The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom

by Basil Thomson

In Noikoro, near the chief village of Korolevu, almost in the centre of the great island of Vitilevu, Dr. Corney found another leprosy stone, called simply Na Vatu-ni-Sakuka (the Leper-stone), a large basaltic rock having upon it natural markings in which the natives see a resemblance to the leprous maculæ on the human skin. Among the Vunavunga people to whom it belonged, and who formerly lived near to it, there are several bad cases of leprosy. The stone was vested formerly in one Mbativusi (Cat-tooth), a leper, but on his death it passed into the hands of Rasambasamba, his vasu, e.g. a man whose mother belonged to Mbativusi's family, and to his children. Their family is called Nakavindi, and the elder of the Nakavindi family, being ex officio proprietor of the stone, is held to have the power of conferring leprosy upon whom he wishes. His dreadful powers are, of course, invoked secretly: the offended person comes to him with a root of yankona, whale's teeth, bark-cloth, or mats, praying him to impart the disease to his

enemy. The leper-priest lays them on the stone with incantations (veivatonaki) for a successful issue. Then, returning home, he drinks yankona, and in blowing the dregs from his lips and moustache, cries as his toast—"Phya! Uthu i au!" which, being interpreted, is "Phya! May his face be as mine!" i.e. leprous; and speculation would run high as to who was the object of the curse. When the curse failed there was, as in all similar public impositions, an easy way out. No doubt Elijah slew the priests of Baal because he knew that in five minutes they would have been ready with a plausible excuse for their failure to call down fire from heaven. The leper-priest could always plead the inadequacy of the offering (which, of course, became his perquisite), and ask for more, or decline to make a second trial. All the leading men of the Nakavindi family, which, be it remembered, is only a collateral branch of the original proprietors of the stone, have leprosy in its most terrible form.

Dr. Corney found another leper stone lying in the silt of a small stream, Nasova creek, about a mile and a half from the village of Nankia, in the Sawakasa district. Part of its surface was rough, and the smooth portion was interrupted with three ripplings or corrugations which the natives called vakalawarikoso. The village where the family to which the stone belonged was living proved to be a leprous centre from which the disease appeared to be radiating to the other villages in the neighbourhood. As this stone appears to have neither history nor malign influence, it is possible that it owes its name to its macular markings and its situation near a leprous centre.

A GRISLY STORY

Near Walá, a village about three miles from Fort Carnarvon on the opposite bank of the Singatoka river, is another stone, or rather collection of stones, for they are described as forming a miniature cairn of red stones like jade. As the cairn stands within the burial-ground of part of the Walá village, it may be actually a grave. The natives are very reticent about it; I lived for more than a year in almost daily intercourse with the Walá without hearing of it, and Dr. Corney, who went to see it after hearing of it from the Mbuli of the dis

trict, was adroitly put off the scent by his native guides. He learned its history under somewhat dramatic circumstances. Being called one day to examine a number of native prisoners recently admitted to the prison in Suva, he found that one of four lepers among them gave Walá as his native village. With the permission of the Superintendent of Prisons, he took the young man to the hospital in order to question him at leisure, and there, with the unknown terrors of prison discipline before his eyes, his reticence gave way. The gist of his replies to Dr. Corney's questions as taken down at the time was as follows:—"My name is Namanka; I come from Walá, but my family belongs properly to Talatala in Vaturu. They left Talatala in heathen times when Vaturu was burned out by the enemy, and took refuge at Sambeto, but my father and mother fled to the hills and settled at Walá, where we have lived ever since. I have one brother older than myself, and he, my father, and my mother are all lepers. My father was Kuruwankato; he died a few months ago at Keyasi, whither he had gone for treatment for leprosy. His hands were withered and contracted, there were ulcers and blisters upon them, he had lost his fingers and toes, and had patches upon him that had lost all feeling. He had no brothers; I have no uncles, and no leprous relations except my father, mother and brother. My father was the first to show symptoms. This was the way of it. On a certain day, several years ago, we all went out into our plantation, and left the house empty. Not even a child was left to keep the house. I was but a small boy at the time, but I often accompanied my parents to the plantation. When we returned in the evening we saw that the Sakuka (the Leprosy) had crossed our threshold. He had entered by the end door, and had crawled to the hearth, and there in the ashes of the hearth we saw the prints of his hands and his feet, the prints of leper hands (mains-en-griffe) and toeless feet like hoofs. Thus we knew that the Sakuka had put his mark upon our house, and wondered which of us was to be the first. We knew that we should be lepers, being thus marked for it by the Sakuka, and my father was the first, my mother next, and I was last of all.

The Sakuka is a stone, red like a patch of leprosy, red like red paint. It is in five or six pieces, heaped together. Sometimes a piece is missing from its place at Navau. I have been at the burial-ground myself when a piece was missing, and have seen that it was so. Vasukeyasi is proprietor of the stone; he is not a leper, but Kaliova, who also has a vested right in it, is. Vasukeyasi is priest of the stone, and he can move it to infect a person with leprosy, and so compass his death. I do not know what forms or ceremonies he uses when he would do this, but it is a sort of kaitha (witchcraft). When I said that the Sakuka marked our hearth I meant the spirit of the stone which is obedient to Vasukeyasi. The thing is true; there is no doubt about it. I do not know the origin of the stone; it is an ancient institution. I have told you all that I know about it."

In this grisly story we have the essence of the belief in leper stones. The cairn of strange red stones set up in a burial-ground can be none other than a tomb, probably the tomb of a leper. The spirit of the dead man haunts the site of the grave, and his eldest descendant is his priest. His priest can conjure him forth in corporeal shape to crawl into the house of a person whom he has foredoomed to leprosy. This, of course, is no explanation of the main-en-griffe in the ashes on the hearth. That episode may have been a coincidence or it may have been a lie; but that a family of healthy aliens came to live in the neighbourhood of a leper stone, and were infected one after the other by means which every native believed to be the malignant ministrations of the priest, was indubitable fact. And if we smile at his theory of infection, let us remember that it is logical reasoning as compared with our own in his eyes, and that he can point to more lepers in support of his plan of infection by incantation than we can adduce as the result of inoculation with the bacillus lepræ.

Dr. Corney heard of two other leper stones—one at Navitiviti in the Mbure district, Ra province; the other near Mbukuya, fifteen miles north of Fort Carnarvon. There may be others in Vanualevu and elsewhere.