CHAPTER XI.
THE FIJIAN NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS. FIRST NIGHT—THE WONDER OF CANNIBAL-LAND.
You may talk till doomsday to a genuine old cannibal about the greatness of your country and the littleness of his, before he will show the slightest sign of yielding any credence to your story. However truthful and astonishing may be your tales, he soon recovers from the effects they have produced on his imagination, and turns to say something of his own land, of which he is truly proud, and in which he thinks there will be no difficulty in finding things as great and surprising as you have found in yours. Tell him all you know, show him everything you have brought with you, do something which in his eyes shall appear to be, what he will not hesitate to call it, the work of a God; but having done all this, you will find him obstinately clinging to the one simple, yet natural enough idea, that his land is not to be despised after all, nor, indeed, is it to be thought second to that of any curious foreigners who may find pleasure in interviewing him. Tell him of one of the many wonders of civilisation, and, if it strike his fancy, or if he has some hidden object in view for doing so, he will become quite demonstrative as you proceed; he will clap his hands, snap and bite his fingers, shake them as if he had just burnt them in the fire, make clicking noises with the tongue and roof of the mouth, pour forth a shower of interjections, in which his language is rich, and finally declare himself dumb in your presence, and be careful to remain so, as if your tale had suddenly benumbed his brains, and paralyzed his tongue. This is the impression he gives you, but it is not the correct one, for presently awakening as from a dream or reverie, in which his memory had been at work, recalling something learnt in younger days, and coming to the conclusion that you have no more “lions” to show, he will begin to conjure up one, at whose proportions, as they slowly emerge from the mist of his wordy speech, your own quickly subsides.
Assembled one evening with a large company in Big-Wind’s house, the conversation had flagged. The dull light from a wick in a pan of cocoanut oil shed a faint sickly glare on the prostrate forms of the King’s courtiers, many of whom were already asleep, when Lolóma begged me to tell them the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with which I had greatly interested her on a former occasion. I recited the Arabian legend to the best of my ability, drawing on my imagination for some details of the original which I had forgotten, and when I had finished there were loud approving calls of “Vinaka! Vinaka!”[[8]] The King was so pleased that he directed three pigs to be presented to me.
[8]. Good! Good!
This put on his mettle Trumpet Shell, the tribal minstrel, who considered that he was entitled to a monopoly of this line of business, and he proposed to relate the story of Prince Hightide and his Leviathan Canoe, an ever-welcome legend in verse, which the company were never tired of hearing.
The tribal minstrel in Fiji is a remarkable character. He is at once the historian and poet of his people. Every clan can boast a bard of some sort, and the office is held in high honour. On subsequently comparing three versions of Prince Hightide in their different dialects, I regarded their remarkable agreement as matter for surprise, especially when it is remembered that they were never reduced to writing by the natives, but were preserved only in the memories of a few old poets or teachers of poetry. Such old men are very scarce in the present day. Here and there one may yet be found, but not many days hence the “Lay of the last Minstrel” will be sung for the last time. Already it has become a rare thing to hear a really old song. That simple race who in Fiji wasted “their toil”
“For the vain tribute of a smile—”
though not, perhaps, so often or with as much intellectual enjoyment as Scotia’s bards—in a few more years will have passed away for ever.
The poets of Fiji were not necessarily either chiefs or common men. The really popular poets were doubtless “poets born.” Such men were greatly appreciated by all ranks of society, but were patronised mostly by great chieftains, who were able to pay for the luxury of poetry and the honour of encouraging it. There were poetesses too, but they were never a numerous class.
The poet was not a man to be neglected or treated with contempt. He was a being possessed of far higher abilities than those of ordinary men. The poet of the day in any tribe required at least a house which was always to be considered as sacredly set apart for his own particular use. This abode was regarded in a very special sense as the “poet’s corner.” His turbans and ornaments were hung here; and in no other place in the land did he ever expect to get such gracious visitations from the muses. When required to compose a poem and teach it—for his duty not infrequently included both—those demanding of him a song never came to his temple empty-handed, but laden with gifts of various sorts, and wearing sweet-smelling garlands. The interview with his patronising visitors over, he would fix a time for beginning the arduous task. As soon as the appointed season arrived, he would enter his sacred room to sleep and dream, and dream and sleep, until the song, or principal parts of it, had dawned on his internal consciousness. At this stage he would rise and go forth to some solitary spot where, all alone, he would train his “imagination to body forth,” more clearly, “the forms of things unknown,” then