2 9 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



A HISTORY OF FIJI 



Br Dr. ALFRED GOLDSBOROUGH MAYER 



Part III 



OF all established customs in Fiji the most odious was cannibalism, 

 yet it was always tabu for women and the lower classes, and the 

 custom was extensively practised only by the chiefs and warriors. It 

 is possible that in Fiji it was primitively a religious rite and did not 

 originate in time of famine, or through motives of mere revenge. In- 

 stead of an animal, they sacrificed the best they had to the gods, and 

 as the flesh of the animal was eaten by the chiefs, so was the flesh of 

 man. Indeed, an old myth asserts that once there was no cannibalism 

 in Fiji, and even when it was most prevalent there was always a party 

 opposed to it, maintaining that it caused various skin diseases. At the 

 town of Nakelo on the Eewa river, it was tabu to eat human flesh. 



We incline, however, to the belief that the Fijians were cannibals 

 simply because they enjoyed the taste of human flesh, for I have met 

 with no dissent to the opinion that of all meat it is the most palatable, 

 and it is evident that the custom could not have survived a decade had 

 mere religion prompted its continuance. The fact appears to be that, 

 in common with other privileges, the chiefs and priests had succeeded 

 in monopolizing its pleasures through the agency of the tabu, for among 

 savages the priesthood is quick to defer to the desires of those in power. 

 In prehistoric times the natives had but little animal food, apart from 

 the fish of the reefs and the snakes of the mountains, for pigs, ducks 

 and chickens were introduced only recently. When man attempts to 

 live upon a vegetable diet, even though it be varied by fish, an insatiate 

 craving for animal food comes over him, he " Kalau's," as the natives 

 say, and it is an interesting fact that cannibalism is almost unknown 

 among peoples whose meat-supply has always been abundant and varied. 

 Once it be acquired, this longing for human flesh remains a tempta- 

 tion haunting its possessor. Well does one remember the vim of a 

 wild Marquesan dance. It was near midnight and the flickering glare 

 of the bonfire cut into the blackness of the surrounding forest. An 

 old chief, standing by the embers, led the chant, while his tribesmen, 

 with hands joined, danced furiously around him. Translated into Eng- 

 lish, the burden of their song was "I have eaten your father, your 

 mother, your brother, now I intend to eat you ! whoo ! ! hack ! ! ! " — in 

 a bestial shriek that rang back in echoes from the cliffs. Then, one by 

 one, at unexpected times and from unforeseen recesses, the maidens of 

 the tribe emerged from the dark aisles among the trees; their graceful 

 bodies glistening where the fire-light glinted upon the cocoanut oil that 



