Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches - W. H. Davenport Adams

(Perpustakaan Sri Jauhari) #1

day but the night also; the fire consumed the fuel gathered by her hands. If we
awoke in the still night, the sound of her feet reached our ears, and if harshly
spoken to, she continued to labour only. Moalivu! alas, Moalivu!”


The bodies of the victims were then wrapped up in mats, placed on a bier, and
carried out of the door; but the old king was borne through a gap purposely made
in the wall of the house. On arriving at the seaside, they were deposited in a
canoe, the old king reclining on the deck, attended by his wife and the chief
priest, who fanned away the insects. The place of sepulture was at Weilangi.
There, in a grave lined with mats, were laid as “grass” the murdered women.
Upon them was stretched the dying king, who was stripped of his regal
ornaments, and completely enveloped in mats. Lastly, the earth was heaped over
him, though he was still alive. At the end of the ceremony the new king returned
to his “palace,” not unmindful of the fact that in the course of time a similar fate
awaited himself.


Since the annexation of the Fiji Islands, such a scene as this has, of course,
become impossible. Cannibalism, to which the Fijians were largely addicted, has
also, been prohibited. Lord George Campbell, in his “Log of the Challenger,”
written in 1876, says that those who lived in the interior still cherished
cannibalistic tendencies, and he seems to have been of opinion that cannibalism
prevailed in those parts to which missionaries or civilisation had not yet
penetrated. But under the firm rule of Sir Arthur Gordon it was doubtless
extirpated.


Even in Lord George Campbell’s time the change effected by the sacred
influence of Christianity had been “great indeed.” A party of English officers
made a boat-excursion to the large island of Bau, where the king lived. They
found him dressed in a waist-cloth, lying on his face in a hut, reading the Bible.
Not far distant were the great stones against which they used to kill the
sacrificial victims, battering their heads against them till dead. There too they
saw a great religious “maki-maki,” hundreds of men and women dancing, and
singing New Testament verses before Wesleyan missionaries, who, sitting at a
table, received the money-offerings of their converts as they defiled before them
dancing and singing.


We have sketched a hideous scene belonging to the past, and associated with the

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