A HISTORY OF FIJI 3* 



A HISTORY OF FIJI, II 



By ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGII MAYER 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 



T*T"PON the death of old Tanoa, his son Thakombau (evil to Mbau) 

 V-J became Yunivahi. He was an ambitions, energetic, crafty and. 

 intelligent man, but the problems of government were becoming yearly 

 more complex in Fiji. 



Missionaries had entered the group in 1835, and although Tanoa 

 did not permit them to live in Mbau or to attempt to make converts of 

 his subjects, other chiefs welcomed them, for they brought valuable 

 presents and increased the importance of those among whom they lived. 

 Gradually other white men had come to Fiji. At first mere degen- 

 erates or deserters from vessels who lived as did the natives themselves, 

 but afterwards men of more ambition and intelligence gathered to the 

 shores of these distant islands, and assumed a leading part in affairs. 

 The missionary influence was beginning to be felt, for converts were 

 being made among the lower orders of the population, and the power 

 of the native priests, and with it that of the chiefs was weakening. 



Vainly did Thakombau rail against the advance of civilization, for 

 the hated power of the Mbau chief, founded as it was upon terrorism, 

 was doomed. One after another defeats came to the war parties of 

 Thakombau, and so reduced was he at last that, the missionaries being 

 the sole power left to whom he could appeal for aid, he was forced in 

 1854 to profess Christianity, and cannibal feasts were known no more 

 at Mbau. It was a great triumph for the missionaries, the result of 

 nineteen years of unremitting toil amid constant dangers and surround- 

 ings unspeakable in horror. 



That Thakombau's conversion was forced upon him as a matter of 

 expediency is evident, for in a speech he called upon the gods of Fiji, 

 saying that he still respected them as of old, but that the time had come 

 when he must add the white man's god to those of his ancestors. 



In the days of his power lie had owned a fleet of more than a hun- 

 dred war canoes, manned by a thousand warriors. 15,000 subjects 

 acknowledged him as king, and in addition half of Fiji paid him tribute 

 or admitted his supremacy, and he had boasted that the cannibal ovens 

 of Mbau never grew cold. He had more than fifty wives, and he him- 

 self knew not how many children, and when but a child he had wan- 

 tonly murdered one of his playmates; yet lie had but to declare himself 

 a Christian and hundreds of his subjects followed the chief's example 



