South Sea Yarns

by Basil Thomson

In that year there were other strange omens, foretelling the change of the old order. The heavens rained lumps of ice, that broke down the yam-vines and the stalks of the taro; and the people, touching them, said that burning stars had fallen from heaven. There followed a great storm. For many days the rain fell without ceasing, and the waters rose. The basin of the Rewa river, draining half the island, was swept with a torrent greater than any that have been seen before or since, and the waters rose over the housetops, sweeping seawards in a roaring muddy flood. The strong fled to the hills and saved their lives; the sick and the aged were swept out to sea. When the waters subsided, the face of the country was changed, for the flood had covered the land and the reefs with a great layer of black earth. Thus were the flats of Burebasaga raised above the reach of the water, and thus was the land purged of the pestilence.

And now the new order was at hand. In 1808 the American brig Eliza, with 40,000 dollars from the River Plate, was wrecked on the reef of Nairai Island. The crew were allowed to live. Some of them made their way in the ship’s boats to another American vessel that chanced to be lying at Bua Bay, ninety miles distant; five others, two of them Chinamen, were carried by the natives to Verata; one, named Charles Savage, made his way to Bau in a canoe that chanced to be sailing thither. The hull was looted by the natives, who used the silver dollars—lavo they call them still, from their resemblance to the bean of that name—as playthings to be skimmed along the shallow water, or buried with the posts of a new house. Eighty years have passed, and though many sailors have deserted their ships with the purpose of enriching themselves from this lost treasure, and the natives have long ago learned the value of money, these records of the wreck are still occasionally found.

As soon as Savage reached Bau he besought Ra Matenikutu to send him to Nairai to search for a thing he wanted from the wreck, and when this was not granted he promised that if the thing were brought to him he would make Bau pre-eminent above all her enemies, even over Rewa and Verata. The thing they were to look for was like a ngata club, but heavier, and they must also find a black powder such as men use to paint their faces for war. The messengers searched diligently. They found the black powder, but none knew this thing of which the White man spoke. But at the last, when they were wearied with the search, one remembered that a ngata club of a strange pattern had been built into a yam-house set up to hold the crop that was but just dug. There they found it, as the ridge-pole of the yam-shed, the weapon that should enable Bau to crush her rivals, and should bring even her at last under the dominion of a stronger than she.

When they returned to Bau, Savage took the thing to his house, and shut the doorway that no one might see. “And presently he bade Naulivou summon all the elders of Bau to the rara before the bure of the war-god Cagawalu—the same that was the untimely birth of the woman of Batiki—and there on the seaward side he set on end the deck-plank of a canoe; and he went with his weapon and stood before the foundation of the bure. Then he cried to the elders to watch the deck-plank, and he aimed and fired. And the people, knowing nothing of what would happen, dashed their heads upon the ground so that the blood flowed, and they were angry that the white man had not told them what he would do. He did not listen to them, but only pointed to the plank that the lead had pierced, saying that so would he slay the enemies of Bau. Then the young men took their spears and clamoured to be led against Verata; but Savage bade them be silent, saying that they could not prevail against the place while there were white men like himself within the town. And he took a piece of white masi, and mixed water with the powder so as to make a black pigment, and with a reed split into many points he painted words upon the masi, and put it in a gourd and fastened the gourd to a stick.

“Then a canoe was made ready to carry him to Verata, where the other white men were. But they could go no farther than the point of the bay where the beach is open, for this was the frontier of Verata, and they were enemies. Here they set up the stick with the gourd hanging to it; and afterwards they sailed near to the town, but out of bow-shot, and shouted to the people to go and take the gourd. Now within the gourd were words from Savage to the white men bidding them leave Verata and come to Bau, which, he said, was the stronger, and a land of chiefs, where they would live unharmed.”

“On the next day these men fled to Bau in a canoe which they had taken, and the forces were made ready to go against Verata. In the first canoe went Savage with his musket. When they were near the town he made them lower the sail and pole the canoe into the shallow water close to the moat. And the warriors in the town ran up and down behind the moat and taunted them, but their arrows fell short of the canoe. Then Savage stood up and shot at a man standing on the bank of earth beating the air with his club, and he fell forward into the moat. And all the others ran to him to see his hurt, and there was silence for a moment while they wondered, and fear gathered in their hearts. Then Savage loaded his piece again and fired at the men as they stooped over him that was wounded, and another fell; and panic seized the rest, and they fled behind the war-fence. Then Savage fired many times at the fence, and the lead passed through the banana-stumps that arrows could not pierce, and wounded the men that stood behind; for it was not until the bow gave place to the musket that the war-fence was made of earth. Then the men of Verata began to flee, and Savage leaped from the canoe and ran to tear down the fence. But as he broke through it a warrior of Verata, who stood just within, stabbed him in the side with his spear. The men of Bau who followed close upon him seized the man before he could escape, and bound him, and took him to the canoes, and he was afterwards slain at Bau and baked in the ovens. Meanwhile the warriors from the other canoes were burning the houses and taking the spoil to the canoes, and clubbing all who had not escaped except a few of the women, who might serve as slaves for Bau. They took also a few of the men as prisoners to be slain at the bure of the war-god and cooked in the ovens. Thus was the power of Verata broken.

“They carried Savage to his own house. Here he had hung a hammock of sail-cloth between the posts, and in this he was laid, for he had lost much blood. But when the old men came with their losi-sticks and other implements to perform cokalosi on his body, they found him swinging in his hammock and swearing strange oaths with the pain of his wound. Nor would he let them touch him, but rather cursed them when he understood what they would do, and called for water to pour upon his wound.

“Bau fought no more till Savage was recovered of his wound. None dared touch his musket, for he had told them that there was magic in it that would kill any that touched it except himself; nor did the other white men dare to take it, for he had threatened them that if any disobeyed him he would require his death at the hands of the chief, who would refuse him nothing.”

When his wound was healed and he could move about the town, they prepared to make him koroi for the number of the enemy that he had killed. In Fiji, when a man had slain another in battle, he was led to the bure with great honour and dedicated to the god; his old name was taken from him, and a new name, with the prefix of “Koroi” (signifying “dwelling of”), was given to him in its place. A stone’s-throw from Bau lies the little islet of Nailusi, on which Ra Matenikutu had built a house for his wives after it had been enlarged with stones carried from the reef. To this islet was Savage taken by several of the elders. There they stripped off his shirt and painted his face and breast with black paint and turmeric, though he mocked the while at their mummeries, protesting that he was cold. When all was ready they embarked again in the canoe with their spears, and landed opposite to the war-god’s bure, where the priests and the old men were sitting. Here the warriors that were to be made “koroi,” taught by the elders, poised their spears and crept slowly on the temple, dancing the cibi, the death-dance. And Savage, painted and festooned like the rest, but wearing his trousers, went with them; but he would not dance to the chant of the old men. They planted their spears hung with streamers against the wall of the temple, and took new spears from the attendants. At night the feast was apportioned, and there was a great dance that lasted till the sun was high on the next morning. And when the dance was ended the chosen warriors brought offerings and piled them in the rara, and as each approached the priests called his new title. And after them all came Savage, bringing nothing but his musket, and the priest cried “Koroi-na-Vunivalu,” a more honourable title than them all. But when they were taken into the bure and forbidden to bathe or eat with their hands for the space of four days, Savage scoffed fiercely at the priests who besought him to comply with their customs, and broke the tabu, leaving the bure, and going to his own home.

From this time they made Savage greater than any save the Vunivalu; some say, indeed, that greater honours were paid to him than to Ra Matenikutu himself. He was a chief of the tribe by adoption, not a foreigner as the others were. Two ladies were given him to wife, the daughters of the spiritual chief and of the Vunivalu himself, and a great house was built for him at Muaidele, on the borders of the fishermen’s town of Soso. We hear little of the other white men who were living at Bau. They took wives, and ate and drank and slept, while Savage sat in the councils of the tribe. Children were born to them, but they were all destroyed except Maraia, the daughter of Savage by a woman of Lomaloma—she who was afterwards married by force to the master of the Manila ship before he was murdered by his crew. She died in 1875.