CHAPTER VIII.
THE VALLEY OF TIVÓLI.
I was conducted by my newly-found friends into the valley where the chief town of the district was situated, and from which I had often heard sounds denoting the presence of a numerous population. The valley was called Tivóli, the Fijian word for wild yam. The thick-eaved houses were clustered together in the shade of an extensive grove of bread-fruit trees. The buildings formed in a somewhat irregular way three sides of a square. The central space was the village green, on which the sports of the inhabitants and the friendly tournaments they often engaged in were enacted.
Entering the chief’s house, I found him reclining in the midst of his wives and concubines on a pile of coloured masi or tapa[[6]]. Three sides of a mosquito-net made of the same material, only much finer in texture, hung in festoons around him. Some fathoms of native cloth wrapped round his waist lay in graceful folds upon his brawny limbs. In his hand he held a neatly-made fan of palm leaves; and close by was his wooden pillow, shaped like an office-ruler fixed on two low stands. His hair was worn like an enormous ball of jetty frizz, which projected an equal distance on all sides, and added greatly to the appearance of his stature. He was not more than 6ft. 1in. in height, but he seemed to be several inches taller. Regular features, a pointed beard, dark-brown skin, and luminous black eyes, which glowed when they lighted up with some hidden feeling of savage joy like a piece of charcoal when the slumbering fire is blown upon, completed the external marks of a distinguished personage of far from unprepossessing appearance.
[6]. Native cloth. Masi is the Fijian word; tapa, a Tongan word, is also now in common use.
The house in which I found myself was about 30ft. long and 15ft. broad. The structure was externally not handsomer than a hayrick, which it closely resembled, with the exception that there were holes in the side, over which mats were hung, for windows. The projecting end of the ridgepole was ornamented with cowrie shells. The walls were about 5ft. high, but the ridgepole was a good 25ft. from the ground. The doorway was cunningly contrived to be so low that the most exalted personage could not gain audience of the master without stooping almost with his hands to the ground. The walls had a thickness of three reeds. The outer and inner rows of reeds being arranged perpendicularly and the middle horizontally, the builders had been enabled to produce a handsome and artistic effect by a pattern in sinnet worked with great regularity and neatness. The most prominent object in the middle of the floor was a sunken fireplace, protected by a wooden kerb. Here a large earthenware pot was simmering, and a thin smoke curled up from a slow fire, slightly obscuring the light in the room. An elevation at one end of the dwelling, where the chief reclined, had dividing curtains of masi, which showed that it was a divan by day and a place of repose by night.
The walls were as plentifully hung with useful articles as an English farmers kitchen. The most noticeable was the kava-bowl, with strainer and cup. Ornamental baskets, gourds and bottles, fans, sunshades, and oil and food dishes of strong wood, attracted immediate attention. Wooden bowls, earthen pans, and glazed water-vessels rested at the base of the walls. Near the hearth I noticed a knife—made, as I afterwards learned, from some human bone—for cutting bread (decayed bread-fruit) from the pit in which it is kept buried till it is in a putrescent state, highly relished by Fijian bon vivants; a kneading board for the bread, some cocoanut cups, a bamboo drinking vessel plugged with grass, and a soup dish. Several earthen pots, capable of holding three or four gallons each, were propped against the kerbing of the fireplace. The Fijians have no mean skill in the potter’s art. In most of their water-vessels they have taken for their model the nest of the mason bee, which builds its little round dwelling with an opening at one side, terminating in a narrow neck with a turned-back lip, in the precise form of a common Fijian pot. A skewer for trying cooked food, and a wooden fork or two, were also among the things which a hasty glance round disclosed to me, and encouraged me to believe that my daily fare was likely to be of a far from contemptible kind in a place where the culinary appliances were so good.
The company included a liberally-provided harem and some important minor chiefs and councillors. There was Qio (shark), the priest; Thikinovu (the centipede), King Big-Wind’s brother; Na Ulu (the head), the King’s herald; Kuila (the flag), the chief ambassador; Davui (trumpet shell), the tribal minstrel; Matauloki (bent-axe), half-brother to the King, a crooked-backed individual of sinister aspect, who eyed me in no friendly way; and Lalabalavu (long-emptiness), the court fool. Among the ladies the most distinguished in appearance was Lolóma, the chief’s favourite daughter. There were two fine stout women, his favourite wives—Randivanua and Watina; and two pretty little girls—Ko Sena (the flower), and Sénimóli (orange blossom), Lolóma’s youngest sisters.
King Big-Wind received me with great solemnity, directing that I should be treated with divine honours. He bestowed on me the name of Ratu Thava, or Sir Hurricane, telling me that I had come with the storm, and must be its spirit. The herald proclaimed my appellation at the palace door, and three fearful blasts on the conch-shell announced to the distant townsfolk that the Child of the Hurricane, a white God from the unknown countries, had been adopted by the tribe as their papalangi.
The King told me to make myself quite at home in his family, remarking that the coast tribes would not dare to attack him, as they had threatened, now that he had a white God with him. Kava and food in abundance were offered me, and I was soon on friendly terms with my neighbours, some of whom had a difficulty at first in satisfying themselves that I was really a human being. It was, indeed, many days before any of the children could be induced to come within a stone’s throw of me.
After I had given the company some description of the vessel in which I was wrecked, in whose construction they took an intense interest, Big-Wind reminded them of a legend in the tribe which said that a priest, under the inspiration of his God, had predicted that one day an “outriggerless canoe” would arrive at the islands from some foreign land. The natives could not conceive of a vessel being at sea without an outrigger, which is the mainstay of their own canoes, and the prophecy was disbelieved, notwithstanding that the old priest successfully launched a wooden dish on a pool of water in proof of the possibility of his idea being carried out. After hearing my description of the Molly Asthore the company one and all asserted that the prediction had been fulfilled.