CHAPTER XX.

THE CANNIBAL BANQUET.

What Homer says of the Cyclops, and Herodotus of the Scythians, and what moreover we are loth to believe of the ancient Britons, must be written against the Fijians as matters of history unmixed with myth or poetic fiction. They were cannibals.

No cup was so highly prized by a Fiji chieftain for drinking the chiefly drink—kava—out of, as that made from a human skull, the value of which would be increased a hundred per cent. by its being the skull of his greatest enemy.

If there is any reason for doubting that the ancient Scots preferred a “ham of herdsman” to a piece of beef, or that Richard Coeur de Lion enjoyed a Saracen’s head more than a leg of pork, there is none whatever to doubt that to a Fijian’s taste there was nothing so delicious as the flesh of one of his countrymen, the more so if that countryman were in any sense his own or his country’s foe. And of the many desirable portions, there was none he so much longed for, or ate with such gusto, as the heart. Query? is it not highly probable that the passion of revenge when at its height of savage success, produces an effect on the conqueror’s appetite, whetting it to ungovernable sharpness, and giving it a keener relish for the flesh of the victim than could ever be felt under the influence of other passions? How else can we account for an act like that of Sir Ewan Cameron, who declared the flesh of an English trooper whom he had killed after a desperate struggle, to be the “sweetest morsel he had ever tasted?” or, for the deed of one of the French revolutionists, who ate the heart of the Princess Lamballe? or, for the still more horrible deeds of every day life in Cannibal-land?

Be this as it may, the acts themselves are unquestionable. No war, however insignificant, was ever waged without enemy eating enemy. The word in general use to express the practice, is a compound of two words, one of which means the “eating,” while the other adds to it the idea of reciprocity. The name of the vile thing, therefore, is the “eating-of-one-another,” even as by a similar compound the language tells how, in battle, the work of the soldiers is the “killing-of-one-another.”

Of the institutions peculiar to Fiji, cannibalism stood at the head. The revolting epithet to which the practice has given rise, has been, and will again be, applied in this work to this country of lovely isles, for the simple reason that no other country on the face of the earth so well deserves it. It would, however, be unfair to argue therefrom that the Fijian race ought in consequence to be placed in the lowest rank of the human family. So far from this being so, they are, when compared with some other uncivilised races not cannibal, a highly civilised people. Cannibalism amongst them is an evidence of that religious fanaticism which originated and perpetuated it, rather than of their own high or low position in the scale of uncivilised nations. It was a part of his religion for the Fijian to be a man-eater, whether his victims were slain in battle, or cast helpless shipwrecks on shore. This was but poor cheer for the experienced and noble swimmer to strike out boldly for dear life. Deprived of his canoe by the cruel storm, he had yet before him many a long furlong of rough sea; shoals of hungry sharks set on tearing him in pieces ere his feet could reach the strand; and last, and more to be dreaded than tempest, sea or sharks, men like himself, waiting to rob him of the life which, in spite of the leaden weight at his heart, he had struggled so hard to keep. As he wades feebly towards the land, he knows there is no hope, for he sees the smoke curling upwards from the oven that is ready to receive him, and he hears the voices of men coming from behind the bushes to greet him,—to slay and eat him; and he knows them to be impelled to the deed, not alone by a liking for human flesh, but also by the unsparing requirements of an inveterate religious superstition. That this was even so there is abundant evidence to prove. The names of gods, priests, and temples, as likewise the character and themes of various imprecations, prayers, benedictions, legends, songs, and witnesses of every description, lead to no other conclusion.

The clear connection of Fiji cannibalism with religion, discovers its relation to the cannibalism practised by the Goands of India, and the Aborigines of America, who believed that the eating of human flesh was a thing in which the gods delighted. Revenge, approved and even instigated by the gods, was the great motive power which enabled the Fijian to engage in the horrible work with zest and freedom from all conscience-pangs. While, however, revenge was in most instances the father of the thought to kill and eat, it should be borne in mind that in cases of shipwreck, revenge could have little or no part in the business, except in so far as it was mixed up in the belief of the eaters of the shipwrecked ones, which belief taught that the gods had taken revenge for offences committed by the castaway sailors.

It will thus appear that the cannibal of Fiji was rarely guilty of hunting up the innocent and those who never did him any wrong, merely to gratify his appetite for this kind of food. Such cannibalism may have been common enough among the Kookees of India, but was not so with Fijians.

Finally, whatever the immediate or remoter causes of individual acts of cannibalism may have been, this much seems clear, that the strength of the whole evil lay in the religious belief, propagated by the priests, encouraged by the poets, and practised by the chiefs and people, that it was an institution founded and patronized by the gods of Cannibal-land. The Fijian man-eater was taught from early childhood, that the gods would often punish a crime by forsaking the objects of their care, whether on the battle-field or the briny deep, and leaving them in the hands of other and strange gods, who, in war, were those of the enemy, and in shipwreck, those of the tribe on whose shores they were thrown. Everything of an untoward nature that happens to a man is, according to the Fijian’s creed, punishment for some known or unknown sin. It was, therefore, a most binding religious duty for the people to eat what the gods provided, seeing that by so doing they were at most, only willing instruments of punishment in the hands of incensed and dreadful spirits.

If in war the oven was the only grave for the fallen soldier, and in shipwreck the only life-boat for the castaway sailor, and this, moreover, by order of the gods, we need not be surprised at the countless works of darkness, for which these people, in many things the highest of uncivilised races, have made themselves notorious; for, what will not men do when goaded on by the irresistible force of religious superstition, and the conscientious belief that their religion not only sanctions, but also demands and sanctifies the deed?

It was now my lot to be the witness of a cannibal orgie, the abominations of which will never be erased from my memory.

An important preliminary to the feast was the convivial yangona or kava ring, in which the king and the leading chiefs joined. This intoxicating beverage, to which the Fijians are largely addicted, is an infusion of the root of the piper methysticum, which is chewed by young men or girls, and then strained through a handful of hibiscus fibres. A large bowl having been filled, the process being accompanied by some set ceremonies, the cup-bearer in a stooping attitude presented the first cup to the king. His Majesty passed it on to the priest, who poured a few drops as a libation on the sacred stone in his charge, called the Fallen-from-Heaven, which preceded the army in the last engagement.

There remained a large cocoanut bowl nearly full of the liquor, and Box-of-Tricks availed himself of the opportunity to show the young men how well he could quaff the draught without once removing the vessel from his lips. Taking the bowl in his hands he said: “This is the libation to the great temple. Know that the mind of all here is that thy people may live, and that the trees may bear abundant fruit. This is the first offering of thy children. May our land be established, and may the fish continue to rise up out of the sea. Then shall we live, and all those who plot against us be clubbed.”

Raising his voice to a sort of recitative, the priest continued his prayer:

“O ye gods whom now we honor, Let your minds be undivided. Give us treasure, life and pleasure. Let our women and our children In our houses live and prosper. Sweep diseases from amongst us. In the race with ev’ry evil, Make the distance far between us. Spare the hands that make your kava, Spare the feet that carry water.[18] Lead our foes astray in fighting, Lead them where our clubs may fell them. O ye gods who once our chiefs were, Break the teeth of evil speakers, Headlong cast them into ditches; Kill our foes, but spare thy servants.”

Footnote 18:

The women, who are the drawers of water.

When the priest finished drinking, all the company clapped their hands together quickly in time, ending abruptly with a loud shout, which was caught up by those outside the ring, and was carried to the most distant outskirt of the town.

This part of the ceremony reminded me of the scene in “Hamlet.”

“And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the Heavens, the Heavens to earth, Now the king drinks to Hamlet.”

When the King drank, and those next of high rank in their proper order, the same formulas were observed. After each draught, the string of the kava bowl was always thrown towards the man next in rank, whose turn it now was. Each cup, which generally measured a pint and a half, was drained without pausing.

The male portion of the company entered the rara or square, in procession, with spears advanced, and strips of white masi flowing from them like pennons. They were headed by Hot-Water, whose appearance was magnificent. This comely savage was in the flower of his age, and he advanced with the proud step of a conqueror. His body was powdered a glossy jet, saving his face, which was painted in diamond patterns of the deepest red. He wore tortoise-shell armlets; his knees were bossed with colored grasses; his brow was adorned with a frontlet of scarlet cock’s feathers fixed on a palm leaf; and there lay on the upper portion of his breast a large boar’s tusk suspended from his neck by a cord braided from the ornamental tufts of hair taken from his deadliest foe’s head. His brawny shoulder sustained his favorite club, known as “The-Priest-is-Too-Late.” His train of native cloth, flowing from his waist, and borne by obsequious pages, was upwards of 100 yards in length. It was carried at the side of the following phalanx, and did not keep the warriors in the front rank more than a few yards apart from him.

Those who followed were in the proper order of precedence according to the laws of Fijian chivalry. First came kings and chiefs of large islands or districts; then chiefs of towns and districts, and ambassadors; next were distinguished warriors of lower birth than those who went before them, together with carpenters and chiefs of the turtle fishermen; then the kai sis or common people, the slaves captured in the war, and whose lives had been spared, bringing up the rear. The gay and glittering procession marched round the square, their heads a sea of waving tapa, and finally squatted on the turf in the form of a semi-circle. All the women in the district, arranged in the order of their rank, sat behind the men, having been waiting for the arrival of the procession. The ground having a slight ascent from the inner point of the semi-circle, the appearance presented was that of a crowded amphitheatre. Hot-Water occupied a post of honor, reclining on a heap of printed tapa, piled along a low platform. I was placed next the King, and drained the kava-bowl after him.

Lolóma sat with the king’s favorite wife on an elevated point at the right wing of the company. I was near her as a spectator, taking no part in the martial display. She was radiant with sunny smiles, her dark eyelashes quivering with delight in the spectacle, and her round limbs aglow with youthful blood and passionate life. As the wild barbaric music of conch-shells, bamboo pandean pipes, and wooden drums, awoke the echoes in the neighboring hills, I could not help wishing that this were a field of tourney in which all the bravery of the isle were about to contend; that Lolóma was the elected queen of love and beauty, crowning a noble spectacle by her presence, and whose delicate hand would award the palm of conquest; and that the blast of conch-shells which now pierced the air with its shrill sound were the bray of challenging trumpets from knights of princely mien, instead of the prelude to the ghastly formulas and the hideous banquet I was about to witness, the thought of which, notwithstanding that I had all a young man’s taste for the strange and horrible, filled me with loathing for the people by whom I was surrounded, and made me sick at heart. There was one drop of comfort in the debasing ordeal. Lolóma enjoyed the spectacle with a woman’s fondness for display, but she was not a cannibal. No member of her tribe ate human flesh, because the shrine of their god was human. She would take no part in the Saturnalian rites. She would do nothing that would revolt me.

Ovens on a large scale had been prepared. They were from 10 to 12ft. deep, and 60ft. in circumference. These receptacles having been filled with wood, large stones were laid in layers on the fuel, and were covered up until thoroughly heated. Then the joints of the human bodies were placed on the hot stones, and covered with leaves, a layer of earth enclosing all. While the process of cooking was proceeding, green baskets to carry the bokola were plaited; the vegetables to be eaten were boiled in earthen pots, and taro-paste and sauce were prepared.

The steam penetrating the covering of leaves and earth, showed that the cooking was done. The ovens were formally opened. The Tui Rara, or master of the feast, called out in order of precedence the names of the great personages to whom the meat was to be alloted, and their attendants received at his hands their several portions. When a portion was alloted to a distinguished chief, there was a loud shout from the multitude, followed by an approving clapping of hands. The sub-division of the meat to heads of families was made after the alloted parcels had been received at the hands of the Tui Rara.

There were 20 bodies prepared for the feast, all the seriously wounded prisoners having been killed to add to the number of the slain. These miserable remains, which had been subjected to every conceivable species of indignity, were formally presented at the temple, and accepted by the priest as a peace offering to his god. Then they were carried on slight hurdles (the head lolling on one side, and the legs dangling over the other) to the public square, and set up in a row in a sitting posture. Their faces were gaily painted with vermilion and soot, to give them a life-like appearance as in time of war.

Next a herald advanced in presence of the multitude, and touching each ghastly corpse in turn in a friendly way, the profoundest silence being preserved by the spectators, harangued it in a jocular manner, expressing his extreme regret at seeing such a fine fellow in so sorry a plight, asking if he did not feel ashamed of himself after his recent loud boasting from behind the fortress, and wondering why he should have ventured so far down the hill, unless it was to see his dear friends of Ramáka. Finally the herald addressed them in more excited strains, and wound up by knocking the bodies down like so many ninepins, amid shouts of laughter from the bystanders.

At length the corpses were ignominiously dragged into the shade of a clump of iron-wood trees which skirted the temple. A sacrificial stone marked the spot where hundreds of prisoners of war in past times had been killed, a heap of whitening skulls attesting their number.

Here the dissecting began. It was performed with sharpened shells and split bamboos by the dautava tamata, or cutter-up of men, who handled his instruments skilfully. The bodies having been disembowelled, and the head removed, the feet were cut off at the ancles, and the legs from the knees; the thighs were dissevered from the hip joints, the hands from the wrists; the fore arms were cut off at the elbows, and the shoulders were taken out of the sockets—the operator, who was watched with great interest by a crowd of onlookers, displaying no mean surgical skill. Each of these divisions was treated as a separate joint. Having been enclosed in green plantain leaves, the several pieces were placed in the oven. When the stones became red hot, green leaves were put on them to slacken the heat.

Some of the septs or families received their portion of the horrible repast on large wooden dishes covered with a cloth of fresh leaves. I noticed one dish 12 ft. long, 4ft. wide, and 3ft. deep. It would almost have held an ox roasted whole. Vast heaps of yams, and walls of taro and other vegetables had been prepared to accompany the meat. This portion of the feast alone must have weighed several tons. I noticed that several of the chiefs were linga tambu—not allowed to touch food with their hands for a certain time. These were fed by one of their wives, or a herald.

My attention was so particularly attracted to one blear-eyed old savage, who sat cross-legged, blinking demoniacally as he cleverly picked with his teeth the flesh from a human hand, that I asked his name. I was told that he was the head chief of a neighbouring town, who was known by the nickname of “Turtle Pond,” conferred upon him because of his enormous capacity for eating bokola. The turtle pond is a pool of water fenced or walled in to receive captured turtles, until the butcher is ready for them. This old reprobate was said to have eaten in his time 800 men, most of whose skulls formed a ghastly obelisk near his house. Truly, in Shaksperian phrase, “he was a man of an unbounded stomach.”

When the banquet was at its height, a sudden commotion and loud shouting in the direction from which the company had first entered the square, attracted my attention to that quarter. I saw that a procession had been formed, and that what appeared to be a chief of distinction was being borne aloft on a bamboo-litter by four men, while a large crowd circled round, dancing and singing in a high state of delight. The chief was in a sitting posture. His face was painted in four diamond shapes of alternate red and black; what I afterwards discovered to be a huge wig was upon his head; and he bore in his hand the well-known club of Bent-Axe, called “The Disperser,” which had so nearly sent me to my last account, and on which still remained the blood-stains I noticed when it fell at my feet. It was my enemy in full dress, sure enough. What could this mummery mean? Had he surrendered and made his peace with the tribe?

The procession approached me, and I gazed intently at the figure. I was within a few feet of it, and I now saw, horror of horrors! that there were cracks in the face like the fissures in the crackling of baked pork, and that the eyes had disappeared, their places being taken by a clumsy representation in paint and clay! The case was clear. Bent-Axe had been baked whole, and was now being paraded for the amusement of the company preparatory to being eaten! The great chief of yesterday was to-day a scapegoat in grimmest ironic symbol of revelry!

I turned away from the sickening spectacle. There was another wild tattoo beaten on the lali, followed by a shrill scream from the conch-shells, and I knew that the body was about to be divided as a _bonne bouche_ for a few of the leading personages.

I learned afterwards that Bent-Axe was taken prisoner while trying to escape. The gunshot wound I inflicted on him made him an easy prey, however. He was put into the oven while still living.

At the close of the banquet there was a scramble among the common people for the shin bones, which are valued for sail needles. The debauch ended for the greater part of the company in a helpless lethargy, which it took them days to recover from. I was given to understand, however, that this carouse would always be treasured in their minds for all future time as a great and memorable feast, just as the participants in the brilliant tournament of feudal days rejoiced to remember “the gentle and joyous passage of arms at Ashby.”

As I moved away from the revolting picture, the western sky was still suffused with the sun’s last rays; a crimson haze illuminated the sylvan cloisters at the back of the town, and as the colour gradually faded from the gay dracænas and croton shrubs, and the innumerable laughing ripples of the sea made answer to the murmurings of the dreamy palms, I could not but wonder that a country which seemed suited by nature to be the abode of the highest forms of civilisation should be inhabited by a race of what I could only at that moment regard as the most debased and hopeless savages; nor could I help contrasting the magnificent pageant of the tranquil tropic evening, whose beauty is calculated to elevate the soul of man, with the horrible orgie of which I had just been a witness.