Fiji

“ It's too dull. I shall go out and wander through the forest paths by the grey moonlight. Fiji in moonlight is like nothing else in this world or the next. It's all dim colours and all scents. And here, where it's high up, the most fantastically-shaped mountains in the world tower up all around, and little silver clouds and wisps of mist run bleating up and down the valleys and hillsides like lambs looking for their mother. ”

“ Yet if life be happy in proportion as the summation of its moments be contented, the Fijians are far happier than we. Old men and women rest beneath the shade of cocoa-palms and sing with the youths and maidens, and the care-worn faces and bent bodies of "civilization" are still unknown in Fiji. ”

“ Yet it is still possible that the Fijians may attain civilization. Of all the archipelagoes of Polynesia, Fiji alone may still be called the "Isles of Hope." As one who has known and grown to love these honest, hospitable, simple people, I can only hope that the day is not far distant when a leader may arise among them who will turn their faces toward the light of a brighter sky, and their hands to a worthier task than has ever yet been performed in Polynesia. ”

“ New gods sprang up with every slight addition to a tribe; a god was called into being with each new-born child, and every death added a god to the long since countless number.
Such was the character of Fiji’s religion before the presence of the white man began to turn the current another way. While, politically, the nation was as a vessel shivered into a thousand pieces, religiously it was like one that had been dashed into a million atoms, which, though found without cohesion, were not without marks of having once cohered. ”

“ Among the generation of to-day the light of a new ambition must appear in Fiji or the race shall dwindle to its death. No real progress has been made by the Fijians; they have received much from their teachers, but have given nothing in return. They are in the position of a youth whose schooling has just been finished, life and action lie before him; will he awaken to his responsibility, develop his latent talent, character and power, and recompense his teachers by achievement, or will he sink into the apathy of a vile content? ”

“ Housekeeping is simple in happy Fiji, where all is charmingly clean, and thick layers of soft mats invite repose upon the floor. Indeed the natives sleep much by day, for at night there is apt to be a "meke," wherein the maidens of the village, adorned in garlands of flowers and well polished with cocoanut oil, sing far into the small hours, keeping time to their chants by graceful gestures. ”

“ And that "civilization" leans at one time toward the mill and at another toward the mission. Frankly, Fiji grows more interesting as one gets away from these two guy-wires and floats on the sluggish river. My opportunity of seeing that Fiji which is least confused by either influence came unexpectedly. The missionaries generously invited me to go with them up the river in their launch early Monday morning. Everywhere along the banks of the broad, deep stream stood groups of huts and villages amid the sugar-cane fields. ”

“ The difficulties and dangers of ocean passed, the undaunted hero joyfully prepares to land. As he poles his canoe towards the beach, over what in that part of Fiji is a shore-reef, and draws nearer and nearer to the home of the illustrious goddess, he descries in the hills that form the immediate background of the picture before him, a silvery waterfall, the dancing glories of which greatly gladden his heart, especially as the thought impresses itself strongly in his mind that such a fall can be no other than the bathing-place of the “World’s Attraction.” ”

“ They find a difficulty in getting the natives of Fiji to work for them, so they have to obtain labourers from other islands, and this was the work our schooner was engaged in. Our cargo was quickly distributed among the planters, some taking ten, some twenty, or as many as they could get.
“The natives of Fiji are black and fine big fellows. They wear their hair frizzled out, and big turbans on the top of all; some of them, indeed, wear great wigs over their own hair, for the larger a man’s head is, the more important he thinks himself. ”

“ Long after the white men had made their influence felt throughout Fiji,—long after the chief of Bau was courted as King of Fiji,—these two tribes, secure in their mountain fastnesses, lived their own life, and none, whether Fijian or white man, dared pass over their borders. ”

“ The inhabitants of Fiji are a fine race of savages, tolerably well formed, and with dark, though not black skin. Like other Papuans, they are remarkable for their thick, bushy hair, which they dress in a singular variety of patterns. As the appearance and costume of savage races are the first points which strike a stranger, we will at once proceed to describe them.
The most conspicuous part of a Fijian’s general appearance is his headdress, in the arrangement of which he gives the reins to his fancy, and invents the most extraordinary variations of form and color. ”

“ He may, indeed, be considered the king of all Fiji, for all the other chiefs are either his vassals, or vassals to those who acknowledge him as their chief. Although a large number of the inhabitants of the group, of all ranks, had embraced Christianity before the king, yet his conversion more especially marked the triumph of the truth in Fiji, and proves the power of the gospel to change the heart of a man, however benighted, savage, and bloodthirsty he may have been. ”

“ The result of this mixture is the present Fiji people, which is most noticeable in the Eastern or Lau Group of the Fiji Archipelago, where, it is said, the people are lighter in colour, and where the Polynesians must have been in strongest numbers. ”

“ Of all inhabited countries in the world Fiji is probably the poorest in history. No European, who left a record behind him, had intercourse with the natives until 1810, and the historical traditions of the natives themselves scarcely carry back their history beyond the middle of the eighteenth century. ”

“ THE FIJI (FEEJEE) ISLANDS. (?)
Situation.—Eastward of the New Hebrides, the most eastern part of Kelænonesia. Westward of the Tonga Isles, the most western part of Polynesia.
The physical conformation of the Fiji natives is Negrito as well as Polynesian.
The language of the Fiji natives is more Polynesian than Negrito.
The social institutions, manners, and customs of the Fiji natives are partly Polynesian, partly Negrito, and partly neither one nor the other.
These statements, combined with their geographical position, give importance and prominence to the Fiji group of islands. ”

“ The people of Fiji, in the South Seas, have a well which they imagine the passage to the next world, they even believe that you may see in its waters the spectral images of things rolling on to eternity. ”

“ In attempting to fix a date for the first Melanesian settlement in Fiji the widest field lies open to the lover of speculation, for it is unlikely that when a few years have passed, and the last guardians of tradition have made way for young Fiji, any fresh evidence will come to light. The only monuments of a past age are rude earthworks in the form of moats and house foundations, a few stone enclosures known as nanga, no older than the period covered by tradition, and a stone cairn or two erected by the worshippers of the luve-ni-wai. ”

“ Owing to the geographical nature of the Fiji group, which consists of seven groups of islands, some of them very large and some very small, the mode of government has never been monarchical, the country being ruled by a number of chiefs of greater or less importance, according to the amount of territory over which their sway extended. ”

“ Then the gods made the brown-skinned Tongans who behaved better and to whom they gave more clothing, and, last of all, the white men were created, and these were well behaved and were given much clothing. There are apparently no myths of ancient migrations, and the people are said always to have lived in Fiji.
There is no history of the group as a whole, for war was the one chief object of Fiji, and each little district was forever suspicious of its neighbors. ”

“ I ought here to mention that Fijians vary a great deal, both in colour and language. Fiji is the part of the Pacific where various types meet, viz., Papuan, Malayan, and Polynesian. The mountaineers around Namosi, which I visited, who were all cannibals twenty-five years ago, are much darker in colour than the coast natives, and they are undoubtedly of Papuan origin. ”

“ When the law of custom is breaking down, as among the Fijians, discovery entails but little disgrace. In being selfish the Fijian is only being what white men are. He has no patriotism and no nationality; he does not regard Fiji as his country, for Fiji is the whole world as he knows it. The pride that he once took in his own little tribal cosmos is dying out now that he no longer has to fight for it, and he concerns himself less about the natives of the twelve provinces besides his own than an ordinary Englishman troubles about the Andaman Islanders. ”

“ In Fiji we have an example of the introduction of the Hindu to the extinction of the Fijian for the sake of the enrichment of the white man. The indentured Indian, small and wiry, who seems too delicate for any task and is stopped by none, acts as a reinforcement in the South Sea labor market. He glides along in purposeful indifference. As coolie, he may be seen at any time wending his way along Victoria Parade, bareheaded, a thin sulu of colored gauze wound about his loins. As freed man, he is the tailor, the jeweler, the grocer, and the gardener. ”

“ No, not for a long time, but I did hear that the American corvette Adams was expected here last year, but she must have passed by here, and gone on to Fiji There is always work for a man-of-war there at any time—the Fijians are a rough lot, and hardly a month passes without some European trader or sailor being killed and eaten, or else badly hurt. Even at the present time all the people living in the eastward islands of the Fiji Group are rank cannibals. ”

“ Those of Fiji, which do not amount to ten in number, belong to nearly as many orders and present a motley collection such as one might look for in a group much less isolated than Hawaii and exposed to wave after wave of migration from the west. ”

“ When one glances at the map the members of the stupendous island wilderness of the Pacific seem to crowd upon each other; but no, there is no crowding, even in the center of a group; and between groups there are lonely wide deserts of sea. Not everything is known about the islands, their peoples and their languages. A startling reminder of this is furnished by the fact that in Fiji, twenty years ago, were living two strange and solitary beings who came from an unknown country and spoke an unknown language. ”

“ It was nearly ten days after we had been tangled up in the Fiji Islands when we sighted the large island of Viti Levu, and turned the Snark's bow into another of the South Seas' famous ports. Suva, Fiji, looms up from the sea, quite like a modern city, and is really the most modern in this part of the world. Nearly half of its eight thousand persons are of white blood; and Suva is also chief station of the Pacific commercial cables. Several modern hotels and large headquarters for the trading concerns are to be found here. ”

“ After terrible hardship and danger, the wounded teacher made his way to the coast, and carried the news to Bau. A strong alliance was at once formed among the coast tribes to avenge the murder, and to crush the power of the mountaineers. There is in this part of Fiji no gradation between the plains that fringe the coast and the mountains. A sheer barrier of rock, looking like the ruins of a gigantic fortification, rises boldly from the plain, broken only by the valleys which form the river-beds. ”

“ We found that Mr L. had just sailed for Fiji to consult Sir Arthur Gordon on the best course to follow in the present critical state of affairs, when every man's hand is seemingly against his neighbour, and each trying to induce the natives to espouse his individual quarrels as well as their own. So the whole community are at loggerheads. The whites are mostly riff-raff of a very low order; and in short, the Samoa of to-day is simply a reproduction of what Fiji was before annexation. ”

“ My acquaintance with kings, chiefs, priests, poets, ambassadors, soldiers, artisans, turtle-fishermen, and other classes of Fijians, made me familiar with many legends in prose and verse, containing ideas and pictures which must vanish for ever if not now preserved, for they belong to times which have long since faded into the thick darkness of the past. ”

“ One of the subgroups represents the people of the mountainous interior of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji (see accompanying map) . This region may be regarded as something of a refuge area. Fijians from this relatively isolated locality might reasonably be expected to exhibit more of the earlier racial elements of the total composition. It should be pointed out, however, that the degree of isolation associated with this; interior; group is not extreme. Fiji tradition and history indicate extensive interregional movement. ”

“ What, in your estimation, ought the half-awakened Fiji resident to do?"
"Alice, is some not very distant city representing China? and is South Plains Fiji? and is Bud the converted heathen?"
"There is enough witch about you to have secured you a very warm experience in the olden days. Never mind translating, if you please; this was not to be in English. What ought the Fiji to do?" ”