Fijians

“ 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? ”

“ The islands of the Fijians are but small; no Fijian Attila can lead forth his hosts into neighboring countries; no Fijian Goths can pour down from Polynesian Alps into an Oceanic Italy; no Athenians can there send sons and gods to a Coreyra: and no Fijian Miles Standish can there walk up and down before his pipe-clayed bandoleers in foreign colonies. How, then, can an over-increase of population be more harmoniously prevented than by making the young and sleek furnish the starving with a plump existence? ”

“ Affection and a firm belief in a future state, in which the exact condition of the dying is continued, are the Fijians’ own explanations of the custom, once universal, of killing sick or aged relatives. Yet in spite of this savagery the Fijians have always been remarkable for their hospitality, open-handedness and courtesy. They are a sensitive, proud, if vindictive, and boastful people, with good conversational and reasoning powers, much sense of humour, tact and perception of character. ”

“ Thomson writes: 'It is clear that the Fijians humanised their gods, because they had once existed on earth in human form.... Like other primitive people, the Fijians deified their ancestors.' Yet the Fijians 'may have forgotten the names of their ancestors three generations back'! How in the world can you deify a person whom you don't remember? Moreover, only malevolent chiefs were deified, so apparently a Fijian god is really a well-born human scoundrel, so considerable that he for one is not forgotten—just as if we worshipped the wicked Lord Lyttelton! ”

“ In an assemblage of Fijians an unskilled eye can pick out the members even of tribes who were subdued within the memory of men still living, by their slinking gait, their shifty eye, and the humble curve of their spine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Fijian’s chief table luxury was human flesh, euphemistically called by him “long pig,” and to satisfy his appetite he would sacrifice even friends and relatives. The Fijians combined with this greediness a savage and merciless nature. Human sacrifices were of daily occurrence. On a chief’s death wives and slaves were buried alive with him. When building a chief’s house a slave was buried alive in the hole dug for each foundation post. ”

“ While the great island groups of Tahiti, Hawaii, Samoa, New Zealand, Tonga, and the Solomons had been known to Europe for many years—some of them for nearly two centuries—the Fijians lived their lives unconscious that there was another world beyond the reefs that encircled their islands. They planted food sufficient for their needs, they obeyed the rigid code of laws with which custom had bound them, they intermarried with their friends and fought their enemies, but without the carnage that followed the introduction of fire-arms. ”

“ In 1876 a correspondent of the Times communicated a series of letters to that journal, in which he embodied anthropological notes on the Fijians, obtained both from his own observations during repeated visits to the Islands, and from conversation with English, American, and German settlers, at the port of call, and on the route between San Francisco and the Australian colonies. “The Fijians,” he says, “are quite equal in stature to white men; they are better developed relatively in the chest and arms than in the lower limbs; they are excellent swimmers, and, if trained, are good rowers. ”

“ Curiously indeed, while the original stock of the Fijians was probably pure Papuan, their social and economic systems are now dominated by Polynesian ideas, and only among the mountain tribes do we find a clear expression of the crude Papuan systems of life and thought. This in itself shows that under stimulation the Fijians are capable of advancement in cultural ideals. ”

“ The Fijians show no disposition to intermarry with the Indian coolies. The European half-castes are not prolific inter se, and they are subject to a scrofulous taint. The most robust cross in the islands is the offspring of the African negro and the Fijian. Miscegenation with the Micronesians, the only race in the Pacific which is rapidly increasing, is regarded as the most hopeful manner of preserving the native Fijian population. There is a large Indian immigrant population. ”

“ Most Fijians have either medium- or dark-brown skin on the exposed facial surfaces. The more protected body areas show higher frequencies of medium brown and light brown. The Fijians are definitely less dark than the Melanesians but are darker, on the whole, than the Polynesians. ”

“ In this respect the Fijians resemble the broad-headed Tongans, and are quite distinct from the longer-headed Melanesians. The Fijian head, despite its general brachycephaly, is rather compressed in the temporal area and submedium in parietal elevation. The back of the cranium is characteristically flattened, a natural conformation as no deformation is practiced.
The interior mountain tribes of Fiji have narrower heads and lower cranial indices than do the coastal and eastern groups. The interior people also have lesser head heights and a higher breadth-height index. ”

“ The effect was not conducive of the best relations between white people and natives, nor did it have an elevating influence upon the latter. However, despite their cannibalism and their unwillingness to yield to the influence of our benign civilization, the Fijians are a people in many ways superior to both the Polynesians east of them [Pg 53] and the true Melanesians or Papuans to the west. They are more moral; they are cleanly; their women occupy a better position in relation to their men; and in character and skill they are superior to their neighbors. ”

“ On the other hand, Fijians seem to be more sensitive to cold and hunger than Europeans. The average daily weight of roots consumed by a healthy adult Fijian is from seven to ten pounds, and the stomach is probably larger than that of a European, and feels hunger sooner. Cold and hunger tell rapidly upon his buoyant spirits, and make him silent and depressed. Fijians are heavy sleepers, and dislike being aroused. It is difficult to induce a commoner to awake his chief at all, and if he must, he does it by calling "Iele!" softly, or scratching at his sleeping-mats, but never by touching him. ”

“ The sacrifices of the Fijians are of a costlier character. [Pg 228] The Fijian chiefs had from twenty to a hundred wives, according to their rank; and at the interment of a principal chief, the body was laid in state “upon a spacious lawn,” in the presence of a great crowd of interested spectators. After the natives had exercised all the taste and skill at their command in adorning her person, the principal wife would walk out and take her seat near her husband’s body. A rope was passed round her neck; eight or ten powerful men pulled at it with all their strength until she died of suffocation ”

“ Beyond it to the eastward are situated the smaller archipelagoes of Samoa and Tonga, inhabited by branches of the brown Polynesian race, whose members are scattered over the islands of the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south. Of all the branches of the [pg 407] Melanesian stock the Fijians at the date of their discovery by Europeans appear to have made the greatest advance in culture, material, social, and political. "The Fijian," says one who knew him long and intimately, "takes no mean place among savages in the social scale. ”

“ The object of this romance is to preserve in a readable form some record of the ancient manners and customs, traditions and superstitions of the Fijians, the most numerous and the most interesting race of savages in the South Pacific, who are rapidly disappearing before the terrible push and civilisation of the white man. The opportunity of acquiring information on these subjects is fast slipping away with the older aboriginal inhabitants, and if not now seized upon it will be gone for ever. ”

“ The Fijians have already adopted some of the tools of civilization; the native canoe has given place to vessels of European model, and so far as clothing is necessary, European fabrics have taken the place of the old Liku and Malo. "Mbau," say the natives, "is adopting European fashions"—the superficial fashions that take the fancy—"and where Mbau leads others will follow in time." ”

“ It may easily be imagined how such a course of conduct would disconcert their opponents, and the Fijians in particular, with whom boasting and challenging took the place of valor. Emboldened by the apparent weakness of the enemy, they would come on in great glee, expecting to make an easy conquest, and then, just when they raised the shout of victory, they found themselves suddenly attacked with a disciplined fury which they had never been accustomed to meet, and were consequently dispersed and almost annihilated before they could well realize their position. ”

“ In old times the Fijians were fierce fighters; they were very religious, and worshiped idols; the big chiefs were proud and haughty, and they were men of great style in many ways; all chiefs had several wives, the biggest chiefs sometimes had as many as fifty ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are generally manned by the natives of one of the groups,—in this case, the Fijians. These men handle the cargo at all ports, and remain on board until the vessel returns to Fiji en route to the Antipodes. They feed and sleep on the open deck and make themselves as happy and as noisy as they can. A gasoline tin of tea, baked potatoes, hard biscuit, and a chunk of fat meat, which is all placed before them on the dirty deck (they are given no napkins) ,—that is Fijian joy. ”

“ Is it likely that Nature has placed the Fijians exactly in the same meridian with Greenwich, which in some measure may be called the meridian of civilization, for nothing?—is it likely that all the solar and cosmic influences which must result from this fact have really left the Fijian in that state of hyper-brutality which you think is proved by his menage? ”

“ You were safer even fifteen years ago in any part of Fiji, although your host knew how you tasted, than you could be in the streets of any civilized city. It is clear that in disposition the Fijians are not unlike ourselves, and only in their time-honored customs were they barbarous. Indeed the lowest human beings are not in the far-off wilds of Africa, Australia or New Guinea, but among the degenerates of our own great cities. Nor are there any characteristics of the savage, be he ever so low, which are not retained in an appreciable degree by the most cultured among us. ”

“ As the tide rises they crawl backwards, until at high tide they are close under the mound they have raised. The Fijians, knowing this peculiarity, set at low tide a most effective trap, by which the mana is caught in a noose. I had heard it said that they carried a number of them to their taro plantations, and there set them at liberty, to carry on their unceasing work of raising the soil. But all the natives I have questioned on the point deny this, saying, "When did you ever know a Fijian let go an animal that is good to eat? We do not look ahead like you white men." ”

“ The religion, or rather the superstition, of the Fijians is much like that of other polytheists. The people acknowledge vast numbers of gods of greater or lesser power; most, if not all, of which are symbolized under some natural form, such as a hawk, a tree, or the like. Every Fijian considers himself under the protection of some especial god, and, as has been stated, will not eat the animal which is his symbol. ”

“ Since 1874, settlers have been discouraged from employing Fijians upon their plantations, for the native population was rapidly being enslaved by the whites. In order to supply the necessary labor, Hindoo coolies from Calcutta were imported, but it seems unfortunate that these usually remained in Fiji after the expiration of their terms of service and there are now 40,300 in the group. They are a clannish, industrious, bigoted race whom the Fijians despise and with whom they do not mingle. Indeed, there are far more half-breds between the whites and Fijians than between Fijians and Hindoos. ”

“ When one stops at a native's home it would be better to forget for the time being that he is a white. Fijians are very hospitable, and share with a white visitor the best they have. It makes no difference how the native food may look, smell or taste, if a white man refuses to partake of the hospitality offered the native will be offended. ”

“ Yet it has not always been so, for nothing is always so among people, and the Melanesian-Fijians in many cases have welcomed and received among them Samoans and Tongans, races distinctly different from them. There is a definite separation, however, between ourselves and the Fijians that is obvious even to the casual tourist, and affords no easy solution of the whence and why. ”