siege had never occurred to any native leader. The largest confederations known to us by traditionâ€”Verata and Thakaundroveâ€”controlled less than ten miles of coast line. With the introduction of gunpowder in 1808 native wars became far more destructive. The powerful chiefs immediately doubled their power, and yet Thakombau, the head of the most powerful confederation of all, even in the zenith of his power, never ruled directly over more than fifteen thousand people, though, undoubtedly, he could bring influence to bear upon half the group.

Bringing first fruits to Mbau.Bringing first fruits to Mbau.

Bringing first fruits to Mbau.

The development of autocracy followed certain well-defined lines. At first the chief was priest and king after the order of Melchisedec of the Ammonite city, Jebusâ€”that is to say, he received divine honours while wielding the temporal authority. But as the tribe grew the temporal power became irksome to him. The tradition of the founding of the temporal line in Tonga about the beginning of the seventeenth century throws the clearest light upon the origin of the spiritual and temporal lines. A king of Tonga had goaded his people into assassinating him; and his son, after avenging his murder, sought to put a buffer between himself and his rebellious subjects by delegating his executive power to his younger brother, reserving to himself all the solid advantages of his high station without any responsibilities. Safe from popular outbreak, he began to enjoy increased veneration owing to the more rigid tabu that hedged him in. In another case preserved by tradition the temporal power was founded bythe indolence of the supreme chief. In order to rid himself of the cares of government, he constituted his brother his hereditary minister, and bequeathed to his descendants an ornamental and dignified retirement. The Mikado and the Shogun are analogues of the Roko Tui and the Vunivalu.[34]

ORIGIN OF SPIRITUAL CHIEFS

In Fiji, the process of scission was found in every stage of evolution. Among the Melanesian tribes of the interior it had not begun; in Rewa the spiritual Roko Tui still wielded the temporal power; in Mbau and Thakaundrove he was beginning to lose even the veneration due to his rank. Just as the coast tribes had begun to adopt the Polynesian gods in addition to their own ancestral mythology, so they were more ready to follow the Polynesian example of separating the temporal from the spiritual chiefs.

The constitution of Mbau may be taken as a type of the Fijian constitution. First in rank was the Roko Tui Mbau (Sacred Lord of Mbau). His person was sacred. He never engaged personally in war. He was the special patron of the priests, who, in return, were unstinting in their insistence upon his divinity. He alone might wear his turban during the kava-drinking. It was tabu to strangle his widow, though the widows of no other chief were exempt from paying that last honour to the dead. At his death no cry of lamentation might be uttered, but a solemn blast was sounded on the conch-shell, as at the passing of a god.

Next in rank came the temporal chief, the Vu-ni-valu (Root of War, or Skilled in War), who was at once Commander-in-Chief and executive Sovereign. He never consulted the Roko Tui Mbau in temporal affairs, and he enjoyed tabu privileges little inferior to those paid to his spiritual suzerain. The Vunivalu always belonged to the Tui Kamba (Lords of Kamba) sept, and the Roko Tui Mbau to the Vusaratu ("Chief sept").

The Tunitonga, the hereditary adviser and spokesman of the chiefs, ranked next. He was the state matchmaker, and disposed absolutely of the young chief girls, whose natural guardian he was.

The Mbete (priests) and Mata-ni-vanua (Royal messengers,lit.Messengers of the land) were next in consequence, though the chiefs of the Fisher septs wielded influence in proportion to their force of character.

Each sept had its own quarter of the town, the heralds at its eastern extremity, next the Vusarandave (hereditary soldiers), and the fishermen nearest to the mainland. Across the narrow straits were the planting lands of the subject tribes, who might be seen at every low tide, wading across the ford with contributions of food.

The first effects of foreign interference was to strengthen the power of the chiefs; the second, to destroy it. For more than two years Mbau enjoyed a monopoly of muskets, which enabled her almost to double the extent of her territory. To the eastward the kingdom of Somosomo swallowed up the whole of Taveuni and the eastern portion of Vanua Levu, while the Tongan immigrants under Maafu first conquered the Lau group, and then threatened the independence of Mbau itself. The immediate effect of subjugation was to blight the traditions and religion of the conquered tribe, for independence is as necessary to their life as light and air to the life of a plant. It is astonishing how quickly the status of a Fijian is reflected in his bearing. In an assemblage of Fijians an unskilled eye can pick out the members even of tribes who were subdued within the memory of men still living, by their slinking gait, their shifty eye, and the humble curve of their spine. A few years have changed them from warriors into beaten curs. Their chief, a hewer of wood like themselves, ceases at once to inspire respect; they approach him now without crying thetama, the prerogative he used to share with the gods themselves; they keep thetamafor their alienconqueror and his gods; of their own they pretend to have forgotten the very name, nor dare they any more to claimtauvurelationship with any cousin-tribe that has preserved its freedom. They have dropped out of the social fabric, and chief and subject alike spend their lives in weaving ignoble plots to alleviate the squalor of their servitude.

INFLUENCE OF CONQUEST

Far otherwise the conqueror. He who, but a generation back, would have sweated in the yam-field with his men, now grew fat upon the contributions of his tenants and the toil of his kitchen-men. His harem was crowded with the daughters of allied chiefs, and the fairest girls from every conquered village. Panders and sycophants flocked to him; dwarfs and negroes and renegade Europeans were in his train; buffoons told dirty stories over his evening kava bowl; poets forged heroic genealogies for him, and when he went abroad men squatted on the ground with averted faces andtama'ed. Every vessel that he used was sacred, and brought death to any lowborn man that touched it. Every member of his tribe swam upon the tide of his prosperity. His village became a village of chiefs, with serfs of their own to plant food for them, where the youths were trained to the chief-like exercises of war and seamanship and dancing, and the old men spent their nights in feasting and concocting plots for extending their dominion. As for the Roko Tui, the Sacred Chief among the conquered tribesâ€”there being no place for such rank among serfsâ€”he was fain to surrender his sanctity; among the conquerors he degenerated into an ornamental symbol of the powers divine.

The chief was seen at his best among those tribes that had preserved their independence without seeking to extend their borders. Among the Melanesian tribes in the western half of Vitilevu, in a number of isolated islands, such as Vatulele and the Yasawa islands, the chief was veritably the father of his people. Neither his dignity, nor the sanctity of his person depended, as with us, upon any adventitious barriers between himself and his subjects. Familiarity bred no contempt. Like them, he wore nothing but themalo; with them he plied the digging-stick at planting time. And yet, though anymight approach him, none forgot the honours due to him. When Roko Tui Nandronga worked himself into a drunken fury over the accidental burning of his kitchen, his whole people, chiefs and all, besmeared themselves with ashes, and crawled to his feet to sue forgiveness; and when the Colonial Government threatened to deport him for unjust exactions levied on his people, the very people who had suffered from his extortions implored the Governor to reinstate him, saying that they loved him as a father. "Can we picture," asks TeufelsdrÃ¶ckh, "a naked Duke of Wellington addressing a naked House of Lords?" Had the sage seen a Fijian chief among his people he would have marked how the naked brown skin may be clothed in a divinity that needs no visible garment to lend it dignity.

The first blow at the power of the chiefs was struck unconsciously by the missionaries. Neither they nor the chiefs themselves realized how closely the government of the Fijians was bound up with their religion. No sooner had a missionary gained a foothold in a chief village than the tabu was doomed, and on the tabu depended half the people's reverence for rank. The tabu died hard, as such institutions should die. The first-fruits were still presented to the chief, but they were no longer carried from him to the temple, since their excuseâ€”as an offering to persuade the ancestors to grant abundant increaseâ€”had passed away. No longer supported by the priests, the Sacred Chief fell upon evil days. Disestablished and disendowed, he was left to subsist upon the bounty of the temporal chief, whose power and dignity had, as yet, suffered no eclipse, for it was not the interest of the Europeans who were now crowding into the group to attack it. The chiefs guaranteed their lives and property, the chiefs sold them land, and protected them in their occupation of it; the chiefs levied contributions to pay for the contracts they had made with them; and, in return, the white men were always ready with muskets and ammunition to help them to keep rebellious vassals in check.

SIR A. GORDON'S NATIVE POLICY

The temporal chiefs sounded the death-knell of their privileges when they were persuaded to cede their country tothe British Government. Had they realized the consequences they would have preferred the danger of conquest by Maafu and his Tongans, or bullying by American commanders, as more than one has since confessed to me. But Thakombau was weary of bearing the brunt of European aggression, and when Thakombau persuaded, who was strong enough to hold aloof? The British Government began wisely enough considering the information at its disposal. Sir Arthur Gordon (now Lord Stanmore), the first governor, was gifted with a rare sympathy with native modes of thought. With the experience of the disastrous native wars in New Zealand before his eyes, he realized the importance of governing the country through its own strong native government. To deprive the chiefs of any of their privileges, to deny them all share in the government of their people, would have been to convert, not only them, but their people into enemies. To accept and improve the native system was at once the most just, the most safe and the most economical policy. His expert advisers were Sir John Thurston and Mr. David Wilkinson, the former deeply versed in native politics, and the latter in native customs, if not in customary law. With their help he set about enclosing the natives as it were within a ring fence. The islands were divided into provinces coinciding roughly with the boundaries of the existing confederations as he found them. The ruling chiefs were made lieutenant-governors under the title ofRoko Tui, borrowed from the Sacred Chiefs who had no longer any use for it; the province was sub-divided into districts under chiefs with the title ofMbuli("Crowned"); the system of village councils was extended to the province, and to the high chiefs themselves, who met once a year to make recommendations to the Governor. War and cannibalism were of course put down, and polygamy, which had long been forbidden by the missionaries, was discountenanced, but otherwise the existing native customary law was embodied in a code of regulations passed expressly for the natives to be administered by native magistrates under European supervision.

It was here that the first mistake was made. The chiefs' privileges were well understood; their limitations had never been studied. It was known that the chief could command the gratuitous service of his subjects, provided that he fed them while they were working for him. It was not understood that each confederation had its own system of privileges. Mr. David Wilkinson, the Native Commissioner, had a most complete knowledge of the Confederation of Mbua, and he seems somewhat hastily to have assumed that the Mbua system prevailedmutatis mutandisthroughout the group. Nor does he appear to have clearly understood the difference between the chiefs' personal privileges and his right to impose taxation for the good of the commune.

In the native mind the distinction is very clearly marked. There are, in fact, two distinct kinds oflala. The first, which I will call "personallala" was the payment of rent in the form of tribute or service to certain powerful chiefs by the tenants settled upon their land. The second, which is best described as "communallala" was taxation in the form of tribute or service on behalf of the commune.

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