The Fijians Part 13

A few days after this it was the turn of the women, who had thus far been rigidly excluded, to come to the Nanga. The usual dress of the women of these tribes was a _liku_--narrow enough, truly, but still sufficient for decency. But for this occasion they were dressed in a series of such fringes as would satisfy the most puritanical if they did not begin too late and end too early. The fringes were tied one over another from the waist to just below the breast, so as to clothe the trunk in a neat thatch, and, seeing the postures the women had to a.s.sume, it was a pity that a thatch starting at the waist should not have been carried downwards instead of in the other direction. In this fantastic garb, with hair dyed black, the women proceeded to the Nanga with baskets of food. At the entrance they dropped on their hands and knees, and crawled into the enclosure in single file, the men sitting on either side of a narrow lane left for the procession, and crying, "_Lovo ulu! Lovo ulu!_" (Keep your heads down!) During this performance it was strictly forbidden for the women to gaze about them, or to look behind them, on pain of insanity. The lane was interrupted with little mounds of freshly-turned earth, and over these the women had to crawl.

It was in topping these mounds that a better arrangement of the fringes suggested itself. In the inner chancel of the Nanga the _Vere_ were chanting a song called the _Vaya_. The chief _Vere_ dipped his hands in a bowl of water, and prayed to the Ancestors to bless the women with ample families. This is called the _Vuluvulu_ (hand-washing), and as the _Vuluvulu_ is the ordinary form of release from a tabu, it is possible that it is intended to absolve the women from the usual consequences of entering a place forbidden to them. As to what happened after this, the native accounts are in conflict. Mr. Joske's informants declared that women only entered the Nanga to bring food, and that the rites were orderly and inoffensive; Mr. Fison says that when the women emerged from the enclosure, "the men rushed upon them, and an indescribable scene ensued. The men and women addressed one another in the filthiest language ...," and that from this moment until the close of the ceremonies "very great licence prevailed." Mr. Walter Carew was a.s.sured that in Wainimala the men rushed upon the women while they were in the Nanga, and that any woman laid hold of was the lawful prize of her captor. Among the Ndavotukia I had no difficulty in obtaining an account of the ritual until I came to this point, but here all my informants broke off with a self-conscious giggle, and said that they knew no more.

One told me frankly that they "did things that they were ashamed to think about in these enlightened days, and, when pressed upon the point, wrote down for me a song of gross indecency connected with the tattooing of women. A native of Mbau, who lived for some years near the Nanga, a.s.sured me that the visit of the women to the Nanga resulted in temporary promiscuity; all tabus were defied, and relations who could not speak to one another by customary law committed incest. This would account for the mystery that is thrown about the rite even now. The festival was a propitiatory sacrifice to the Ancestors to bless their descendants with increase, and the temporary abrogation of all human laws that interfered with freedom between the s.e.xes had a logical place in such a sacrifice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Serua, an island chief village in the _Mbaki_ country.]

[Pageheader: FEEDING THE SACRED PIGS]

On finally leaving the Nanga the property was carried to the village, together with two candlewood saplings, which were set up in the village with appropriate songs, and the property was piled between them. Those who were not members of the Order had to keep fast within doors, for if they inadvertently caught sight of the worshippers they would have been smitten with insanity. The invited visitors, who were in hiding near the village, were now summoned by parties of the Order, who went out chanting a song to find them. These they followed to the village square, where they deposited enormous quant.i.ties of property by the saplings.

The feasting and licence continued for several days. On the last day the _Vere_ shared out the property, taking the best care of their own interests, and a number of the pigs were shorn of their tails and turned out near the Nanga to serve for a future celebration. It was an act of piety to feed these pigs, to which the sacrificer calls the attention of the Ancestors in words such as these: "Remember me, O ye our chiefs, who lie buried. I am feeding this pig of yours." To kill one was an inconceivable sacrilege. One of these great brutes was living within a year of my visit to the Nanga. It met its death at the hands of an irreligious half-caste, whose continued sanity after this sacrilegious deed was attributed to his foreign parentage.

The ceremony ended with the _Sisili_ (or Bath). All the men went in company to the river, and washed off every trace of the black paint. The _Vilavou_ were then drawn up before the _Vere_ on the river bank to listen to a long discourse upon the new position they had a.s.sumed. They were admonished to defer to their elders, to obey the customary law of the tribe, and to keep the secrets of the Nanga on pain of the sure vengeance of the Ancestors. Especially were they to avoid eating eels and freshwater fish and all the best kinds of food. These must be presented to the elders, for their food, until they had attained a higher rank in the Order, must be wild yams and food that is held in less esteem.

Minor Rites of the Nanga

As the Nanga is the earthly dwelling-place of the Ancestral spirits, it is not necessary to seek the intervention of a _Vere_ in order to invoke them as in the case of the Fijian tribal deities, who can only be consulted through the priest. A member of the Nanga could approach the Ancestors at any time by depositing an offering on the wall with proper invocations. For many years after the people had abandoned heathenism the native mission teachers used to keep a sharp look-out for footprints leading in the direction of the Nanga. Two years after the conversion of the Wainimala people a visitor to the Nanga found property and food and the carca.s.ses of pigs in a state of putrefaction, showing that sacrifice was still being made. The Nanga that I last visited had not been used for twenty-eight years. At the eastern end I found the _Vere's_ whistling staff, just where he had planted it in the earth. Moss-grown and fretted with decay, it still emits a shrill whistle when I blow upon it. All about the enclosure candle-nut trees had sprung up from the nuts that had been thrown aside, and about the walls were strewn a number of the curious funnel-shaped cooking-pots that were only used during the Nanga celebrations.

The _Sevu_ (First-fruits) of the yam harvest were always piled in the Nanga before the yams were dug, and allowed to rot there. From these decayed offerings numerous yam-vines were seen sprouting among the undergrowth. From this custom the Nanga is generally spoken of as the Mbaki, which, as I have said, also gives its name to the Fijian year--ya-mbaki.

Before going on the war-path warriors used to repair to the Nanga to be made _vunde_ (invulnerable). The rites appear to have been similar to those of the Kalou-rere.

[Pageheader: CIRc.u.mCISION]

But next in importance to the _Vilavou_ celebration was the rite of circ.u.mcision, which Mr. Fison says was practised as a propitiation to recover a chief from sickness. My inquiries did not confirm this. I was a.s.sured, on the contrary, that while offerings were certainly made in the Nanga for the recovery of the sick, every youth was circ.u.mcised as a matter of routine, and that the rite was in no way connected with sacrifice for the sick. But, although Mr. Fison may have been wrong in his application of the ceremony, his description of the rite itself is undoubtedly correct. He says: "On the day appointed, the son of a sick chief is circ.u.mcised, and with him a number of other lads who have agreed to take advantage of the occasion. Their foreskins, stuck in the cleft of a split reed, are taken to the Nanga and presented to the chief priest, who, holding the reed in his hand, offers them to the ancestral G.o.ds, and prays for the sick man's recovery. Then follows a great feast, which ushers in a period of indescribable revelry. All distinctions of property are for the time being suspended. Men and women array themselves in all manner of fantastic garbs, address one another in the most indecent phrases, and practise unmentionable abominations openly in the public square of the town. The nearest relationships--even that of own brother and sister--seem to be no bar to the general licence, the extent of which may be indicated by the expressive phrase of an old Nandi chief,[60] who said, 'While it lasts we are just like the pigs.'

This feasting and frolic may be kept up for several days, after which the ordinary restrictions recur once more. The rights of property are again respected, and abandoned revellers settle down into steady-going married couples, and brothers and sisters may not so much as speak to one another. Nowhere in Fiji, so far as I am aware, excepting in the Nanga country, are these extravagances connected with the rite of circ.u.mcision."

The Priesthood

The priesthood was no exception to the Fijian rule that all skilled trades must be hereditary. But inasmuch as any man who showed a natural apt.i.tude for carpentry or haircutting or the exorcism of evil spirits might win a _clientele_ as a canoe-builder, a barber, or a doctor, so a clever rogue who could shake well and make a lucky forecast of public events might pretend to inspiration by a G.o.d, and obtain a grudging recognition from the chiefs. In practice this seldom occurred, because the recognized deities were amply furnished with a priesthood who brooked no interference from an amateur, and to overcome their opposition and the cold suspicion of the chiefs demanded a very rare combination of a.s.surance and cunning.

It is doubtful whether the high chiefs believed in the inspiration of the priests, though it suited their policy to appear to do so. There was rather an understanding between the two orders, not the less cordial that it was unexpressed. The priests depended for subsistence upon the offerings made to the G.o.d, and a priest who delivered oracles unfavourable to the chief's policy saw his temple falling into decay and his larder empty. On the other hand, so enormous was the influence of the oracle upon the common people that the chief had the best reason for keeping the priests in good humour. Both knew that neither could stand firm without the support of the other. A chief with whom the G.o.ds were angry enjoyed but a waning authority; a priest whose G.o.d the chief did not think worth propitiating fell into disrepute and was soon superseded by another who could shake as well and more wisely. Such relations between the powers spiritual and temporal are not unknown in other lat.i.tudes.

Williams relates that the Thakaundrove chief presented a large offering to the G.o.ds on the morrow of a warlike expedition. Among the G.o.ds invoked was Ka.n.u.simana, but in the subsequent division of the feast the priest of that deity was put off with one wretched pudding instead of the turtle he had expected. That night the G.o.d visited him, and foretold defeat as a punishment for the slight, and the tidings were carried to the king, who immediately countermanded the expedition, knowing that the depressing effect of the news upon the spirit of his warriors would bring defeat. In a similar case, however, matters took a different turn.

"Who are you?" asked the chief angrily. "Who is your G.o.d? If you make a stir I will eat you."

[Pageheader: A HEATHEN REFORMATION]

A more organized resistance to sacerdotal pretensions was seen in the "Reformation" in the Rewa province. A few years before the arrival of the missionaries the chiefs found it necessary in their own interests to disestablish the whole priestly caste, which, as they said, had fallen into the hands of "low-born persons of ill repute," or, in more intelligible language, which had begun to a.s.sume the _imperium in imperio_ that has provoked Reformations in another hemisphere. They repudiated the entire priesthood publicly, and announced that members of the ruling family had received inspiration. The sacerdotal clan immediately fell into their proper rank in society--a very humble one--but the arrival of the missionaries deprived the new state-made priesthood of a fair trial.

The priests were not always the tools of the chiefs; sometimes they were the mouthpiece of the people's discontent at some unpopular exercise of authority. "The famine is eating us up because you gave the large canoe to Tonga instead of to Mbau." "This hurricane was sent to punish us for your refusal to give the princess to the Lord of Rewa."

The priests of one G.o.d were generally, but not always, confined to one family. They owed their consideration to their office rather than to their rank, which was generally humble. They ranked according to the importance of the G.o.d to whom they ministered. When the chieftancy and the priesthood were united in the same person, both were of low order.

The t.i.tular spiritual chief (Roko Tui) was not a priest, although divine honours were paid to him, for the act of inspiration appeared to be thought derogatory to the dignity of a high chief. The priesthood could not be dispensed with, because the G.o.ds could not be approached except through the medium of a priest, who could only be inspired in the temple of his G.o.d except on rare occasions, such as a campaign in a distant island, when the oracle must be consulted in a private house if at all.

"One who intends to consult the oracle dresses and oils himself, and, accompanied by a few others, goes to the priest, who, we will suppose, has been previously informed of the intended visit, and is lying near the sacred corner, getting ready his response. When the party enters he rises and sits so that his back is near to the white cloth by which the G.o.d visits him, while the others occupy the opposite side of the _mbure_. The princ.i.p.al person presents a whale's tooth, states the purpose of the visit, and expresses a hope that the G.o.d will regard him with favour. Sometimes there is placed before the priest a dish of scented oil with which he anoints himself and then receives the tooth, regarding it with deep and serious attention. Unbroken silence follows.

The priest becomes absorbed in thought, and all eyes watch him with unblinking steadiness. In a few minutes he trembles; slight distortions are seen in his face, and twitching movements in his limbs. These increase to a violent muscular action, which spreads until the whole frame is violently convulsed, and the man shivers as with a strong ague fit. In some instances this is accompanied with murmurs and sobs, the veins are greatly enlarged, and circulation of the blood quickened. The priest is now possessed by his G.o.d, and all his words and actions are considered as being no longer his own, but those of the deity who has entered into him. Shrill cries of '_Koi au! Koi au!_' (It is I! It is I!) fill the air, and the G.o.d is supposed thus to notify his approach.

While giving the answer the priest's eyes stand out and roll as in a frenzy; his voice is unnatural, his face pale, his lips livid, his breathing depressed, and his entire appearance like that of a furious madman. The sweat runs from every pore, and tears start from his strained eyes; after which the symptoms gradually disappear. The priest looks round with a vacant stare, and, as the G.o.d says, 'I depart!'

announces his actual departure by flinging himself down on the mat, or by suddenly striking the ground with a club, while those at a distance are informed by blasts on the conch, or by the firing of a musket, that the deity has returned to the world of spirits. The convulsive movements do not entirely disappear for some time; they are not, however, so violent as to prevent the priest from enjoying a hearty meal, or a draught of yankona or a whiff of tobacco, as either may happen to be at hand. Several words are used by the natives to express these priestly shakings. The most common are _sika_ and _kundru_. _Sika_ means to appear, and is used chiefly of supernatural beings; _kundru_ means to grunt or grumble. The one refers to the appearance, the other to the sound attendant upon these inspired shakings.

[Pageheader: AN INSPIRED PRIEST]

As whatever the priest says during the paroxysm is supposed to be direct from the G.o.d, a specimen or two of these responses will be interesting.... A priest of Ndengei, speaking for that divinity, once said, "Great Fiji is my small club. Muaimbila is the head; Kamba is the handle. If I step on Muaimbila I shall sink it into the sea, while Kamba shall rise to the sky. If I step on Kamba it will be lost in the sea, and Muaimbila shall rise to the sky. Yes, Vitilevu is my small club. I can turn it as I please. I can turn it upside down."[61]

The propitiatory offering might be anything from a bunch of cocoanuts covered with turmeric powder to a great feast. In the last case, part, called the _singana_, was set apart for the G.o.d, the rest apportioned among the people. In theory the G.o.d consumed the spiritual essence of all the food, and the people ate its grosser fibre. The _singana_ was eaten by the priest and a few privileged old men; it was tabu to youths and women.

The psychological aspect of the inspiration of the Fijian priest is difficult to appreciate. The inspired paroxysm is something more than conscious deception. Williams was present when a famous Lakemba priest was questioned by the Tongan chief, Tubou Totai:--

"Lanngu, did you shake yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Did you think beforehand what to say?"

"No."

"Then you just say what you happen to think at the time, do you?"

"No. I do not know what I say. My own mind departs from me, and then, when it is truly gone, my G.o.d speaks by me."

Williams adds that this man "had the most stubborn confidence in his deity, although his mistakes were such as to shake any ordinary trust.

His inspired tremblings were of the most violent kind, bordering on frenzy."[62] He was, no doubt, absolutely sincere. In this race, as in the Hindus and the Malays, there is an undercurrent of hysteria which no one looking at their placid surface would suspect. In the first heat of conversion to Christianity it was quite common in the Mission services for a man to be inspired (by the Holy Spirit, as he said) and to interrupt the minister with an outburst of gibberish accompanied with all the contortions that seized the heathen priest. His companions would try to calm him by patting him gently with soothing exclamations, and the good missionaries, who had been enlarging on the gift of tongues at Pentecost, were not a little embarra.s.sed in discouraging the practice.

The "revival" which took place at Viwa in 1845 was a curious instance of this. To judge from John Hunt's account of it, the entire island was seized with religious hysteria, and "business, sleep and food were entirely laid aside" for several days, until the missionaries had to force the new converts to eat. Such ebullitions are rare in these days, but that they are still smouldering unsuspected is shown by the hysterical outbursts of emotion that sometimes take place at the _Bolotu_ or Night Revival meetings, introduced from Tonga. More than one generation must come and go before all danger from this neurotic chord in the Fijian const.i.tution is removed. Any acute cause of native discontent which might be fanned into active hostility to the white race would most certainly produce the heathen priest again, and the most dangerous of these might well be the man who now delivers eloquent emotional sermons to Wesleyan congregations Sunday after Sunday. Such a spectacle would shock the European missionaries beyond expression, but it would not surprise those who know the natives intimately. The schism of Ndungumoi and the heathen outbreak of Vanualevu in 1895 were but a bubble from the seething pitch that lies below the placid outer crust of the converted Fijian.

[Pageheader: THE TOOLS OF THE WIZARD]

Even now a practised eye might pick out from an a.s.sembly of Fijians the sons of the heathen priests, by their shifty glance, their crafty expression, and their smooth, insinuating address, which are as much a part of them as the set of their eyes and the colour of their skin.[63]

Witchcraft

_Ndraunikau_ (_lit._, leaves)

In 1618 two women were executed at Lincoln for burying the glove of Henry, Lord Rosse, in order that "as that glove did rot and waste, so did the liver of the said lord rot and waste." The belief ill.u.s.trated by this trial is found in every people, in every country, and in every age.

Dr. E. B. Tylor has remarked with much force that the occult sciences are nothing but "bad reasoning." There being obvious relation between a glove and its owner, between a waxen image and the person it represents, the sorcerer reasons that what he does to the one will happen to the other. Health being the normal condition of all, except the very aged, sickness and death must be the work of some malevolent agency, divine or human; and, if the sick person is free from all suspicion of sacrilege, the G.o.ds can have no motive for afflicting him. Instead of "Whom the G.o.ds love die young," the primitive man reads "An enemy hath done this."

This theory of disease being once established, it is a short step to the professional agents of disease, who, for a consideration, will wreck the health of the strongest man with the simplest of tools--a lock of his hair, a sc.r.a.p of his food, or a garment that he has worn. The belief in such powers is not more wildly foolish than our own theory of microbes would have seemed if it had been put forward before there were microscopes to prove its truth. It could at least point to success in its support, for there can be no doubt whatever that numbers of bewitched persons did actually die--from fear--and that many sick recovered as the result of curative counterspells that put new heart into them.

The terror of witchcraft was never absent from the mind of a Fijian.

Williams relates that the sceptics who laughed at the pretensions of a priest trembled at the power of the wizard, and that this was the last superst.i.tion to be eradicated from the mind of the convert to Christianity. It would be more true to say that the Christian native has never lost it. The professional wizard was not necessarily a priest, but if he had not the protection of sanct.i.ty, he was a person of considerable courage, for witchcraft was a dangerous profession. The pay was very high, but since the transaction could never be kept entirely secret, the wizard had to brave the resentment of his victim's relations.

[Pageheader: A CHIEF IS BEWITCHED]

The procedure was this: If a man desired the death of a rival he procured something that had belonged to his person--a lock of hair, the parings of his nails, a sc.r.a.p of food, or, best of all, his excreta, for witchcraft by these produced incurable dysentery. With these he visited the wizard by night, taking a whale's tooth as an earnest of the reward that he would pay when the death of his rival was accomplished. The wizard then prepared the charm by wrapping the object in certain leaves of magical properties, and burying the parcel in a bamboo case either in the victim's plantation or in the thatch of his house. In a few days the man began to sicken--generally, no doubt, because hints of the design had been conveyed to him--and if the charm could then be discovered and destroyed, he would recover. But if a diligent search failed, offerings were made to the G.o.ds, or the chief in whose district the wizard lived was invoked to use his authority. It was more common, however, to fee another wizard to make the charm innocuous by counterspells, which were often effective through the fresh hope infused into the sufferer, to the profit of both pract.i.tioners. When the victim died the wizard claimed his reward by attending the funeral with a blackened face, and bold indeed would be the employer who dared to bilk him. This practice was sometimes abused. Any sudden death being ascribed to witchcraft, a professional wizard, who was entirely innocent, would blacken his face at the funeral in the hope that some one who had an interest in the death would pay him the fee he had never earned. Such a case occurred as late as 1887 at the funeral of Mbuli Mbemana, who died of a chill contracted in taking a huge _vesi_ log down the river as a king-post for the council-house at Nandronga. A man with a blackened face was pointed out to me at the funeral, and shortly afterwards a formal complaint was made by the dead man's relations against the river tribes of having fee'd this wizard to compa.s.s the Mbuli's death. I summoned them to a meeting, but all my arguments were impotent against the undoubted fact that the Mbuli was dead, that the river tribes detested him and had an interest in his death, and that their wizard had appeared with a black face at his funeral. _Fiat experimentum_: let them commission their most famous wizards to compound a spell that no man could withstand--I would supply them with all the material they wanted--and if I still lived they would put away this superst.i.tion for ever. They discussed the proposition with gravity, and replied through their spokesman that this would be no proof at all, for it was well known that white men, who subsist on outlandish meats, were proof against Fijian spells. There was with me a Tongan, named Lijiate (the nearest the Tongans can get to "Richard"), whose enlightened contempt for the dark-mindedness of these heathen had been expressed with unnecessary emphasis. Him I proffered as a subst.i.tute. But I had reckoned without my host. "Pardon me," he said, when I asked him for a lock of his hair, "but I almost believe in it myself." One stout-hearted Fijian servant was ready to step into the breach, but it was then my turn to interfere, for the knowledge that he was bewitched would lay the stoutest-hearted Fijian low in less than a week.[64]

A man, delirious with triumph at his narrow escape, once brought me a spell that he had found buried in the thatch of his house in Tawaleka.

It was a bamboo six inches long, corked with a tuft of gra.s.s. Within was a shred of _masi_, torn, no doubt, from his clothing and a handful of withered leaves of some bush shrub. He wished me to hold inquisition over the countryside in the hope that his enemy would confess the crime, for _ndraunikan_ had been wisely made a punishable offence. Its utility has long pa.s.sed away, and its power for harm remains. Apart from the death and suffering it may inflict on the victim through terror, it not infrequently leads to actual violence. The murder of Mbuli Mbureta in 1884 is a notable instance. At the trial of his murderers it was elicited that a number of disaffected chiefs in his district had fee'd a wizard to remove him by witchcraft. When weeks had pa.s.sed, and the unpopular chief continued in obstinate good health, the wizard's employers taunted him with his lack of skill, and received a definite promise of the Mbuli's death before a fixed date. The promise was kept; the victim disappeared, but when his body was discovered it was found that the skull had been fractured by an axe-stroke from behind.

In the face of such instances as these it demands some courage to a.s.sert that upon the whole the belief in witchcraft was formerly a positive advantage to the community. It filled, in fact, the place of a system of sanitation. The wizard's tools consisting in those waste matters that are inimical to health, every man was his own scavenger. From birth to old age a man was governed by this one fear; he went into the sea, the graveyard or the depths of the forest to satisfy his natural wants; he burned his cast-off _malo_; he gave every fragment left over from his food to the pigs; he concealed even the clippings of his hair in the thatch of his house. This ever-present fear even drove women in the western districts out into the forest for the birth of their children, where fire destroyed every trace of their lying-in. Until Christianity broke it down, the villages were kept clean; there were no festering rubbish-heaps nor filthy _raras_.