The “Eyes-of-the-Country” named by the priest are the ambassadors, who, as their name suggests, are supposed to be wide awake enough to see everything going on in and out of the land. They are universal spies, the bearers of royal messages to other tribes, clever mischief makers, and generally notorious for negotiating political affairs in any way but according to their instructions. In all fairness, however, it must be added that they were without doubt as a class, the first and only genuine orators in Cannibal-land. Three other poetical expressions used by Box-of-Tricks deserve a passing notice. They are the “Teeth-of-the-Yangona,” the “Fruit-of-the-Screw-Pine,” and the “Strength-of-the-Country.” These figures of speech mean the strong young men, and experienced warriors going forth in the conscious pride and might of their youth and manhood’s prime, to meet the foe. Young men are employed to masticate the kava-root, so that when put into water it may the more readily give out its intoxicating juices. These young men are therefore called the “Teeth-of-the-Yangona,” or the “kava-root chewers.” The best portion of the army is spoken of as the “Fruit-of-the-Screw-Pine” or Pandanus,—the most sacred and popular tree in the mythologies of Fiji. The fruit when ripe resembles the pine-apple, but is of a deeper and richer colour. Used by our cannibal orator, it represented the ripeness of manly strength, and was another name for the men whom he also called the “Strength-of-the-Land,” or as we should say, the “Flower of the Army.” The “plenty of flesh to eat” referred to, meant human flesh, the word used having no other signification.
CHAPTER XIX.
GRIM-VISAGED WAR.
At length the day of conflict arrived. The enemy had been seen clustering on the heights, two miles distant from Ramáka, the bolebole or public review of the soldiers had been held, and Hot-Water’s forces marched forth, led by their chief, redolent of oil, turmeric, and sandalwood preparations, and his great head of hair glistening like dew in the sunlight The priest bore before the host a sacred stone, which was said to have fallen from the sky, and was venerated and feared as a representative of the God of War. Hot-Water delivered a spirit-stirring harangue to his troops, in which he bid them roll on like the multitudinous sea, break on the enemy with the roar and irresistible force of ocean waves, and drive them to their fastnesses like the receding tide.
The head-dresses were of a most elaborate and grotesque kind. The Fijians exhaust their ingenuity in arranging striking coiffures. Sometimes the hair was black, sometimes white with lime obtained from the coral, or powdered ashes of the bread-fruit leaf, and sometimes marked with different shades of red. Many had their hair frizzed out with a comb till it resembled a wig 8 or 9 inches thick, being of an equal height at the top, back, and sides. I noticed one man with whitened hair from which black tufts arose in regular order. Another appeared to be enveloped in a thick hood. A third presented a wall-like front a few inches back from his forehead, the carving appearing to have been done on a solid substance. A fourth wore his hair in corded tassels behind; the hirsute ornamentation of a fifth took the form of tiers arranged with geometrical accuracy, while a sixth presented alternate cones and flat spaces. In short, the variety of styles was infinite, and these dandies were as vain of the figure they cut as any ball-room belle. There were faces painted in stripes, circles, and spots; faces like clowns, and faces with only a brilliantly red nose glaring from a wide surface of jet black. To produce these effects the seeds of the vermilion tree, charcoal, fungus, and coral lime are used. When the lime has been washed off, the hair is left a set tawny colour.
Big-Wind must have had under his command altogether 2,000 men, but they were not so well skilled in war as the redoubtable foes they had to meet. Hot-Water’s army did not number more than 1,500 effectives, but they had a tower of strength in their three white men, Turner, Cobb, and myself, each armed with a brown bess and 12 rounds of ammunition.
As we advanced up hill I thought of the following words which the warriors chanted the previous evening as a stimulus to the brave, and in ridicule of renegades:
Where is he our fearless hero,
He who led us forth so bravely?
Fall’n in battle, fall’n in charging,
Fall’n and dragged away to vict’ry.