A HISTORY OF FIJI 537 



dren, and so great was his influence that the chief of Rewa would 

 always roast and eat any man who incurred Connel's displeasure. In- 

 deed, if native accounts are to be trusted, Connel was himself a can- 

 nibal. All travelers in the Pacific will agree that the most vicious 

 savage is not the native, but the degenerate white who has violated his 

 birthright to civilization. 



When Xa-Ulivou of Mbau died, he was succeeded by his brother 

 Tanoa (kava bowl), who reigned for twenty-three troubled years, and 

 died a cannibal and a heathen in 1852. 



Soon after Tanoa's accession, a powerful faction in Mbau decided to 

 make war upon Eewa. This Tanoa was desirous of preventing, for 

 he was Vasu (nephew) to Eewa, his mother having been a chief tainess 

 of this place. This gave him the right to seize and appropriate to his 

 own use almost anything he desired from Eewa, where he was treated 

 with a respect bordering upon religious adoration ; for whenever he vis- 

 ited his mother's district the people would salute him with clapping of 

 hands and shouting " Hail good is the coming hither of our noble lord 

 nephew." 



Naturally he was well disposed toward Eewa and he treacherously 

 aided them while ostensibly prosecuting the war. This enraged the 

 Mbau chiefs and they drove him into exile, where he remained five years, 

 but finally in 1837 with the aid of his son Seru (afterwards called 

 Thakombau) he reconquered his native village, and in a fiendish orgy 

 dismembered his captives, roasting and eating their tongues, arms and 

 legs while they still lived. 



Beneath every post of his house in Mbau a slave was buried when 

 his new canoes were launched they were rolled into the water over the 

 bodies of living victims who, after being crushed, were roasted and 

 eaten, and when the canoe took to the water men were slain upon its 

 deck so that it might be baptized in blood. When he sailed, he ran 

 down all in his path, often capturing the victims for his cannibal feasts, 

 for it was the rule in Fiji that all who were upset or wrecked were 

 regarded as sacrifices to the gods. Indeed, the gods of Fiji were them- 

 selves cannibal ghosts of dead chiefs and fed upon the spirits of those 

 who were sacrificed. 



Wilkes gives a description of the coming of Tanoa to a conference 

 held upon the F. S. S. Vincennes in August, 1840; 



The canoe of Tanoa, the king of Mbau, was discovered rounding the southern 

 point of the island of Ovalau; it presented a magnificent appearance with its 

 immense sail of white mats; the pennants streaming from its yard denoting it 

 as belonging to some great chief. It was a fit accompaniment to the magnifi- 

 cent scenery around, and advanced rapidly and gracefully along; it was a single 

 canoe, one hundred feet in length, with an outrigger of large size ornamented 

 with two thousand five hundred of the Cypraea ovula shells; its velocity was 

 almost inconceivable, and every one was struck with the adroitness with which 

 it was managed and landed upon the beach. 



VOL. LXXXVI. — 37. 



