The Fijians Part 7

But on the other side of the frontier we found a meek folk, lost in wonder that we had come through the last stage of our journey unscathed, so cruel and ferocious were its inhabitants. Every man lived in active terror of his neighbour, and went armed to his plantation, but this did not prevent him from being a most skilful and industrious husbandman, or from living to a good old age. The fear being mutual, there was, in reality, scarcely any war; an occasional attack upon a woman or an unarmed man served to keep the hereditary feud alive.

The social evils of such a state of _morcellement_ may easily be exaggerated. The trivial loss of life is more than counterbalanced by the activity, alertness and tribal patriotism which are fostered in an atmosphere of personal danger. Every man having a selfish interest in the increase of his own tribe, public opinion compelled the observance of those customary laws that guarded the lives of women and young children. The lazy could not then idle away their day in philandering with the women; the adventurous could not evade their share of the communal labour by paying long visits to distant islands, even if they did not find enough to sate their taste for adventure at home. The _insouciance_ that has followed the decay of custom was impossible, because the tribe that gave way to it was lost. The teaching of all history is that man deteriorates as soon as he ceases to struggle either against hostile man or unkind nature. A barren soil, an overcrowded community, or a fauna dangerous to man will serve the need, but in a country where there is food without tillage, land enough for twenty times the population, and no man-eating tiger or poisonous snake, there must be war to keep the people from sinking into paralyzing lethargy. It must be remembered that the most devastating wars are less destructive than mild epidemics. The slaughter in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, estimated at 80,000 in France alone, worked out to little more than two in 1000 of the population--less, in fact, than in recent epidemics of influenza.

The causes of war among the Fijians rank in the following order of importance: Land; women; insults to chiefs (such as a refusal to give up some coveted object--a club, a sh.e.l.l-ornament, or a tame bird--or the unlawful eating of turtle, which are the chief's prerogative); wanton violation of the tabu; despotism or ambition of chiefs whom the malcontents hope to settle by a blow from behind in the turmoil of battle. But the most galling insult never provoked war unless success were a.s.sured by the oracles. An apparently restless thirst for war, which was carefully reported to the enemy, was a mere sham to feel the temper of the border tribes, and to frighten the other side into overtures for pardon. The real preparation consisted in rebuilding ruined temples, clearing away the undergrowth of shrines half-buried in weeds, and erecting new temples to the manes of chiefs who had lately attained the Pantheon. The issue then lay with the priests who interpreted the will of the G.o.ds, and grew fat on the offerings presented to their patrons.

A favourable oracle depended upon the att.i.tude of the Mbati,[36] or border tribes, for no priest, in the paroxysm of inspiration, ever forgot the earthly conditions of success. The borderers in large confederations, such as Mbau and Rewa, enjoyed extraordinary independence. They knew their value too well to pay tribute to their nominal overlord, who, so far from expecting it, fawned upon them, and took care that they received the lion's share in any division of property, for any neglect was certain to drive them into coquetting with the enemy. Though their arrogance was sometimes difficult to bear, he must stomach the insult, for the chief was twice lost whose Mbati went over to the other side. On the other hand, the lot of the Mbati was not altogether to be envied, for they had to bear the first brunt of attack, and in the struggle between Mbau and Rewa in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Mbati of both sides were fighting incessantly. The constant alarms made the Mbati the finest warriors in Fiji. Politically they formed an _imperium in imperio_, and their influence was paramount in the tribal councils.

[Pageheader: DECLARATION OF WAR]

a.s.sured 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 of _tauvu_ (_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 to _mbika_ (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 pa.s.sages 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 rea.s.sures 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 to _kanakanai 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 the war-drum was beaten and the _tangka_ was 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.

The _tangka_ was 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 cla.s.sic 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. The _tama_, 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 the _mbole_, 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 these _mbole_:--

[Pageheader: 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!"

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 rea.s.serts itself, and a reputation for desperate valour may be cheaply won. During the _mbole_ the 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 the _tangka_ the 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 a.s.sembled with an immense effort. The chief command was vested in the Vu-ni-valu (_lit._, Root of War). The t.i.tular 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 entrenchment of 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.

[Pageheader: TORTURE OF PRISONERS]

The first care of a besieging army is to prepare for defeat. Each division of the army prepared its own _orua_, paths diverging from the fortification down which they could run if a.s.sailed 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 per head 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 a.s.sault 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 called _drewai 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 pa.s.sed through a hole in a pole or bamboo twenty or thirty feet long, erected in a conspicuous 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 a.s.saults 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 a.s.sailants 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 a.s.sailants 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 a.s.sailants 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!"

If, however, the defenders obstinately refuse to be drawn, and the leading detachment has shouted itself hoa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sault.

[Pageheader: TREACHERY HELD A VIRTUE]

More often a fastness was reduced by stratagem. The favourite method was the _lawa_, or net, which seldom failed, for all it was so well known.

Posting a strong body of warriors 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 compa.s.sed the destruction of the landing party from the East Indiaman _Hunter_ at 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," for _lawaki_, 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, w.a.n.gkawai, who had contracted to a.s.sist the chief of Nakorovatu in war, brained him with his club during the ceremony of the _mbole_, and ma.s.sacred 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 s.e.x was spared was the least atrocious feature. Nameless mutilations, inflicted sometimes on living victims, deeds of mingled cruelty and l.u.s.t, made self-destruction preferable to capture. With the fatalism that underlies the Melanesian character many would not attempt to run away, but would bow their heads pa.s.sively 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 the _thimbi_, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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, s.e.xual licence had full rein in open day.

[Pageheader: 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 tribal _tauvu_.

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 ordinary _mata_ was 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 these _soro_, 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 Invest.i.ture of Koroi

The religious ceremony of _Koroi_ deserves 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 invest.i.ture 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 ent.i.tled to the honour, and takes a new name with the prefix _Koro-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 prefix _Koli_ (Dog), and the slayer of twenty _Visa_ (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 inst.i.tution, 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 new _malos_, rush ash.o.r.e carrying reeds with streamers attached. These they fix vertically in the posts of the temple of Thangawalu, the war-G.o.d. 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 the _thimbi_--death-dance, a sort of Fijian _Carmagnole_. The elders who have stayed behind to guard the town then demand the names of the new _koroi_, and give each of them a new weapon. At night the _wati_, 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 quant.i.ties of plantains are presented to those who have played esquire to the candidates.

"On the third day is the _Ngini-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-G.o.d, 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 the _thimbi_ death-dance of the first day.

"The last day is the Day of Water-drinking. Early in the morning canoes 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 a.s.sembled, 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."

[Pageheader: AN ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD]