The Fijians Part 9

[Footnote 44: The Rev. F. Langham was the first to point out the test for these forgeries. The genuine forks are carefully finished at the root of the p.r.o.ngs; the forgeries have inequalities and splinters. Mr.

H. Ling Roth has questioned this distinction, but I have never known it fail in the specimens I have examined.]

CHAPTER VII

RELIGION

Ancestor-G.o.ds--G.o.ds of the After-world--The Ndengei Myth--Luve-ni-wai--Mbaki--The Priesthood--Witchcraft--Kalou-rere.

The religion of the Fijians was so closely interwoven with their social polity that it was impossible to tear away the one without lacerating the other. It was as unreasonable for the people to continue to reverence their chiefs when they ceased to believe in the Ancestor-G.o.ds, from whom they were descended, as for the Hebrews to conform to the Mosaic law if they had repudiated the inspiration of Moses. Religion was a hard taskmaster to the heathen Fijian; it governed his every action from the cradle-mat to the grave. In the tabu it prescribed what he should eat and drink, how he should address his betters, whom he should marry, and where his body should be laid. It limited his choice of the fruits of the earth and of the sea; it controlled his very bodily att.i.tude in his own house. All his life he walked warily for fear of angering the deities that went in and out with him, ever-watchful to catch him tripping, and death but cast him naked into their midst to be the sport of their vindictive ingenuity.

The Fijian word for divinity is _kalou_, which is also used as an adjective for anything superlative, either good or bad, and it is possible that the word was originally a root-word implying wonder and astonishment. Sometimes the word is used as a mere exclamation, or expression of flattery, as, "You are _kalou_!" or "A _kalou_ people!"

applied to Europeans in connection with triumphs of invention among civilized nations, either in polite disbelief, or disinclination to attempt to imitate them.

The Fijian divinities fall naturally into two great divisions--the _Kalou-vu_ (Root-G.o.ds), and the _Kalou-yalo_ (Spirit-G.o.ds, _i.e._ deified mortals). There is much truth in Waterhouse's contention that the Kalou-vu were of Polynesian origin brought to Fiji by immigrants from the eastward, and imposed upon the conquered Melanesian tribes in addition to their own Pantheon of deified mortals, and that the Ndengei legend, which undoubtedly belonged to the aborigines, was adopted by the conquerers as the Etruscan G.o.ds were by the Romans. The natives' belief in their own tribal divinity did not entail denial of the divinities of other tribes. To the Hebrew prophets the cult of Baal-peor was not so much a false as an impious creed. The Fijians admitted from the first that the Jehovah of the missionaries was a great, though not the only, G.o.d, and, as will presently be shown, when converted to Christianity, they only added Him to their own Pantheon. So, in giving their allegiance to the chiefs who conquered them, it was natural that they should admit the supremacy of the G.o.ds of their conquerors, who, by giving the victory to their worshippers, had proved themselves to be more powerful than their own G.o.ds. Wainua, the great war-G.o.d of Rewa, is said to have drifted from Tonga, and his priest, when inspired, gives his answers in the Tongan language. The Rewans had given the chief place in their Pantheon to the G.o.d of mere visitors.

[Pageheader: THE FIRE G.o.d]

First among the Kalou-vu was Ndengei, primarily a G.o.d of Rakiraki on the north-east coast of Vitilevu, but known throughout Fiji except in the eastern islands of the Lau group. The evolution of this G.o.d from the ancestor and tutelary deity of a joint-family into a symbol of Creation and Eternity in serpent form is an exact counterpart of Jupiter, the G.o.d of a Latin tribe, inflated with Etruscan and Greek myth until he overshadows the ancient world as Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The variants of the Ndengei myths are so numerous that they must be reserved for another chapter; it is enough here to say that Ndengei and the personage a.s.sociated with him are proved by the earliest myths of his home on the Ra coast to be deified mortals who have risen to the rank of Kalou-vu by their importance as the first immigrants and the founders of the race.

Next in order to Ndengei is Ndauthina (the torch-bearer), the G.o.d of the seafaring and fishing community throughout Fiji. That he is one of the introductions from another system of mythology and not a deified mortal of Fiji is strongly suggested by the fact that all the fisher-tribes are _tauvu_ or _Kalou-vata_ (worshippers of the same G.o.d, and therefore of common origin). These tribes, by the nature of their occupation, are p.r.o.ne to scatter widely, though comparatively late arrivals in the group. They seldom own any land in the province of their adoption, but attach themselves to the chiefs, from whom they enjoy marked privileges in return for their services. It would take but few years for the newest arrivals, scattering thus among far distant islands, to disseminate their cult throughout a group of islands, and there is nothing in the Ndauthina myths that disproves their Eastern origin. The fisher-tribes had the best of reasons for keeping the freemasonry of their bond of _Kalou-vata_ (_lit._, same G.o.d) alive. Their calling subjected them to frequent shipwreck, and by the law of custom the lives of castaways were forfeit--a survival, perhaps, of a primitive system of quarantine. But the shipwrecked fisherman might always find sanctuary in a temple dedicated to Ndauthina, and thus win the "freedom of the city" in a village where he was a stranger.

Ndauthina was the Loki, the Fire-G.o.d of the Nibelung myth. He is the G.o.d of Light and of Fire--the fire of lightning and the fire of l.u.s.t in men's blood. His love of light in infancy prompted his mother to bind lighted reeds upon his head to amuse him, and now he roams the reefs by night hooded with a flaming brazier. He is the patron of adulterers, and himself steals women away by night. He loves night attacks, and flashes light upon the defences to guide the besiegers. Taking human form he sells fish to the doomed garrison, who, noticing a strong smell of fire, know that Ndauthina has been among them, and that their warriors will not see another sun. His pranks and whims are numberless. When plots are hatched against his favourites a voice cries "Pooh!" through the reed-walls, and he flies off to put his friends upon their guard. He buoys up a rotten canoe to tempt warriors to embark in her only to lure them into club-reach of their enemies. But upon his friends the fishermen he plays no pranks, giving them fair winds and good fishing.

Ratu-mai-Mbulu (Lord from Hades), though primarily a local divinity of the Tailevu coast, is also probably a foreign intruder. Through him the earth gives her increase. In December he comes forth from Mbulu, and pours sap into the fruit trees, and pushes the young yam shoots through the soil. Throughout that moon it is tabu to beat the drum, to sound the conch-sh.e.l.l, to dance, to plant, to fight, or to sing at sea, lest Ratu-mai-Mbulu be disturbed, and quit the earth before his work is completed. At the end of the month the priest sounds the consecrated sh.e.l.l: the people raise a great shout, carrying the good news from village to village, and pleasure and toil are again free to all.

In a hole near Namara he lies in serpent form, and thither the Mbauans carried food to him once a year, first clearing the holy ground. Unlike the other G.o.ds he drinks no kava, for the wind and noise of a blast on the conch-sh.e.l.l are meat and drink to him. There was once an agnostic of Soso, the fisher cla.s.s of Mbau, named Kowika, who set forth alone to set his doubts at rest. To a snake sunning himself at the cave-mouth he offered fish, but this was the great G.o.d's son. When he was gone to summon his father from the cave, a greater snake appeared--the G.o.d's grandson he proved to be--and he departed with a more urgent message. At length there issued a serpent so huge and terrible that Kowika doubted no longer, and proffered his gift in fear and trembling, but as the G.o.d was loosening his vast coils he shot an arrow into them and fled. As he ran a voice rang in his ears, crying, "Nought but snakes! Nought but snakes!" And so it was. The pot was cooked when Kowika reached home, but his wife dropped the skewer with a shriek, an impaled snake wriggled on its end. When he lifted the bamboo to drink, snakes poured forth instead of water. He unrolled his sleeping mat; that too was alive with snakes. And as he rushed forth into the night he heard the voice of the priest prophesying the fall of the city as a just punishment for the sacrilege of wounding the G.o.d of Increase. He took the one way of salvation left to him: he _soro_-ed in abject humility, and he was pardoned.

[Pageheader: THE SHARK G.o.d]

Totemism

The shark-G.o.d is the tutelar divinity of numerous tribes who are not _tauvu_ with one another, unless they call him by the same name.

Waterhouse gives the following list of names under which the shark is invoked: Ndakuw.a.n.ka, (Outside-the-canoe), Circ.u.mnavigator-of-Yandua, Feeder-of-fish, Lover-of-canoe-spars, Waylayer, Rover-of-the-man-groves, Expectant-follower, Ready-for-action, Sail-cleaner, Lord-Shark-that-calls, Tabu-white, Tooth-for-raw-flesh. The tribes that invoke Ndakuw.a.n.ka are _tauvu_, but the Soro people who worship Ndakuw.a.n.ka recognize no tie with the Yandua tribe, who invoke the Circ.u.mnavigator-of-Yandua. Each of these names covers a distinct cult, and the fact that a number of unrelated tribes should have agreed in choosing the shark for their G.o.d needs explanation. That shark-worship is pure totemism is shown by the beneficence of the shark to his worshippers, and the obligation that lay upon them not to eat their divinity. Mana, a Soro native, capsized in the open sea, called upon Ndakuw.a.n.ka to save him, and a shark rose near him and towed him safe to land by his back fin. The same G.o.d jumped athwart a Soro canoe in the invasion of Natewa in 1848, turned over to show the tattooing on his belly, and leapt back into the sea to lead his votaries to the attack.

In 1840 a tabu shark was eaten at Navukeilangi in the island of Ngau, and all who had eaten of it died. But there the usual features of totemism stop. The spirits of the dead do not pa.s.s into the totem; men never a.s.sume the shark form; the shark-totem does not necessarily intermarry with any other totem. Totemism in Fiji does not affect the social system in any way. It is an accident rather than a design in the religious system; an anthropomorphic divinity would have served as well.

Nor is it totemism in decay, as some have suggested, for with the cult of the totem so active and vigorous some survival of its attendant customs in the marriage laws or in the beliefs of the future state would a.s.suredly have been found. The mental att.i.tude of primitive races in all parts of the world to worship a species of living animal or plant taught the Fijians where to look for their tutelary divinity, and the shark being to a people seafaring in frail craft the most dreaded and implacable of all the animal kingdom, a number of diverse tribes chose to propitiate the shark independently.

The shark, though the commonest, is not the only totem. The hawk, the eel, the lizard, the fresh-water prawn, and man himself have their adherents. The man-totem were perhaps the only tribe who never practised cannibalism, the flesh of their totem being forbidden to them.

Totemism, in this limited form, was perfectly consistent with ancestor-worship. Except in the case of the shark--a malevolent being claiming constant propitiation from fishermen--the totem had not often a temple or a priest. Saumaki, the river-shark, was remembered as a piece of tribal tradition, but his totem worshipped other G.o.ds. They were sometimes _tauvu_ through G.o.ds independent of their totem. Lasakau and Sawaieke, Nayau and Notho were _tauvu_ through their shark-totem, but Rewa and Verata were _tauvu_ through an ancestor-G.o.d, Ko-mai-na-ndundu-ki-langi, or Ko-Tavealangi (Reclining-on-the-sky), and greeted one another in the formula, "Nonku Vuniyavu" (Foundation of my house). Many tribes have either forgotten or have never had a totem, and the greater number of those who have preserve the tradition as a piece of family history, and refer to it with a smile, which is apt to fade when they survey the ruin of their property on the morrow of a visit from a devastating horde of their _tauvu_ kin.

[Pageheader: THE SOUL'S LAST JOURNEY]

G.o.ds of the After-world

Besides the divinities that concerned themselves with terrestrial affairs, there was a well-peopled mythology of the after-life. These beings had neither temples nor priests. They haunted well-known spots on the road by which the Shades must pa.s.s to their last resting-place, but as they left the living unmolested, the living were not called upon to make propitiatory offerings. They were kept alive by the professional story-tellers, who revived them after funerals, when men's thoughts were directed to the problem of Death, and they gained in detailed portraiture at every telling. In a land where every stranger is an enemy, the idea of the naked Shade, turned out friendless into eternity, to find his own way to the Elysium of Bulotu, conjured up images of the perils that would beset every lone wayfarer on earth, and the Shade was made to run the gauntlet of fiends that were the incarnations of such perils.

Though the story of the Soul's journey agreed in general outline, the details were filled in by each tribe to suit its geographical position.

There was generally water to cross, either the sea or a river, and there was, therefore, a ghostly ferryman (Vakaleleyalo) who treated his pa.s.sengers with scant courtesy. There was Ghost-scatterer, who stoned the Shade, and Reed-spear, who impaled him. G.o.ddesses of fearsome aspect peered at him, gnashing their teeth; the G.o.d of murder fell upon him; the Dismisser sifted out the real dead from the trance-smitten; fisher-fiends entangled cowards in their net; at every turn in the road there was some malevolent being to put the Shade to the ordeal, and search out every weak point, until none but brave warriors who had died a violent death--the only sure pa.s.sport to Bulotu--pa.s.sed through unscathed. The names differed, but the features of the myth were the same. The shades of all Vitilevu and the contiguous islands, and of a large part of Vanualevu took the nearest road either to the Nakauvandra range, the dwelling-place of Ndengei, or to Naithombothombo, the jumping-off place in Mbau, and thence pa.s.sed over the Western Ocean to Bulotu,[45] the birth-place of the race.

What belief was more natural for a primitive people, having no revealed belief in a future state except than that the land of which their fathers had told them, where the yams were larger and the air warmer, and the earth more fruitful, was the goal of their spirits after death.

We almost do the same ourselves. Englishmen who emigrate never tire of telling their children of the delights of "home" as compared with their adopted country. If the Canadians or South Africans knew nothing of England but what they had heard from their fathers, and had no beliefs concerning a future state, England would have come to be the mysterious paradise whither their souls would journey after death, and their "jumping-off place" would be the mouth of the St. Lawrence or of the Orange River. With the Fijians the traditions have become so dim with antiquity that nothing remains but a vague belief that somewhere to the westward lies the Afterworld, and that the Shades must leap from the western cliff to reach it.

[Pageheader: THE PATH OF THE SHADES]

Every step of the soul's journey was taken on a road perfectly familiar to the people, and constantly frequented by daylight. But after nightfall none were found so foolhardy as to set foot upon this domain of the Immortals, while the precincts of Ndengei's cave and Naithombothombo (the Jumping-off place) were tabu both by day and night. In 1891 a surveyor, employed in sketching the boundaries of the lands claimed by the Namata tribe, was taken by his native guides along a high ridge, the watershed between the Rewa river and the eastern coast of the main island. As they cut their way through the undergrowth that clothed the hilltop, he noticed that the path was nearly level, and seldom more than two feet wide, and that the ridge joined hilltop to hilltop in an almost horizontal line. Reflecting that Nature never works in straight lines with so soft a material as earth, and that natural banks of earth are always washed into deep depressions between the hills, and are never razor-edged as this was, he had a patch of the undergrowth cleared away, and satisfied himself that the embankments were artificial. Following the line of the ridge, the saddles had been bridged with banks thirty to forty feet high in the deepest parts, and tapering to a width of two feet at the top. The level path thus made extends, so the guides said, clear to Nakauvandra mountain, fifty miles away. For a people dest.i.tute of implements this was a remarkable work.

Every pound of earth must have been carried up laboriously in cocoanut leaf baskets and paid for in feasts. Even when the valley was densely populated the drain on the resources of the people must have been enormous, for thousands of pigs must have been slaughtered and millions of yams planted, cultivated, and consumed in the entertainment of the workers. With the present spa.r.s.e population the work would have been impossible. It was thought at first that this was a fortification on a gigantic scale, for Fijians never undertake any great combined work, except for defence, to preserve their bare existence. It could not be a road, because the Fijian of old preferred to go straight over obstacles, like the soldier ants that climb trees rather than go round them. The old men at Mbau, whom I questioned, knew no tradition about it, except that it was called the "Path of the Shades," and that it was an extension of one of the spurs of the Kauvandra mountain range. Of one thing they were certain--that it was not built for defence. Then I asked for guides to take me over it, and three grey-headed elders of the Namata tribe were told off to accompany me. We started in the driving rain. My guides were reticent at first, but when we had climbed to the higher ridge, and were near the "Water-of-Solace," the spirit of the place seemed to possess them, and at every turn of the path they stopped to describe the peril that there beset the poor Shade. The eldest of the three became at times positively uncanny, for he stopped here and there in the rain to execute a sort of eerie dance, which, if it was intended to exorcise the demons of the Long Road, was highly reprehensible in a professing Wesleyan. Little by little I wormed the whole story out of them, together with fragments of the sagas in which it is crystallized.

After I had reached home two of my native collectors were sent to Namata to reduce the tradition to writing. The following is a literal translation of what they brought me--

_The Spirit Path_ (_Sala Ni Yalo_)

There is a long range which has its source at Mumuria in the Kauvandra mountain, and stretches eastward right down to Nathengani at Mokani in Mbau. It is called the Tuatua-mbalavu (Long Range), but in Tholo and Ra it is called the Tualeita. This range is nowhere broken or cut through, nor does the course of any stream pa.s.s through it. And all the streams that discharge into the Wainimbuka take their source in this range, and also the streams that run towards the sea, on the whole coast, from Navitilevu to Namata.

Now our ancestors said that the souls of the dead followed this range on their way to Kauvandra, and at the foot of the range at Mokani was their fountain of drinking water, called Wainindula. We begin our account of the "Spirit Path" at Ndravo, for at that place all the souls of those who have died at Mburetu, and Nakelo, and Tokatoka, and Lomaindreketi, and Ndravo crossed the water.

This is the story--

[Pageheader: THE GHOSTLY FERRYMAN]

When a man died his body was washed, and girded up with _masi_ and laid in its shroud. A whale's tooth was laid on his breast, to be his stone to throw at the panda.n.u.s-tree, which all the Shades had to aim at. And while his friends were weeping, the Shade left the body and came to a stream so swift that no Shade could swim across it. This stream was called the Wainiyalo (River of the Shades), but it is now called the Ndravo river. When the Shade reached the bank he stood and called towards the Mokani side, where the G.o.d Themba dwelt, the same whose duty it is to ferry the Shades across the water. Now Themba has a great canoe, divided in the middle; one end is of _vesi_, and in this the chiefs embark; but the other is of _ndolou_ (a kind of bread-fruit), and on this the low-born Shades take pa.s.sage. The name of the place where they stand and call Themba is Lelele. When the Shade reaches Lelele he stands and calls, "Themba, bring over your canoe." And Themba answers, "Which end is to be the prow?" If the Shade answers, "The _vesi_ end,"

Themba knows that it is the shade of a chief, but if it cries, "Let the bread-fruit be the prow," it is a low-born Shade, and the bread-fruit end touches the bank.

When the Shade is ferried across from Lelele it goes straight to the bluff at Nathengani, but before it reaches it it has to cross a bridge called Kawakawa-i-rewai. Now this bridge is a monstrous eel, and while the Shade is crossing it, if it writhes it is a sign to the Shade not to tarry, for it means that his wife will not be strangled to follow him.

But if the eel does not writhe, then the Shade sits down, for he knows that his wife is being strangled to his manes, and will soon overtake him.

Now, as he climbs the bluff at Nathengani the path is blocked by an orchid, and from this orchid the disposition of the man is known, whether it is good or bad; for if it is the Shade of a man kindly in his life, and he cries to the orchid "Move aside," it allows the Shade to pa.s.s, but if it is the Shade of a churlish man the orchid will not move, but still blocks the path, and the Shade has to crawl beneath it. And when he reaches the top of Nathengani he sees the panda.n.u.s-tree, and he flings his stone at it. If he hits it he sits down to await his wife, for it means that she has been strangled and is following him, but if he misses it he goes straight on, knowing that no one is following him as an offering to his manes.

It is also related of the eel-bridge that if it turns over as a Shade crosses it, that is a sign that the husband or wife of the Shade has been unfaithful during life, and that when the Shade feels the eel turning he goes forward weeping, because he knows that his wife had been unfaithful to him in life.

A G.o.ddess named Tinaingenangena guards the end of the range at Nathengani. These are the verses that relate to her:--

Let us send for Tinaingenangena, To teach us the song, When we have learned it we are dissolved in laughter, Her short _liku_ is flapping about, As for us we are being laughed at, The Shade of the dead is pa.s.sing on, Pa.s.sing on to Nathengani, He is stepping on the bridge; the eel-bridge, It writhes and the Shade rolls off, My dress is wet through, He speaks to the orchid at Nathengani, Speaks to the orchid that blocks the road, Move a little that I may pa.s.s on, He breaks the whale's tooth in half, Breaks it that we may each have one, That we may throw at the red panda.n.u.s, He misses and bites his fingers in chagrin, She loves her life too well.

And as the spirit travels onward it comes to a _Ndawa_-tree called "The-Ndawa-that-fells-the-Shades" (_Vuni-ndawa-thova-na-yalo_), which stands at Vunithava. This it climbs to tear down the _ndawa_ fruit to be its provision for the journey, and it weeps aloud as it goes in self-pity for the deceit of the wife who had been unfaithful, as it now knows.

And now the Shade hears the voice of the G.o.d Ndrondro-yalo (Pursuer-of-Shades), and he strides towards the Shade bearing in his hand a great stone with which he pounds the nape of his neck, and the _ndawa_ fruit the Shade is carrying is scattered far and wide. Therefore this spot was called Naitukivatu (the Place-of-the-pounding-stone).

[Pageheader: THE WATER OF OBLIVION]

Then the Shade comes to a place called Ndrekei, where there are two G.o.ddesses named Nino, whose custom it is to peer at all the Shades that travel along the "Spirit-path." These G.o.ddesses are terrible on account of their teeth; and as the Shade limps along the path they peer at it, creeping towards it, and gnashing their teeth. And when the Shade sees them it cries aloud in its terror and flees.

And as the Shades flee they come to a spring, and stop to drink. And as soon as they taste the water they immediately cease their weeping, and their friends who are still weeping in their former homes also cease, for their grief is a.s.suaged. Therefore this spring is called Wai-ni-ndula (Water-of-Solace).