A HISTORY OF FIJI 293 



covered their shapely limbs. Gay flowers stood out among the riot of 

 their flowing locks, and like elfin things they flitted with tremulous 

 arms outstretched until they stood fully revealed in the red glare, only 

 to flutter silently backward and vanish. In days gone by that dark- 

 ness concealed from view a gruesome meal. 



Basil Thomson points out the fact that in Fiji the practise in- 

 creased greatly just before the coming of white men, as had that of 

 human sacrifice among the Aztecs a few years before the arrival of 

 Cortez. With the sudden increase in the power of the great chiefs, it 

 began to lose its religious significance and an acknowledged appetite 

 for cannibal meat was boastfully proclaimed. Thus Tanoa, Ea TTndre- 

 undre, Tui Kilakila, and others were cannibals because they enjoyed 

 the taste of man, but not all Fijians liked human flesh, even as terrapin 

 is not enjoyed by all white men. 



The most hideous features of cannibalism were the fiendish tortures, 

 Vaka-totogana, connected with it wherein the victims were gradually 

 dismembered and their noses, tongues, arms, or legs cooked and eaten 

 before their eyes, pieces of their own flesh being offered to them in 

 derision. Even if the missionaries had accomplished nothing else, their 

 success in abolishing cannibalism would have sanctified their labors. 

 Let nothing blind us to an appreciation of the undaunted courage and 

 unexcelled devotion to their faith displayed by these unselfish men and 

 women, who, actuated by high and simple motives, left homes and 

 friends, and labored cheerfully through long years over the seemingly 

 hopeless task of bringing the light of a happier day to the barbarians 

 of Fiji. 



People who had died a natural death were rarely or never eaten, 

 and only those killed in battle, captured, or wrecked "with salt water 

 in their eyes," were offered to the gods and roasted. The dead, if killed 

 in battle and buried, they would disinter even after the tenth day when 

 the body could not be lifted entire from the grave and was therefore 

 torn apart and made into puddings. Every one agrees that decomposi- 

 tion did not deter their appetite for human flesh, any more than it 

 impairs our own taste for game, yet all other meat was discarded by 

 the Fijians as by us upon the least indication of dissolution. 



Among old Fijian chiefs whom I knew between 1897-1899, none 

 expressed the slightest abhorrence of cannibalism, and some were frank 

 enough to state that were European influences removed they would at 

 once renew the practise. To the Fijian no revenge is assuaged until 

 you have eaten your enemy, but the deepest contempt for a fallen foe 

 was indicated by roasting and then refusing to devour the body. 



One of the best descriptions of a cannibal feast is that given by 

 Jackson in Erskine's voyage published in 1853; and the Eev. Thomas 

 Williams 1 in his work upon "Fiji and the Fijians" describes the rites 

 in detail, having often observed them. 



