DECLARATION OF WAR
Assured of the loyalty of the Mbati, the chief looked about him for allies. To tribes with which he was connected by marriage, or by the tie oftauvu(i.e.common ancestry), or which owed him a debt for past help, he sent costly presents, and the enemy, who was certain to be kept informed of every movement, followed this by sending a costlier gift tombika(press down) the first present, and purchase neutrality. Councils were held, in which the entire plan of campaign was laid down, and orders were sent to all the tributary villages to hold themselves in readiness; a refusal always meant, sooner or later, the destruction of the village. The Mbati and the outlying villages were meanwhile strengthening their defences, either by entrenching a neighbouring hill-top or by deepening the moat, and building reed fences with intricate passages through the earthwork ramparts.
It sometimes happens that inferior combatants each pin their faith on the aid of a superior chief, while he, for his own interest, trims between the two, inclining to the weaker party in order to reduce the stronger, whom he reassures with flattering messages. In promising his aid he would, in ancient times, send a spear with a floating streamer; more recently the custom was to send a club with the message, "I have sent my club; soon I myself will follow." It was death for tributaries tokanakanai yarau(i.e.eat with both sides). The other side were kept fully informed of these preliminary negotiations, and had made similar preparations. No formal declaration of war was therefore necessary, though there were instances of it. Usually the declaration took place in more practical fashion by the surprise and slaughter of an unarmed party of the enemy—women fishing on the reef, or a messenger returning home in his canoe. On the news of this exploit thewar-drum was beaten and thetangkawas held. Thereafter no visitor, though he belonged properly to the opposing side, might depart. Custom required that he should fight on the side of his hosts.
Thetangkawas a review, held on the eve of leaving the chief village, and at every halting-place on the way to the battlefield. It was a ceremony that appealed to the Fijian temperament with peculiar force, since, to adapt the phrase of a classic in the literature of sport, it was "the image of war, with less than ten per cent. of its danger." The warriors, arrayed in all the majesty of their war-harness, met to defy a distant enemy, to boast of their exploits on a future day, not to the unsympathizing eyes of strangers, but to a gallery of applauding friends. The public square of the village was lined with the townsfolk and their women; at its further end sat the paramount chief and his warriors. Presently the approach of a party of allies is announced with a loud shout; led by their chief they file into the open, painted with black and white, armed and turbaned, their eyes and teeth gleaming white in terrifying contrast with their painted skins. Thetama, the shout of respect, is exchanged, and a man, who is supposed to represent the enemy, stands forth and cries, "Sai tava! Sai tava! Ka yau mai ka yavia a mbure!"[37]
Thereupon begins thembole, or boasting. The leader first, then the warriors next in degree singly, after them companies of five, or ten, or twenty step forward into the open, brandishing their weapons before the presiding chief and boasting of their future exploits at the top of their voices. Williams records a few specimens of thesembole:—
THE BOASTING CEREMONY
"Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will!""See this hatchet, how clean! To-morrow it will be bathed in blood!""This is my club, the club that never yet was false!""The army moves to-morrow; then shall ye eat dead men till you are surfeited!"(Striking the ground with his club) "I make the earth tremble: it is I who meet the enemy to-morrow!""This club is a defence; a shade from the heat of the sun, and the cold of the rain. You may come under it!"A young man approaches the chief quietly carrying an anchor pole, and smashing it across his knee, cries "Lo, sire, the anchor of —— (the hostile tribe); I will do thus with it!"
"Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will!"
"See this hatchet, how clean! To-morrow it will be bathed in blood!"
"This is my club, the club that never yet was false!"
"The army moves to-morrow; then shall ye eat dead men till you are surfeited!"
(Striking the ground with his club) "I make the earth tremble: it is I who meet the enemy to-morrow!"
"This club is a defence; a shade from the heat of the sun, and the cold of the rain. You may come under it!"
A young man approaches the chief quietly carrying an anchor pole, and smashing it across his knee, cries "Lo, sire, the anchor of —— (the hostile tribe); I will do thus with it!"
These boasts are listened to with mingled laughter and applause. Thus far and no farther does Fijian courage reach, for the performance in the field falls woefully short of the promise. There the natural timidity and caution of the race reasserts itself, and a reputation for desperate valour may be cheaply won. During thembolethe chief will sometimes playfully taunt the boasters; hinting that, from their appearance, he should have thought them better acquainted with the digging-stick than the club. At the close of thetangkathe presiding chief usually made a speech, appealing rather to the self-interest of his allies than to their attachment, promising them princely recompense, and sometimes giving them more definite promises, such as a woman of rank, as a reward for valour in the field. Such a woman was called "The cable of the Land," and was highly esteemed in the tribe to which she was given.
The armies, even of the great confederations, rarely exceeded 1000 men. A greater number could only be assembled with an immense effort. The chief command was vested in the Vu-ni-valu (lit., Root of War). The titular chiefs of the auxiliary tribes acted as officers.
The first objective of the invading army was an outlying village of the enemy. This might be a fortress on a hilltop, strongly entrenched by nature, or a village in the plain, defended with an earthwork about six feet high, surmounted with a breastwork of reed fencing or cocoanut trunks, and surrounded by a muddy moat. Sometimes there was a double or a triple moat with earthworks between. There is endless variety in these fortifications, for advantage was always taken of the natural defences, and almost every important hilltop in Western Vitilevu is crowned with an entrenchmentof some kind. Though there were generally from four to eight gateways, defended by traverses, and surmounted with a look-out place, some strongholds had but one gateway and that so difficult of access as to be impracticable to the besiegers. The fort of Waitora, situated on a hill two miles north of Levuka, is a rock about twenty feet higher than the surrounding ground, and inaccessible save by means of a natural ladder formed of the aerial roots of a huge banyan-tree, which arch over at the top so as to form a tunnel just big enough to admit the body. The great rock fortress of Na-koro-vatu on the Singatoka river was taken in the rebellion of 1876 by surprising the only approach on a Sunday morning, when the rebels thought that the government troops would be in church. The besiegers crept up a jagged rift in the rock as steep as the side of a well, and utterly impregnable against more vigilant defenders. In the island of Vatulele, an upheaved coral reef honeycombed with caverns, the fortress of Korolamalama was a cave defended by a breastwork of stones, watered from a well in its inmost recesses, and provisioned for a siege of many months. The last stronghold of the rebel mountaineers in 1876 was a cave large enough to contain the population of all the neighbouring villages, and impregnable to every weapon except smoke, an expedient commonly employed by the force attacking such defences. On the other hand, the chief towns of large confederations, such as Mbau, Mathuata and Rewa, were not fortified at all, because if the enemy had been victorious enough to approach them, their inhabitants would have seen that all was lost and would have sued for peace.
TORTURE OF PRISONERS
The first care of a besieging army is to prepare for defeat. Each division of the army prepared its ownorua, paths diverging from the fortification down which they could run if assailed by a sortie, or taken in the rear by an ambush. Sieges were never of long duration: the attacking army, lacking any kind of commissariat, seldom carried food for more than three days, and were in straits while the besieged were living in comfort on their ample supplies. Like every root-eating people, the Fijians require a heavy weight of food perhead to satisfy them, from five to ten pounds' weight of yams or other roots being the normal daily food of a full-grown man. Consequently, if the first assault failed, they usually retired to deliberate and secure fresh supplies. Fortresses were seldom starved into capitulation, though, as they were generally ill-provided with water, this method of attack, so peculiarly suited to the native character for caution, would generally have succeeded. It was tabu for a messenger to go direct to the army lest he should dispirit the troops. He had first to go to the capital, whence his message was dispatched to the Vu-ni-valu by a herald of the town.
A siege began with an interchange of abuse. The attacking chief would cry in the hearing of both sides, "The men of that fortress are already dead: its present garrison are old women!" Another, addressing his own followers, shouted, "Are those not men? Then have we nothing to fear, for we are truly men." A warrior from within retorts, "You are men? But are you so strong that if you are speared, you will not fall until to-morrow? Are ye stones, that a spear cannot pierce you? Are your skulls of iron, that a bullet will not penetrate them?" Under the excitement of this war of words indiscreet men were betrayed into playing with the name of the chief of the enemy. They will cut out his tongue, devour his brains, use his skull for their drinking-cup. These became at once marked men, and special orders were given to take them alive. On Vanualevu the punishment that awaited them was the torture calleddrewai sasa, to carry fuel like old women. A bundle of dry cocoanut leaves was bound upon their naked backs and ignited, and they were turned loose to run wherever their agony might drive them.
Meanwhile, within the fort the war-drum is beating incessantly, now signalling for help to friends at a distance, now rattling a defiance to the enemy, for, as in Abyssinia, the drum beats have a recognized language. As a further provocation to the besiegers, when the wind favours, the war-kite is hoisted. This is a circular disk of plaited palm-leaves, decorated with streamers of bark cloth. The string is passed through a hole in a pole or bamboo twenty or thirty feet long, erected in aconspicuous part of the fort. The string is then pulled backwards and forwards through the hole so as to keep the symbol of defiance floating over the heads of the approaching foe.
Upon the stronger fortresses direct assaults were rare, but when the attacking party felt themselves to be superior, the Vu-ni-valu issued orders for a general advance, specifying the detachment which was to have the honour of leading. There is nothing impetuous in the manner of attack. The assailants creep stealthily forward until they are almost within spear-throw, and then every man acts as if his first duty was to take care of himself. Every stone, every tree has a man behind it, for the Fijian can outmatch the world in the art of taking cover. Having gone so far, the assailants shout the war-cry to encourage one another and to intimidate the enemy,[38]and watch their chance for spearing some one exposed on the ramparts. Sooner or later the defenders are betrayed into a sally, each man singling out an antagonist with whom to engage in single combat. But the assailants seldom wait for the rush, each man trusting to his heels for safety. There is no disgrace in this, for as the Fijian proverb has it:—
"A vosota, na mate,A ndro na ka ni veiwale.""To brave it out is death,To run is but a jest!"
"A vosota, na mate,A ndro na ka ni veiwale."
"To brave it out is death,To run is but a jest!"
If, however, the defenders obstinately refuse to be drawn, and the leading detachment has shouted itself hoarse to no effect, it is relieved by a second, or even a third, until the siege is abandoned for the day. In the face of a determined attack a Fijian garrison loses heart and makes but a spiritless defence, and this explains the universal success of the Tongans, who carried everything before them by their spirited assault.
TREACHERY HELD A VIRTUE
More often a fastness was reduced by stratagem. The favourite method was thelawa, or net, which seldom failed, for all it was so well known. Posting a strong body ofwarriors in ambush on either flank, a handful of men would approach the fort with simulated fury. Seeing their small numbers, the defenders left their defences and fell upon them, whereupon they took to flight and led the pursuit right into the belly of the "net." Then the horns closed in upon them, and they were surrounded. It was such a trap as this that compassed the destruction of the landing party from the East IndiamanHunterat Wailea in 1813, when even that crafty and experienced warrior Charles Savage expiated his crimes. Cunning was more esteemed than courage; the craft of Odysseus more than the battle-fire of Achilles. There is no equivalent in the Fijian language for the word "treachery," forlawaki, the nearest synonym, signifies a virtue rather than a crime, and a successful act of treachery evoked the same admiration as triumphant slimness is said to do among the Boers. It is such differences in moral ethics that make the gulf between the East and West. Williams records how a Rakiraki chief, Wangkawai, who had contracted to assist the chief of Nakorovatu in war, brained him with his club during the ceremony of thembole, and massacred his people in cold blood—an act which the treacherous ally had been planning for years; how Namosimalua, chief of Viwa, having undertaken to protect the people of Naingani against Mbau, led them into the jaws of the enemy, and helped to slaughter them; but the annals of every village will supply from recent history instances quite as striking as these. If loss of life in open fight was small, treachery often resulted in considerable slaughter. Williams thought that the casualties in a native war commonly amounted to from twenty to one hundred. The largest number within his own experience was at the sack of Rewa in 1846, when about 400, chiefly women and children, were slaughtered.
The scenes that followed the sack of a fortress are too horrible to be described in detail. That neither age nor sex was spared was the least atrocious feature. Nameless mutilations, inflicted sometimes on living victims, deeds of mingled cruelty and lust, made self-destruction preferable to capture. With the fatalism that underlies the Melanesian charactermany would not attempt to run away, but would bow their heads passively to the club-stroke. If any were miserable enough to be taken alive their fate was awful indeed. Carried back bound to the chief village, they were given up to young boys of rank to practise their ingenuity in torture, or, stunned by a blow, they were laid in heated ovens, that when the heat brought them back to consciousness of pain, their frantic struggles might convulse the spectators with laughter. Children were strung up to the masthead by the feet, that the rolling of the canoe might dash out their brains against the mast.
But little loot was taken, and every man kept what he could seize upon for his own. At the first hint of attack the women were laden with everything of value which could be stored in a secret magazine at some distance from the fortress; what remained was often destroyed by the burning of the huts. Williams sets down the loot of one chief whom he knew as seven balls of sinnet, several dogs and five female slaves, but he believed that part of this was pay and part plunder.
The return of a victorious party, especially if they brought the bodies of the slain, was an extraordinary scene. The noise and confusion which shocked the early missionaries seem all to have been part of an ancient prescribed form. If the war-party returned by sea the dead bodies of men and women were lashed to the prow of the canoe, while the warriors danced thethimbi, or death-dance, on the deck, brandishing their clubs and spears, and uttering a peculiar falsetto yell. The women rushed down to the beach to meet them, and there danced and sang with words and gestures of an obscenity never permitted at other times. In this dance young maidens took part, and when the bodies were dragged ashore, joined with their elders in offering nameless insults to the corpses. Then the men, seizing the bodies by the arms, dragged them at full speed to the temple, sometimes, as at Mbau, dashing the brains out against a stone embedded in the earth before the shrine. All social restrictions were then loosed, and, in the mad excitement, sexual licence had full rein in open day.
THE WAR-CRY
Every tribe has its own distinctive war-cry, or rather death-cry, for it is shouted only when giving the death-blow to an enemy. Though this is distinct from the name of the tribe, and very seldom uttered, it is so firmly fixed in the mind of every tribesman that, even in these days, when it has not been heard, perhaps, for a whole generation, every full-grown member of the tribe can remember the word. In Land Inquiries I made a point of asking what was the death-cry of each claimant, and also of questioning witnesses regarding its origin. Many of the words appeared to be place-names, though the places could not be identified, and few of the words could be translated, nor did any have any relation to warfare. In not a single case could a witness offer any explanation except that the word had been handed down by the ancestors of old time, and the origin must therefore remain in doubt. The memory of the death-cry is as tenacious as that of the tribaltauvu.
The mode of treating for peace varied with the district. Sometimes a woman of high rank, dressed in gala costume, was presented to the victors with a whale's tooth in her hand; sometimes an ordinarymatawas deputed to carry the whale's tooth. In Vatulele and other places a basket of earth was presented in token that the soil, and all that it produced, was at the disposal of the conqueror. The terms, especially in cases of the last of thesesoro, were hard; the vanquished were reduced, not merely to tribute-bearers, but to actual serfs and kitchen-men. In a single generation their very physical bearing was changed.
The religious ceremony ofKoroideserves attention as having, as far as I am aware, no parallel among other primitive races, though the native converts profess to see in it a close resemblance to the Christian rite of baptism. It was rather an investiture of knighthood for prowess in battle, accompanied with the knightly preparation of fasting and vigil.
Every warrior who has slain his man, woman, or child in battle is entitled to the honour, and takes a new name with the prefixKoro-i(lit., "Village of"). Every time his club is blooded the ceremony is repeated and a new name conferred, so that it was not uncommon for a warrior to change his name four times or even oftener. In olden times the slayer of ten bore the prefixKoli(Dog), and the slayer of twentyVisa(Burn), but as the influx of foreigners began to check war, these honours were granted upon easier terms. There is a proverb bearing upon these honours: "The slayer of ten closes one house; the slayer of twenty closes two houses."
I have tried in vain to have light thrown on the origin of this institution, which, being religious in character, and under the control of the priests, must have had its foundation in some historical tradition.
Waterhouse, who seems to have been an eye-witness, thus describes the ceremony as practised at Mbau:—
"The ceremonies last for four days. When a war-party returns the canoes are poled to Nailusi. The warriors who have killed their man, bedaubed with paint, and clothed in newmalos, rush ashore carrying reeds with streamers attached. These they fix vertically in the posts of the temple of Thangawalu, the war-god. When they return to their canoes the whole army advances, the novices armed with spears decorated with pennons bringing up the rear. As they approach the square they execute thethimbi—death-dance, a sort of FijianCarmagnole. The elders who have stayed behind to guard the town then demand the names of the newkoroi, and give each of them a new weapon. At night thewati, or dance of the knights, is performed. The spectators form a ring round the dancers, who are divided into three companies—(1) the candidates; (2) the consecrated knights and warriors; (3) a select body of women. During the night the candidates break their fast for the first time, and the dancing is kept up till late in the following morning. In the afternoon vast quantities of plantains are presented to those who have played esquire to the candidates."On the third day is theNgini-ngini, or consecration. Each candidate marches separately into the square at the head of his personal friends, who are loaded with property. As he approaches the temple of the War-god, the officiating priest announces his new name, which the people then hear for the first time, although the candidate has himself chosen it on the previous evening. Piling their presents in a heap, the new knight and his party retire to make room for another candidate. This ceremony is conducted in silence with a stately dignity and decorum in curious contrast with the hideous licence and uproar of thethimbideath-dance of the first day."The last day is the Day of Water-drinking. Early in the morningcanoes are sent to fetch the water from a certain stream on the mainland. When they round the point a great shout is raised, 'Lo! the water-canoes!' and every one shuts himself fast behind doors, for now every noise, even the crying of children, is tabu. In this strange silence the water is carried to the temple where the new knights are assembled, and there they drink it."For several days they are kept in the temple under the usual restrictions laid upon persons who are tabu. They may not use their hands to feed themselves, nor wash themselves."
"The ceremonies last for four days. When a war-party returns the canoes are poled to Nailusi. The warriors who have killed their man, bedaubed with paint, and clothed in newmalos, rush ashore carrying reeds with streamers attached. These they fix vertically in the posts of the temple of Thangawalu, the war-god. When they return to their canoes the whole army advances, the novices armed with spears decorated with pennons bringing up the rear. As they approach the square they execute thethimbi—death-dance, a sort of FijianCarmagnole. The elders who have stayed behind to guard the town then demand the names of the newkoroi, and give each of them a new weapon. At night thewati, or dance of the knights, is performed. The spectators form a ring round the dancers, who are divided into three companies—(1) the candidates; (2) the consecrated knights and warriors; (3) a select body of women. During the night the candidates break their fast for the first time, and the dancing is kept up till late in the following morning. In the afternoon vast quantities of plantains are presented to those who have played esquire to the candidates.
"On the third day is theNgini-ngini, or consecration. Each candidate marches separately into the square at the head of his personal friends, who are loaded with property. As he approaches the temple of the War-god, the officiating priest announces his new name, which the people then hear for the first time, although the candidate has himself chosen it on the previous evening. Piling their presents in a heap, the new knight and his party retire to make room for another candidate. This ceremony is conducted in silence with a stately dignity and decorum in curious contrast with the hideous licence and uproar of thethimbideath-dance of the first day.
"The last day is the Day of Water-drinking. Early in the morningcanoes are sent to fetch the water from a certain stream on the mainland. When they round the point a great shout is raised, 'Lo! the water-canoes!' and every one shuts himself fast behind doors, for now every noise, even the crying of children, is tabu. In this strange silence the water is carried to the temple where the new knights are assembled, and there they drink it.
"For several days they are kept in the temple under the usual restrictions laid upon persons who are tabu. They may not use their hands to feed themselves, nor wash themselves."
AN ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD
John Williams thus describes the ceremony as he saw it in Somosomo:—
"The king and leading men having taken their seats in the public square, fourteen mats were brought and spread out, and upon these were placed a bale of cloth and two whale's teeth. Near by was laid a sail-mat, and on it several men's dresses. The young chief now made his appearance, bearing in one hand a large 'pine-apple' club and in the other a common reed, while his long train ofmasidragged on the ground behind him. On his reaching the mats, an old man took the reed out of the hero's hand, and dispatched a youth to deposit it carefully in the temple of the war-god. The king then ordered the young man to stand upon the bale of cloth; and while he obeyed, a number of women came into the square, bringing small dishes of turmeric mixed with oil, which they placed before the youth, and retired with a song. Themasiwas now removed by the chief himself, an attendant substituting one much larger in its stead. The king'smatanext selected several dishes of coloured oil, and anointed the warrior from the roots of his hair to his heels. At this stage in the proceedings one of the spectators stepped forward and exchanged clubs with the anointed, and soon another did the same; then one gave him a gun in place of the club; and many similar changes were effected, under the belief that weapons thus passing through his hands derived some virtue. The mats were now removed, and a portion of them sent to the temple, some of the turmeric being sent after them. The king and old men, followed by the young men and two men sounding conches, now proceeded to the seaside, where the anointed one passed through the ancients to the water's edge, and, having wet the soles of his feet, returned, while the king and those with him counted one, two, three, four, five, and then each threw a stone into the sea. The whole company now went back to the town with blasts of the trumpet-shells and a peculiar hooting of the men. Custom requires that a hut should be built, in which the anointed man and his companions may pass the next three nights, during which the new-named hero must not lie down, but sleep as he sits; he must not change hismasi, or remove the turmeric, or enter a house in which there is a woman, until that period has elapsed. In the case now described the hut had not been built, and the young chief was permitted to use the temple of the god of war instead. During the three days he was on an incessant march, followed by half-a-score of lads reddened like himself. After three weeks he paid me a visit on the first day of his being permitted to enter a house in which there was a female. He informed me that his new name was 'Kuila' (Flag)."
"The king and leading men having taken their seats in the public square, fourteen mats were brought and spread out, and upon these were placed a bale of cloth and two whale's teeth. Near by was laid a sail-mat, and on it several men's dresses. The young chief now made his appearance, bearing in one hand a large 'pine-apple' club and in the other a common reed, while his long train ofmasidragged on the ground behind him. On his reaching the mats, an old man took the reed out of the hero's hand, and dispatched a youth to deposit it carefully in the temple of the war-god. The king then ordered the young man to stand upon the bale of cloth; and while he obeyed, a number of women came into the square, bringing small dishes of turmeric mixed with oil, which they placed before the youth, and retired with a song. Themasiwas now removed by the chief himself, an attendant substituting one much larger in its stead. The king'smatanext selected several dishes of coloured oil, and anointed the warrior from the roots of his hair to his heels. At this stage in the proceedings one of the spectators stepped forward and exchanged clubs with the anointed, and soon another did the same; then one gave him a gun in place of the club; and many similar changes were effected, under the belief that weapons thus passing through his hands derived some virtue. The mats were now removed, and a portion of them sent to the temple, some of the turmeric being sent after them. The king and old men, followed by the young men and two men sounding conches, now proceeded to the seaside, where the anointed one passed through the ancients to the water's edge, and, having wet the soles of his feet, returned, while the king and those with him counted one, two, three, four, five, and then each threw a stone into the sea. The whole company now went back to the town with blasts of the trumpet-shells and a peculiar hooting of the men. Custom requires that a hut should be built, in which the anointed man and his companions may pass the next three nights, during which the new-named hero must not lie down, but sleep as he sits; he must not change hismasi, or remove the turmeric, or enter a house in which there is a woman, until that period has elapsed. In the case now described the hut had not been built, and the young chief was permitted to use the temple of the god of war instead. During the three days he was on an incessant march, followed by half-a-score of lads reddened like himself. After three weeks he paid me a visit on the first day of his being permitted to enter a house in which there was a female. He informed me that his new name was 'Kuila' (Flag)."
It is a remarkable fact that once in Fijian history an European was madekoroi, for among the Fijians foreigners were outside the pale of tribal society, and could never aspire to enjoy the freedom of the tribe. But in 1808, when Charles Savage, the Swede, escaped with his musket from the wreck of the brigEliza, and enabled Mbau to conquer her great rival, Verata, with the aid of his new and terrible weapon, he was madekoroiagainst his will. I had the details of the ceremony from the old men of Mbau, who had the tradition from their fathers. Jiale (Charlie), as they called him, submitted to be stripped to the waist and smeared with turmeric and charcoal, but insisted on retaining his trousers during the procession. And when he found that he was to abstain from eating and drinking for three days, he shamefully broke the tabu, burst out of the temple in a rage, and went to his own home, a fact that was not likely to be forgotten.
The decay of custom in warfare began with the introduction of fire-arms, which first made the establishment of great confederations possible, and so diminished war. The musket made the task of the early missionaries easier, for when they had won over the chief of a confederation, the vassal tribes followed like a flock of sheep, and so the musket ultimately put an end to war. The inland tribes, who could get few muskets, and whose frontiers, therefore, were the limits of the village lands, were the last to embrace Christianity.
There are pathetic stories of the terror inspired by the musket. At the siege of Verata men held up mats to ward off the bullets; at Nakelo, Savage was carried into action in an arrow-proof sedan chair of plaited sinnet, from which he picked off the defenders until they surrendered and were clubbed.
The rise of confederations changed everything. A village knowing itself weak in numbers and in arms, did not dare to defy the might of a power like Mbau or Rewa, and hastened to put itself under the protection of a powerful chief, paying tribute to him as a member of his confederation. Thus, while gunpowder increased the number of combatants engaged oneither side, it almost put an end to the internecine struggles of village against village.
WAR CUSTOMS CHANGED BY FIREARMS
Between 1860 and 1870 native warfare underwent a more drastic modification by the formation of Thakombau's army organized, officered and drilled by Europeans. When led by Europeans, the natives developed an unexpected courage in the field, and the campaign against the hill tribes of Navatusila impressed the whole group with the superiority of European methods. The Armed Native Constabulary, established immediately after annexation, and recruited from widely distant districts, tended to make drill so popular that the first step of any native conspirator has been to teach his followers evolutions compounded of native war-dances and European drill, in which the Fijians see a close resemblance.
FOOTNOTES:[35]Fiji and the Fijians, p. 43.[36]The nameMbatihas been erroneously derived from Mbati = Tooth, andMbati-ni-vanuais sometimes translated "Teeth of the Land." The true derivation is, of course, from Mbati = Edge or Border,i.e.Border of the land. Borderers have ever been broken reeds to lean upon from their proneness to consult their own interests by going over to the stronger side.[37]An archaic phrase, whose meaning is now lost. Williams translates it "Cut up! Cut up! The temple receives," which perhaps is near enough, the meaning being that the bodies of the slain will be dismembered, cooked, and presented to the gods.[38]When the story of theIliadwas being translated into Fijian I asked a Fijian what part of the story most appealed to his people. He said at once that it was that which describes Achilles putting the whole Trojan army to flight by merely shouting to them from the bank of Scamander.
[35]Fiji and the Fijians, p. 43.
[35]Fiji and the Fijians, p. 43.
[36]The nameMbatihas been erroneously derived from Mbati = Tooth, andMbati-ni-vanuais sometimes translated "Teeth of the Land." The true derivation is, of course, from Mbati = Edge or Border,i.e.Border of the land. Borderers have ever been broken reeds to lean upon from their proneness to consult their own interests by going over to the stronger side.
[36]The nameMbatihas been erroneously derived from Mbati = Tooth, andMbati-ni-vanuais sometimes translated "Teeth of the Land." The true derivation is, of course, from Mbati = Edge or Border,i.e.Border of the land. Borderers have ever been broken reeds to lean upon from their proneness to consult their own interests by going over to the stronger side.
[37]An archaic phrase, whose meaning is now lost. Williams translates it "Cut up! Cut up! The temple receives," which perhaps is near enough, the meaning being that the bodies of the slain will be dismembered, cooked, and presented to the gods.
[37]An archaic phrase, whose meaning is now lost. Williams translates it "Cut up! Cut up! The temple receives," which perhaps is near enough, the meaning being that the bodies of the slain will be dismembered, cooked, and presented to the gods.
[38]When the story of theIliadwas being translated into Fijian I asked a Fijian what part of the story most appealed to his people. He said at once that it was that which describes Achilles putting the whole Trojan army to flight by merely shouting to them from the bank of Scamander.
[38]When the story of theIliadwas being translated into Fijian I asked a Fijian what part of the story most appealed to his people. He said at once that it was that which describes Achilles putting the whole Trojan army to flight by merely shouting to them from the bank of Scamander.
About 1850, when the first details of cannibalism among the Fijians began to reach England through the missionary reports, there was a good deal of scepticism. Naval officers who had visited the group had seen nothing of the practice, which, indeed, seemed incompatible with the polished and courtly manners of the chiefs who entertained them.[39]But as soon as the existence of the practice was proved there came a reaction, and its extent is now as much exaggerated as it was formerly underestimated. Professor Sayce, for instance, in a book published within the last few years,[40]has committed himself to the ridiculous assertion that the Fijians ate their aged relations—an act which would be regarded by them with a horror at least as great as would be felt by an European. To eat, even unwittingly, the flesh of your relation, however distant, or to eat or drink from a vessel used by a man who had done this, would result, so the Fijians believe, in the loss of all your teeth.
Except in rare cases, none but the bodies of real or potential enemies were eaten, and these must have been slain or captured in battle, or cast away in wrecks "with salt water in their eyes." The bodies of those who had died naturally were invariably buried, and though there are instances recorded of the secret desecration of graves for the purposes of cannibalism, these were very rare, and they excited disgust among the people themselves.
THE MORALITY OF CANNIBALISM
There are various traditions of the origin of cannibalism, but all agree in saying that it was not introduced from without, and that there was a time when the practice was unknown. The most plausible ascribes it to the practice of presenting the human body a sacrifice to the gods as being the most costly offering that could be made, and that, as all presentations of food were afterwards eaten, the human sacrifice was treated in the same way. It is tabu for an inferior to decline food offered to him by a chief. If a slave cannot eat a cooked yam so presented to him, he wraps it up and takes it home with him to eat at a future meal, or if he throws it away, he does it secretly lest he should give offence to the donor. Thus in 1853 the chief of Somosomo, in reply to the missionary's remonstrance, said, "We must eat the bodies if Thakombau gives them to us." This obligation was tenfold stronger when the gods themselves were the givers.
But whereas in times past cannibalism was confined to ceremonial sacrifices in celebration of victory, the launching of a chief's canoe or the lowering of its mast, it increased alarmingly about the end of the eighteenth century—that is, a few years before the arrival of Europeans—just as human sacrifice and its attendant cannibalism among the Aztecs became intolerable just before the Spanish conquest. In the Fijian mind it was but a step from offering gifts to a god and taking them to a high chief, and great feasts soon came to be considered incomplete without a human body to grace the meal. Among a few of the chiefs there began to grow a vitiated taste for human flesh, though there were not a few who never overcame their dislike to it.
The moral attitude of Fijians towards cannibalism is as difficult to understand as our own is difficult to explain. Apart from the fact that cannibalism must entail homicide, there is no manifest reason for our horror of the practice, except our reverence and tenderness for the dead. Most, if not all, of the other carnivora are cannibals, and the distinction we draw between the flesh of men and the flesh of other mammalia is purely sentimental. Our other instincts are based upon some law of Nature whose infraction is visitedby Nature's penalties; yet, so instinctive is the horror of cannibalism in Aryan races that not one of them has thought of condemning it in its penal code, and cannibalism has never been illegal in Europe. Some trace of this instinct is discernible among the Fijians. Human flesh was tabu to women, and the Mbau women of rank who indulged in it did so in secret. Except in moments of excitement, the cooked flesh was shared out with elaborate ceremonial, and eaten only in the privacy of the house. The care with which the practice was concealed from Europeans, though partly due to the knowledge that it would excite detestation and contempt, suggests also some trace of instinctive shame. The tabus and ceremonies surrounding it clearly indicate its religious origin. The alarming drum-beat, calledNderua, which haunts all who have heard it; the death-dance (thimbi); the presentation of the body to the War-god of Mbau, and the part played by the priests in Vanualevu and other places; the eating after decomposition had set in when the slightest taint in other meat excited disgust; and, lastly, the fear of touching the meat with the fingers or the lips, and the use of a special fork which was given a name like a person, are all evidences that the gods had a share in the rite. Every part of the body had, moreover, its symbolic name, which was only used in connection with cannibalism. The trunk, which was eaten first, was calledNa vale ka rusa(the house that perishes); the feet,Ndua-rua(one-two). The fiction that bodies intended to be eaten were popularly called "Long pig" (Vuaka Mbalavu) is founded upon avakathivo, or jocose toast of Tanoa, chief of Mbau, after drinking kava, in which the object of desire was concealed in a euphemism, such asSese Matairua! ("spear with two points,"i.e.the breast of a virgin).
AN ACT OF VENGEANCE
Dr. E. B. Tylor gives six reasons for the practice of cannibalism—Famine, Revenge or Bravado, Morbid Affection, Magic, Religion, Habit. Three of these had no application in Fiji. The famines were transitory, and in Tonga, where cannibalism was occasionally resorted to from this cause, the practice died as soon as the cause was removed. Cannibalism from morbid affection, such as Herodotus describes among the Essedones of Central Asia, was equally unknown, since, as I have already said, the Fijians had a superstitious horror of eating their own relations; and as to magic, I do not think that any trace of a belief that by eating the flesh of a warrior the eater absorbed his courage can be found. There remain Religion, Revenge or Bravado, and Habit, which were at the root of the Fijian practice in the order enumerated. The history of the Aztecs shows how soon ceremonial cannibalism degenerated into a vicious appetite for human flesh. In the Fijian wars of the early nineteenth century a portion of every captive was eaten, and raids were undertaken solely to procure human flesh for chiefs who had become addicted to cannibalism. But bravado and the gratification of revenge was the most powerful motive with the bulk of the people. In Nandronga the liver and the hands of an enemy were sometimes preserved by smoke in the house of one whose relations he had slain; and whenever regrets for the dead would wring his heart, the warrior would take down the bundle from the shelf over the fire-place, and cook and eat a portion of his enemy to assuage his grief. Thus he continued to sate his vengeance for one or two years until all was consumed. In the native mind the poles of triumph and of humiliation are touched by the man who eats his enemy and the man who is about to be eaten. Even to-day the grossest Fijian insult is to call a manMbakola(cannibal meat); the most appalling threat to exclaim, "Were it not for the government I would eat you!" There was but one higher flight of vengeance, and that was to cook the body, and leave it in the oven as if unfit for food. The Rev. Joseph Waterhouse dug up one of these ovens while gardening at Mbau. The element of vengeance superimposed upon religion is admirably illustrated in the narrative of John Jackson,[41]who was an eye-witness of what he relates. The bodies of the slain were set up in a sitting posture in the bow of the canoe by being trussed under the knees with a stick as schoolboys play at cockfighting. Thedrums kept beating thenderuaall the way across the strait, and as they neared the village a man kept striking the water with a long pole to apprise the inhabitants of their success, and the warriors danced thethimbion the deck. It was usual for the women to troop down to the water's edge dancing a lascivious dance, and when the bodies were flung out, to cover them with nameless insults; but in this instance (on the Vanualevu coast near Male) they were carried to the village square and set up in a row, with their war-paint still on them, while the whole population of the village sat down in a wide circle. An old man now approached the bodies, and, taking a dead hand in his, began talking to them in a low tone. Why, he asked, had they been so rash? Did they not feel ashamed to be sitting there exposed to the gaze of so many people? Gradually becoming intoxicated with his own eloquence and wit, he raised his voice and delivered the last sentences as loud as he could shout. At the climax of his peroration he kicked the bodies down, and ran off amid the plaudits and laughter of the spectators, who now ran in upon the bodies, and, seizing an arm or a leg, dragged them off through the mire and over the stones to a temple standing apart in a grove of ironwood trees. A heap of weather-whitened human bones lay before it, and other bones were embedded in the fork of shaddock-trees, where they had been laid many years before. An old priest, with nails two inches long, was there awaiting them, and stones were ready heating in a fire for the oven. A number of young girls now surrounded the bodies and danced their lewd dance, singing a song whose import could be guessed from their action in touching certain parts with sticks which they held in their hands. The butcher, armed with a hatchet, some shells and a number of split bamboos, now got to work. He first made a long deep gash down the abdomen, and then cut all round the neck down to the bone, and severed the head by a twist. In cutting through the joints he showed some knowledge of anatomy, seeing that he used nothing but a split bamboo, which makes a convenient knife, since it is only necessary to split off a fresh portion to obtain a sharp edge. The trunk, the hands andthe head were usually thrown away, but on this occasion, the bodies being but few, all was eaten except the intestines. Banana leaves were heaped on the hot stones of the oven, the flesh and joints were laid on them, and the whole covered with earth until the morning. The cooked meat was then distributed with the ceremonies usual at feasts, and warriors from a distance, after tasting a small portion, wrapped up the remainder to take home as a proof of their prowess.
THE EATING OF A MISSIONARY
When a chief or a warrior of repute was cooked, portions of the flesh were sent all over the country. The body of the missionary Baker, killed at Navatusila (Central Vitilevu) in 1860, was thus treated, almost every chief in Navosa receiving a portion.[42]
When a body had to be carried inland it was lashed to a pole face downward in order that it might not double up, the ends of the pole resting on men's shoulders. In dragging the body up the beach the following words were chanted in a monotone, followed by shrill yells in quick succession.
"Yari au malua. Yari au malua.Oi au na saro ni nomu vanua.Yi mundokia! Yi mundokia! Yi mundokia Ki Ndama le!Yi! u-woa-ai-e!"
"Drag me gently. Drag me gently!I am the champion of thy land.Give thanks! Give thank!"etc.
As the practice of cannibalism grew, many refinements of cruelty were devised for enhancing the gratification of revenge. According to Seemann,[43]a whole village in Namosi was doomed as a punishment to be eaten household by household. They obeyed the chief's command to plant a taro bed, and as soon, as the taro was ripe a household was clubbed, and the bodies eaten with the vegetables. None knew when his turn would come, for the house was chosen at the whim of the executioners. One might be tempted to enlarge upon the horrible suspense in which these unhappy villagers must have lived, and to wonder why they did not flee to some distantprovince, but such sympathy would be wasted. If the story is true, we may be sure that they went about their daily tasks without a thought about the club hanging over them, and that the idea of flight never entered their heads, for the Fijian looks not beyond the evening of the next day, and certain death within a year or two seemed no nearer to them than it does to us who pursue our futile little tasks with Death plucking at our sleeves, having at the most but two decades to live.
The torture (vakatotonga) consisted in the mutilation of the victim before death. To avenge the of one of his relations, Ra Undreundre of Rakiraki ordered a woman captured from the offending village to be laid alive in a wooden trough and dismembered, that none of the blood might be lost. This was a form of punishment practised in Tonga in ancient times. In several well-authenticated cases the flesh of a victim has been cooked and offered him to eat. A Fijian prisoner undergoes these torments with stoical fatalism, making no attempt at escape or resistance. In the entertainment of the Somosomo natives at Natewa, Jackson saw standing by the pile of yams a young girl who was to be killed and eaten when the ceremony of distribution was over. She showed no outward sign of distress at her impending fate. At the risk of his life Jackson caught hold of her and claimed her as his wife, and the chiefs, more amused than angry at his breach of etiquette, granted his request.
THE CANNIBAL FORK
Neither sex nor age was a defence against the cannibal oven. Aged men and women as well as children were eaten, though the flesh of young people between sixteen and twenty was most esteemed. The upper arm, the thigh and the heart were the greatest delicacies; an ex-cannibal in Mongondro told me that the upper arm of a boy and girl tasted better than any other meat. The same man, who had eaten part of the missionary Baker, said that the flesh of white men was inferior to that of Fijians, and had a saltish taste. Jackson describes it as being darker in colour, and the fat yellower than that of the turtle. In the police expedition to Navosa in 1876, Dr. (now Sir William) McGregor surprised a village,and found a human leg, hot from the oven, laid out upon banana leaves. The skin had parted like crackling, disclosing a layer of yellow fat. When the flesh is kept for several days it is said to emit a phosphorescent light in the darkness of the hut. The Fijians cannot understand our feeling about the killing and eating of women and children.Moku na katikati(club the women and children) is their principle, and they explain that, since the object of war is to inflict the maximum of injury upon the enemy, a twofold purpose is served by killing women—distress to their relations, and the destruction of those who might breed warriors to avenge them.
The most celebrated cannibals from liking were Tambakauthoro, Tanoa and Tuiveikoso of Mbau, and Tuikilakila of Somosomo, but the reputation of these pale beside that of Ra Undreundre of Rakiraki. His victims were calledLewe ni mbi(contents of the turtle-pond), and his fork had a name to itself—Undro-undro, a word used to designate a small person carrying a great burden. His son took the missionary to a line of stones, each of which represented a human being eaten without assistance by his father since middle-age. They numbered eight hundred and seventy-two, but a number had then (1849) been removed! The special fork used exclusively for human flesh points clearly to the religious origin of the practice, forks being never employed for other kinds of food, even food presented to a god. There was some quality in human flesh that made it tabu to touch it with the fingers or the lips. Moreover, the fork was tabu to every one but its owner, and if it belonged to a high chief, it had always a name of its own. The genuine forks have now all been removed from the country, and those offered for sale in the group are forgeries.[44]
Persons slain in battle were not invariably eaten, for chiefs of high rank were often spared this indignity, and if a friendof the dead man happened to be of the victorious party he might intercede to save the body from the oven. In such cases a truce is called, and the relations are allowed to come and remove the body for burial. At the funeral the mourners cut out their thumb nails and fixed them on a spear, which was preserved in the temple to remind them of the service done to them, and at the close of the war they made valuable presents to their benefactor to extinguish the debt.
The abolition of cannibalism cannot possibly have had any results unfavourable to the race. It was an excrescence upon the religious and social system, and it might have been swept away without disturbing them in any way. In its later development, moreover, it was responsible for raids in which many lives were lost.