CHAPTER VIII.

THE VALLEY OF TIVÓLI.

I was conducted by my newly-found friends into the valley where the chief town of the district was situated, and from which I had often heard sounds denoting the presence of a numerous population. The valley was called Tivóli, the Fijian word for wild yam. The thick-eaved houses were clustered together in the shade of an extensive grove of bread-fruit trees. The buildings formed in a somewhat irregular way three sides of a square. The central space was the village green, on which the sports of the inhabitants and the friendly tournaments they often engaged in were enacted.

Entering the chief’s house, I found him reclining in the midst of his wives and concubines on a pile of coloured masi or tapa[6]. Three sides of a mosquito-net made of the same material, only much finer in texture, hung in festoons around him. Some fathoms of native cloth wrapped round his waist lay in graceful folds upon his brawny limbs. In his hand he held a neatly-made fan of palm leaves; and close by was his wooden pillow, shaped like an office-ruler fixed on two low stands. His hair was worn like an enormous ball of jetty frizz, which projected an equal distance on all sides, and added greatly to the appearance of his stature. He was not more than 6ft. 1in. in height, but he seemed to be several inches taller. Regular features, a pointed beard, dark-brown skin, and luminous black eyes, which glowed when they lighted up with some hidden feeling of savage joy like a piece of charcoal when the slumbering fire is blown upon, completed the external marks of a distinguished personage of far from unprepossessing appearance.

Footnote 6:

Native cloth. Masi is the Fijian word; tapa, a Tongan word, is also now in common use.

The house in which I found myself was about 30ft. long and 15ft. broad. The structure was externally not handsomer than a hayrick, which it closely resembled, with the exception that there were holes in the side, over which mats were hung, for windows. The projecting end of the ridgepole was ornamented with cowrie shells. The walls were about 5ft. high, but the ridgepole was a good 25ft. from the ground. The doorway was cunningly contrived to be so low that the most exalted personage could not gain audience of the master without stooping almost with his hands to the ground. The walls had a thickness of three reeds. The outer and inner rows of reeds being arranged perpendicularly and the middle horizontally, the builders had been enabled to produce a handsome and artistic effect by a pattern in sinnet worked with great regularity and neatness. The most prominent object in the middle of the floor was a sunken fireplace, protected by a wooden kerb. Here a large earthenware pot was simmering, and a thin smoke curled up from a slow fire, slightly obscuring the light in the room. An elevation at one end of the dwelling, where the chief reclined, had dividing curtains of masi, which showed that it was a divan by day and a place of repose by night.

The walls were as plentifully hung with useful articles as an English farmers kitchen. The most noticeable was the kava-bowl, with strainer and cup. Ornamental baskets, gourds and bottles, fans, sunshades, and oil and food dishes of strong wood, attracted immediate attention. Wooden bowls, earthen pans, and glazed water-vessels rested at the base of the walls. Near the hearth I noticed a knife—made, as I afterwards learned, from some human bone—for cutting bread (decayed bread-fruit) from the pit in which it is kept buried till it is in a putrescent state, highly relished by Fijian _bon vivants_; a kneading board for the bread, some cocoanut cups, a bamboo drinking vessel plugged with grass, and a soup dish. Several earthen pots, capable of holding three or four gallons each, were propped against the kerbing of the fireplace. The Fijians have no mean skill in the potter’s art. In most of their water-vessels they have taken for their model the nest of the mason bee, which builds its little round dwelling with an opening at one side, terminating in a narrow neck with a turned-back lip, in the precise form of a common Fijian pot. A skewer for trying cooked food, and a wooden fork or two, were also among the things which a hasty glance round disclosed to me, and encouraged me to believe that my daily fare was likely to be of a far from contemptible kind in a place where the culinary appliances were so good.

The company included a liberally-provided harem and some important minor chiefs and councillors. There was Qio (shark), the priest; Thikinovu (the centipede), King Big-Wind’s brother; Na Ulu (the head), the King’s herald; Kuila (the flag), the chief ambassador; Davui (trumpet shell), the tribal minstrel; Matauloki (bent-axe), half-brother to the King, a crooked-backed individual of sinister aspect, who eyed me in no friendly way; and Lalabalavu (long-emptiness), the court fool. Among the ladies the most distinguished in appearance was Lolóma, the chief’s favourite daughter. There were two fine stout women, his favourite wives—Randivanua and Watina; and two pretty little girls—Ko Sena (the flower), and Sénimóli (orange blossom), Lolóma’s youngest sisters.

King Big-Wind received me with great solemnity, directing that I should be treated with divine honours. He bestowed on me the name of Ratu Thava, or Sir Hurricane, telling me that I had come with the storm, and must be its spirit. The herald proclaimed my appellation at the palace door, and three fearful blasts on the conch-shell announced to the distant townsfolk that the Child of the Hurricane, a white God from the unknown countries, had been adopted by the tribe as their papalangi.

The King told me to make myself quite at home in his family, remarking that the coast tribes would not dare to attack him, as they had threatened, now that he had a white God with him. Kava and food in abundance were offered me, and I was soon on friendly terms with my neighbours, some of whom had a difficulty at first in satisfying themselves that I was really a human being. It was, indeed, many days before any of the children could be induced to come within a stone’s throw of me.

After I had given the company some description of the vessel in which I was wrecked, in whose construction they took an intense interest, Big-Wind reminded them of a legend in the tribe which said that a priest, under the inspiration of his God, had predicted that one day an “outriggerless canoe” would arrive at the islands from some foreign land. The natives could not conceive of a vessel being at sea without an outrigger, which is the mainstay of their own canoes, and the prophecy was disbelieved, notwithstanding that the old priest successfully launched a wooden dish on a pool of water in proof of the possibility of his idea being carried out. After hearing my description of the Molly Asthore the company one and all asserted that the prediction had been fulfilled.

There was a tradition in the tribe of a further prediction that after the arrival of a canoe without an outrigger a vessel without ropes or cordage would come. Some of the young Fijians of Big-Wind’s court lived to see, nearly half a century later, a steamship in Levuka harbour, which they considered verified this prediction also.

In the evening, sports were celebrated by the light of the moon on the village green in honour of the new arrival. The dancers numbered over 100, and there was an orchestra of 20 persons. The musical instruments of the Fijians are the conch-shell, a flute played by blowing through the nose, pandean pipes, a sort of jew’s harp (which consists of a strip of bamboo), drums made of hollowed logs or bamboos with cross-pieces near the ends, and a long stick, from which clear notes are produced by striking it with a shorter one.

The shadowy ball-room is at length prepared. It is bounded by groves of thick-leaved trees in which the fireflies have set their lamps, and it is canopied by the moon-lit firmament, which sheds a silvery light over all. The night is radiant as the day, and infinitely more ethereal.

The dancers are all in gala attire. The women are profusely decorated with flowers and green garlands, or red ribands made of the fine membrane of a leaf. Their hair is tricked out to an immense size, their lissom bodies are scented with sandalwood, and they wear likus dyed all manner of colours. The men’s faces are painted in grotesque patterns, and they sport ornamental garters and armlets of shells and coloured grasses. The step begins slowly to the accompaniment of a low chanting and clapping of hands, the striking of bamboos on the ground producing a sound like that of the tambourine. The speed is gradually accelerated, but the inflections of the body and every movement are done by the company in exact time. The violence of the stamping increases, the measure becomes inconceivably animated and wild—for the Fijians dance with their whole bodies, eyes and all—till at length, the climax reached, there is a grand shout of “Woi!” by the whole party at the top of their voices, and the task of the exhausted performers is ended for a time.

There were several kinds of dances, and among them the Flying Fox Dance and the Waves of the Sea Dance. These, of which I had seen a mere indication from my leafy retreat in the hills, were now performed with the elaborateness proper to a state occasion.

A large company stood up for the Flying Fox Dance, and began by singing a soft air, to which responses were made by a chorus, the women accompanying the music with graceful motions of the hands, making a step forward and back again with one foot, while the other remained fixed. Presently there was a quicker measure, the dancers made a half-turn, leaping and clapping their hands. Then the company broke into two parties, which advanced towards each other and went through some evolutions, which terminated the introduction. The next part depicted the robbing of a banana-tree by flying foxes. The banana-tree was represented by a pole set up in the middle of the square, with a bunch of fruit at the top. The _ballet d’action_ then proceeded. The foxes met in consultation, determined on a robbery, sent out skirmishers to guard against a surprise, and then made the attack. One old fox climbed the tree, and the little foxes clustered under it crying with delight at the prospect of ripe fruit. While the fox in the tree hung by his legs and flapped his arms, another climbed after him, and there was a great deal of fighting, scratching, and squalling, after the manner of these animals, until one obtained the mastery. All the evolutions of the dancers were in imitation of the motions of the flying foxes, and their cry was also accurately imitated.

The dance representing the waves of the sea was equally graceful. There was the advance of a long wave and its little shoots running up the beach, the band representing the roar of the surf. The ocean ebbed and flowed, low waves sighed upon the shore and advanced in merry laughing ripples, throwing here and there a fringe of spray. The winsome prattling lasses assumed a graver mood. The sea was lashed into fury, surges vast as hills roared to the sound of rhythmic feet, and, breaking on some rocky prominence, clove the air with milk-white jets. The dancers flung their arms above their white masi-covered heads as they met, and when they bounded high above the ground, like the white foam of the sea when it hurls its columns of spray and surges of beaded water in the face of the sun, the spectators, no longer able to control themselves, fairly shouted with delight.

Every movement was performed in the most exact time; and, as in the case of the Flying Fox Dance, the performance seemed like a poetic drama represented by the perfection of pantomime.

The scene is a singularly wild one. The flash of dark eyes, the gleam of white teeth, and the spectacle of bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare in utter abandonment to the enjoyment of the moment, with the dark forms of the savages sitting around make a picture not readily to be forgotten. The weird music of the drum and fluttering pipes adds to the wonder, glow, and tumult. As the girls shout, stamp, and reel in maddest ecstacies, their eyes aglow under their short curly hair, and sparkling with the grace and glitter of the movement, strangely mixing with the mass of blending hues, it is intoxicating.

The evening closes with laughter and endless chatter. Presently the love-chirp ceases. The village sleeps, silvery and still.

In a few days I was fully initiated in the mysteries of the native _menu_. The Fijians usually take two meals in the day. I soon got used to their bill of fare, which is a liberal one. The bread-fruit was served up in an infinite variety of ways; there are a score of different kinds of puddings, and of soups there are at least a dozen sorts, including turtle soup—though they prefer roast turtle. The juice of the cocoanut, the ti-root, and the sugar-cane, make excellent pudding sauces.

The Fijians’ life in the good old times was largely made up of eating and sleeping. If a man keeps at work till mid-day, he likes to bathe a little after that hour, then to take a rather long siesta, hard as his pillow is. Towards evening you may see him strolling in his garden, or along the beach if he lives on the coast, cooling himself in the pleasant breeze. Presently he returns to his snug and well-matted hut to enjoy the warm evening meal. If the song, the dance, and the moonlight do not allure him, the soft cool mat, the wooden pillow, and somebody present to talk, may occupy him even till morning. Wanting the song or the tale, hard sleep is his sole refuge.

The men usually collect in the bures or strangers’ houses, which serve the purposes of an English club, at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon to talk. The married men sleep there till dawn, and then return to their wives. The Fijian in the thinly-peopled hill districts does not sleep with his consort. The nuptial bower is in some secluded part of the woods, known only to the pair, where, as with our first parents, a soft downy bank, damasked with flowers, invites to amorous dalliance. Boys, until they have been publicly recognised as adults, have a sleeping bure to themselves.

Among the occupations of the villagers which interested me greatly was the art of native-cloth making. Strips of the bark of the malo tree, which have been steeped in water, are beaten by women on a log with a grooved mallet. The masi or tapa is pieced together with the starch of the taro. The cloth is then printed in divers patterns with strips of bamboo, several kinds of dye being used. The rhythm of tapa-beating has as cheerful and industrious a sound as that of threshing corn in an English village.

In a very short time I was a familiar friend in all the houses in the valley. Sometimes I extended my walks to a neighboring village, and was always received as an honoured guest. I often felt disposed to say with the poet—

“Among the hills a hundred homes have I, My table in the wilderness is spread; In these lone spots one honest smile can buy Plain fare, warm welcome, and a rushy bed.”

The tropical forest was an unending source of admiration to me. The palm, rearing its polished shafts, stately as a Corinthian column, with its coronal of sighing plumes through which the golden clusters of nuts appear dangling so temptingly far up in the sunshine, is in itself a beautiful object, worthy of imitation in architecture. The Fijians ascend these smooth pillars, with no other aid than that of their hands and feet, with surprising rapidity. Tapping the nuts with their fingers, they know by the sound those which are fit for food. They prefer the young nuts, in which the milk is as clear as spring water, and the flesh of the consistency of cream. When a cocoanut has lain on the ground a short time, a shoot emerges from one of its three eyes and enters the ground. A cord connects it with the nut, and supplies half the nourishment of the young plant till it is strong enough to draw all it requires from the ground. The tree and its products are put to such an infinite variety of uses that without it the natives would be badly off.

A delightful object in the landscape, full of repose, and restful for the eye to light upon, is the banana, with its lush fat green stem rising from 10ft. to 15ft., and sometimes as much as 2ft. in diameter. The sheath-like stalks end in vast green blades, often 12ft. long and 4ft. broad, which serve the natives for dishes and sunshades. The whorls of fruit hang below the curving fronds, with a heart of deep-red flowers forming a brilliant bouquet behind them.

But the true glory of the Polynesian forest is the bread-fruit, crowning the dewy grove with its ample form and luxuriant foliage, and showing itself a beneficent providence to the races it supports without demanding any attention in return. The fruit of this tree is the staple article of food of the Fijians. The imposing figure, with horizontal branches and cone-shaped head, rises to a height of from 30ft. to 40ft. Its broad spreading branches are covered with large oblong glossy leaves, which, during the progress of decay, assume the most beautiful tints. The fruit, weighing from 4lb. to 5lb., is about the size of a rock-melon, which it also somewhat resembles in shape, and when ripe is of a rich yellow colour. The surface of the rough rind is reticulated, and has small square or lozenge-shaped divisions, which rise like little conical prominences. The inside is a white pulp, all of which is eaten except a small core containing the seeds. In taste it is insipid, with a slight sweetness. When roasted, or when eaten with a preparation of cocoanut, like batter-pudding with melted butter and sugar, it is very palatable. The natives are fond of the sour paste they make of the fermented bread, baked, and eaten both hot and cold. The bread is allowed to ferment in pits lined with grass. It is often kept in this way for months. In this putrescent state, however, it is disgusting to white men. The bread-fruit trees, which are always a prominent object in the landscape, have a picturesque appearance peculiar to themselves, which no description can convey.

In my walks I was occasionally accompanied by Lolóma. Our friendship was not viewed with a favourable eye by Bent-Axe, who had been betrothed to her from her infancy, but she lost no opportunity of showing her disinclination for his society.

The happiest time, however, was in the long silvery nights, when the valley was filled with the mild splendour of the regent of the sky, and the people turned with glee to joys which tire not. When the moonlight, falling softly, lighted with sheen the little village of Koroivónu, Lolóma and her handmaidens were always ready for the song and dance. They were as merry as a sisterhood of parakeets who cannot sleep in the trees for the exhilarating play of the moon. There seemed to be nothing to dim the brightness of those lightsome hours.

As time wore on, and I explained to my friends something of the history of the white man and his mode of life, the more intelligent of them ceased to regard me as a supernatural being. I did many things which seemed very wonderful to them, and explained some natural phenomena in a manner which they regarded as marvellous, but they gradually discovered what I always impressed on them, that my powers were limited. The common people, nevertheless, continued to regard me as one divinely endowed.