Fulton. — On the Fiji Fire-walking Ceremony. 187 



Art. XIII. — An Account of the Fiji Fire-walking Ceremony, 

 or Vilavilairevo, with a Probable Explanation of the 

 Mystery. 



By Robert Fulton., M.B., CM., Edin. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 23rd September, 1902.] 

 Plates XVI. -XX I. 

 During the Coronation excursion to the Fiji Islands I had the 

 rare opportunity of witnessing the ceremony of vilavilairevo, 

 or fire-walking. To begin with, the term " fire-walking " is to 

 my mind a misnomer, there not being any appearance in Fiji 

 of walking upon fire. It would be more accurate to call it 

 " heat-walking." 



In the Christchurch Weekly Press of the 16th July, 1902, 

 there appeared from the pen of Mr. W. Burke, Fellow of the 

 Royal Photographic Society, an excellent account of the pre- 

 paration of the oven and of the various stages of the heating 

 of it, and with this account were some beautiful pictures of 

 the fire-walkers from photographs taken on the spot by Mr. 

 Burke (ft). Some excellent photographs also appeared in 

 the Neio Zealand Graphic(b) and in the Auckland Weekly 

 Ncivs(c). Mr. Bourne, the artist who represented the last- 

 named journal, very courteously sent me some fine copies, 

 which I show herewith. 



On the 30th June, 1902, we steamed down from Suva to 

 Mbenga (Bega) in the Union Company's " Kia Ora," and when 

 at some distance from the island descried smoke rising from 

 a cocoanut grove, where we were told the "walking" would 

 take place. On landing we could easily hear the crackling 

 of the fire, and "all hands" at once proceeded to a spot 

 where the natives could be seen collecting. When we ap- 

 proached the place the fire was glowing fiercely, and I could 

 not without discomfort get to within 10 ft. of it, and even 

 then had to step back at once. We were told that it had been 

 burning for forty-eight hours, and that we had still about two 

 hours to wait before the stones would be hot enough. We 

 spent the time gathering ferns and inspecting huts, and on 

 returning to the oven, or lovo, as it is called, found that the 

 natives were preparing to open it up. This they did in the 

 manner so graphically described by Mr. Burke, and also by 

 Dr. Hocken in his paper (Trans. N.Z. Inst.) (ft 1 ). We were 

 fortunate in being able to view the whole proceedings from 

 as little a distance as 20 ft. This was owing to the small 



