On June 11, 1895, the Governor received a letter from the Roko Tui Mathuata announcing that on the last day of May a native constable sent to serve a summons at the inland village of Thalalevu had been attacked and beaten by the inhabitants, who had subsequently taken the villages of Nathereyanga and Ndelaiviti without bloodshed. The Governor,
Sir John Thurston, sailed that night for Mathuata with a small force of armed constabulary, and found that the rebels had followed up their success by burning the village of Saivou, killing two of its inhabitants, named Sakiusa and Samisoni, whose bodies were afterwards found dismembered and prepared for cooking. The rebels had retired to an old hill fortress called Thaumuremure, where they were strongly entrenched. On the march inland the besiegers had to pass the grave of the late Buli Seankanka in the village of Nathereyanga, and there they interrupted some of the rebels, who had carefully weeded the grave, and were in the act of presenting kava to the spirit of the dead chief to implore his aid. The siege of Thaumuremure will not loom large in history. The garrison numbered at the most one hundred persons; they had no arms but their spears, while the besiegers carried Martini-Henry rifles. But the garrison bravely blew their conch-shells and danced the death-dance till the last. It was all over in a few minutes. Nine men were shot dead, and the rest took to their heels, to surrender a few days later, while the Government force could boast but three spear-wounds. Nkaranivalu, the arch-rebel, and the two old heathen priests, who had eaten the arms and the legs of the two victims of the outbreak, were carried to Suva to expiate their crime. The people of the scattered villages were collected into one large village under the eye of their chief, and the district was at rest.
The outbreak is only interesting in that it shows how the Fijians confuse Christianity with the Government, and cannot throw off the one without repudiating the other; and how cannibalism was a religious rite and not the mere gratification of a depraved taste.
The Mbaki, or Nanga Rites
THE RITES OF THE FIRST FRUITS
We have now to consider a cult which is remarkable in more than one respect—in its contrast to the religious system of the Fijians, its resemblance to certain Australian and Melanesian rites, and in the sidelights which it seems to throw upon
the origin of ancient monuments in Europe.[57] Fijian mythology is essentially tribal; the Mbaki took no cognizance of tribal divisions. It was rather a secret religious society bound together by the common link of initiation. The rite of initiation is a curious echo of the Engwura ceremony of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia as described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. The Nanga, the open-air temple in which the Mbaki was celebrated, has more than a slight resemblance to the alignments at Carnac in Brittany and Merivale on Dartmoor.
The Nanga was the "bed" of the Ancestors, that is, the spot where their descendants might hold communion with them; the Mbaki were the rites celebrated in the Nanga, whether of initiating the youths, or of presenting the first-fruits, or of recovering the sick, or of winning charms against wounds in battle. The cult was confined to a comparatively small area, a bare third of the island of Vitilevu. Outside this area it was unknown, and even among the tribe that built and used the Nanga there were many who knew nothing of the cult beyond the fact that a certain spot near their village might not be visited without exciting the displeasure of the gods, although members of tribes that worshipped other gods, and were frequently at war with them, resorted to the Nanga, which they were not permitted to approach. Even when the two tribes were at war those of the enemy that were initiated were safe in attending the rites, provided that they could make their way to the Nanga unobserved.
The Nangas are now in ruin. There is a large and very perfect one at Narokorokoyawa, several in Navosa (Western Tholo), and three on the south coast between Serua and the Singatoka river. On the western coast there are said to be two, one in Vitongo and the other in Momi. I have visited several whose structure was so identical that one description will serve for all. The Nanga is a rough parallelogram formed of flat stones embedded endwise in the earth, about 100 feet long
by 50 feet broad, and lying east and west, though the orientation is not exact. The upright stones forming the walls are from 18 inches to 3 feet in height, but as they do not always touch they may be described as "alignments" rather than walls. At the east end are two pyramidal heaps of stones with square sloping sides and flat tops, 5 feet high and 4 feet by 6 feet on the top. The narrow passage between them is the main entrance to the enclosure. Two similar pyramids placed about the middle of the enclosure divide it roughly into two equal parts, with a narrow passage connecting the two. The western portion is the Nanga-tambu-tambu (or Holy of Holies); the eastern the Loma ni Nanga (or Middle Nanga). In the Nangas on the south coast the two truncated pyramids near the entrance are wanting. At the middle of the west end there is another entrance, and there are gaps in the alignments every six or eight feet to permit people to leave the enclosure informally during the celebration of the rites. Beyond the west end of the Nanga near Vunaniu the ground rose, and on the slope were two old graves upon which were found the decayed remains of two "Tower" muskets. It is possible that chiefs were buried near the "Holy of Holies" of all the Nangas in order that their Shades, who haunted the graves, when summoned to the Nanga by their living descendants, should not have far to come.