Every step of the soul's journey was taken on a road perfectly familiar to the people, and constantly frequented by daylight. But after nightfall none were found so foolhardy as to set foot upon this domain of the Immortals, while the precincts of Ndengei's cave and Naithombothombo (the
Jumping-off place) were tabu both by day and night. In 1891 a surveyor, employed in sketching the boundaries of the lands claimed by the Namata tribe, was taken by his native guides along a high ridge, the watershed between the Rewa river and the eastern coast of the main island. As they cut their way through the undergrowth that clothed the hilltop, he noticed that the path was nearly level, and seldom more than two feet wide, and that the ridge joined hilltop to hilltop in an almost horizontal line. Reflecting that Nature never works in straight lines with so soft a material as earth, and that natural banks of earth are always washed into deep depressions between the hills, and are never razor-edged as this was, he had a patch of the undergrowth cleared away, and satisfied himself that the embankments were artificial. Following the line of the ridge, the saddles had been bridged with banks thirty to forty feet high in the deepest parts, and tapering to a width of two feet at the top. The level path thus made extends, so the guides said, clear to Nakauvandra mountain, fifty miles away. For a people destitute of implements this was a remarkable work. Every pound of earth must have been carried up laboriously in cocoanut leaf baskets and paid for in feasts. Even when the valley was densely populated the drain on the resources of the people must have been enormous, for thousands of pigs must have been slaughtered and millions of yams planted, cultivated, and consumed in the entertainment of the workers. With the present sparse population the work would have been impossible. It was thought at first that this was a fortification on a gigantic scale, for Fijians never undertake any great combined work, except for defence, to preserve their bare existence. It could not be a road, because the Fijian of old preferred to go straight over obstacles, like the soldier ants that climb trees rather than go round them. The old men at Mbau, whom I questioned, knew no tradition about it, except that it was called the "Path of the Shades," and that it was an extension of one of the spurs of the Kauvandra mountain range. Of one thing they were certain—that it was not built for defence. Then I asked for guides to take me over it, and three grey-
headed elders of the Namata tribe were told off to accompany me. We started in the driving rain. My guides were reticent at first, but when we had climbed to the higher ridge, and were near the "Water-of-Solace," the spirit of the place seemed to possess them, and at every turn of the path they stopped to describe the peril that there beset the poor Shade. The eldest of the three became at times positively uncanny, for he stopped here and there in the rain to execute a sort of eerie dance, which, if it was intended to exorcise the demons of the Long Road, was highly reprehensible in a professing Wesleyan. Little by little I wormed the whole story out of them, together with fragments of the sagas in which it is crystallized. After I had reached home two of my native collectors were sent to Namata to reduce the tradition to writing. The following is a literal translation of what they brought me—
The Spirit Path (Sala Ni Yalo)
There is a long range which has its source at Mumuria in the Kauvandra mountain, and stretches eastward right down to Nathengani at Mokani in Mbau. It is called the Tuatua-mbalavu (Long Range), but in Tholo and Ra it is called the Tualeita. This range is nowhere broken or cut through, nor does the course of any stream pass through it. And all the streams that discharge into the Wainimbuka take their source in this range, and also the streams that run towards the sea, on the whole coast, from Navitilevu to Namata.
Now our ancestors said that the souls of the dead followed this range on their way to Kauvandra, and at the foot of the range at Mokani was their fountain of drinking water, called Wainindula. We begin our account of the "Spirit Path" at Ndravo, for at that place all the souls of those who have died at Mburetu, and Nakelo, and Tokatoka, and Lomaindreketi, and Ndravo crossed the water.
This is the story—
THE GHOSTLY FERRYMAN
When a man died his body was washed, and girded up with masi and laid in its shroud. A whale's tooth was laid on his breast, to be his stone to throw at the pandanus-tree, which
all the Shades had to aim at. And while his friends were weeping, the Shade left the body and came to a stream so swift that no Shade could swim across it. This stream was called the Wainiyalo (River of the Shades), but it is now called the Ndravo river. When the Shade reached the bank he stood and called towards the Mokani side, where the god Themba dwelt, the same whose duty it is to ferry the Shades across the water. Now Themba has a great canoe, divided in the middle; one end is of vesi, and in this the chiefs embark; but the other is of ndolou (a kind of bread-fruit), and on this the low-born Shades take passage. The name of the place where they stand and call Themba is Lelele. When the Shade reaches Lelele he stands and calls, "Themba, bring over your canoe." And Themba answers, "Which end is to be the prow?" If the Shade answers, "The vesi end," Themba knows that it is the shade of a chief, but if it cries, "Let the bread-fruit be the prow," it is a low-born Shade, and the bread-fruit end touches the bank.