Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land: A story of old Fiji

by Henry Britton

The male portion of the company entered the rara or square, in procession, with spears advanced, and strips of white masi flowing from them like pennons. They were headed by Hot-Water, whose appearance was magnificent. This comely savage was in the flower of his age, and he advanced with the proud step of a conqueror. His body was powdered a glossy jet, saving his face, which was painted in diamond patterns of the deepest red. He wore tortoise-shell armlets; his knees were bossed with colored grasses; his brow was adorned with a frontlet of scarlet cock’s feathers fixed on a palm leaf; and there lay on the upper portion of his breast a large boar’s tusk suspended from his neck by a cord braided from the ornamental tufts of hair taken from his deadliest foe’s head. His brawny shoulder sustained his favorite club, known as “The-Priest-is-Too-Late.” His train of native cloth, flowing from his waist, and borne by obsequious pages, was upwards of 100 yards in length. It was carried at the side of the following phalanx, and did not keep the warriors in the front rank more than a few yards apart from him.

Those who followed were in the proper order of precedence according to the laws of Fijian chivalry. First came kings and chiefs of large islands or districts; then chiefs of towns and districts, and ambassadors; next were distinguished warriors of lower birth than those who went before them, together with carpenters and chiefs of the turtle fishermen; then the kai sis or common people, the slaves captured in the war, and whose lives had been spared, bringing up the rear. The gay and glittering procession marched round the square, their heads a sea of waving tapa, and finally squatted on the turf in the form of a semi-circle. All the women in the district, arranged in the order of their rank, sat behind the men, having been waiting for the arrival of the procession. The ground having a slight ascent from the inner point of the semi-circle, the appearance presented was that of a crowded amphitheatre. Hot-Water occupied a post of honor, reclining on a heap of printed tapa, piled along a low platform. I was placed next the King, and drained the kava-bowl after him.

Lolóma sat with the king’s favorite wife on an elevated point at the right wing of the company. I was near her as a spectator, taking no part in the martial display. She was radiant with sunny smiles, her dark eyelashes quivering with delight in the spectacle, and her round limbs aglow with youthful blood and passionate life. As the wild barbaric music of conch-shells, bamboo pandean pipes, and wooden drums, awoke the echoes in the neighboring hills, I could not help wishing that this were a field of tourney in which all the bravery of the isle were about to contend; that Lolóma was the elected queen of love and beauty, crowning a noble spectacle by her presence, and whose delicate hand would award the palm of conquest; and that the blast of conch-shells which now pierced the air with its shrill sound were the bray of challenging trumpets from knights of princely mien, instead of the prelude to the ghastly formulas and the hideous banquet I was about to witness, the thought of which, notwithstanding that I had all a young man’s taste for the strange and horrible, filled me with loathing for the people by whom I was surrounded, and made me sick at heart. There was one drop of comfort in the debasing ordeal. Lolóma enjoyed the spectacle with a woman’s fondness for display, but she was not a cannibal. No member of her tribe ate human flesh, because the shrine of their god was human. She would take no part in the Saturnalian rites. She would do nothing that would revolt me.

Ovens on a large scale had been prepared. They were from 10 to 12ft. deep, and 60ft. in circumference. These receptacles having been filled with wood, large stones were laid in layers on the fuel, and were covered up until thoroughly heated. Then the joints of the human bodies were placed on the hot stones, and covered with leaves, a layer of earth enclosing all. While the process of cooking was proceeding, green baskets to carry the bokola were plaited; the vegetables to be eaten were boiled in earthen pots, and taro-paste and sauce were prepared.

The steam penetrating the covering of leaves and earth, showed that the cooking was done. The ovens were formally opened. The Tui Rara, or master of the feast, called out in order of precedence the names of the great personages to whom the meat was to be alloted, and their attendants received at his hands their several portions. When a portion was alloted to a distinguished chief, there was a loud shout from the multitude, followed by an approving clapping of hands. The sub-division of the meat to heads of families was made after the alloted parcels had been received at the hands of the Tui Rara.

There were 20 bodies prepared for the feast, all the seriously wounded prisoners having been killed to add to the number of the slain. These miserable remains, which had been subjected to every conceivable species of indignity, were formally presented at the temple, and accepted by the priest as a peace offering to his god. Then they were carried on slight hurdles (the head lolling on one side, and the legs dangling over the other) to the public square, and set up in a row in a sitting posture. Their faces were gaily painted with vermilion and soot, to give them a life-like appearance as in time of war.

Next a herald advanced in presence of the multitude, and touching each ghastly corpse in turn in a friendly way, the profoundest silence being preserved by the spectators, harangued it in a jocular manner, expressing his extreme regret at seeing such a fine fellow in so sorry a plight, asking if he did not feel ashamed of himself after his recent loud boasting from behind the fortress, and wondering why he should have ventured so far down the hill, unless it was to see his dear friends of Ramáka. Finally the herald addressed them in more excited strains, and wound up by knocking the bodies down like so many ninepins, amid shouts of laughter from the bystanders.

At length the corpses were ignominiously dragged into the shade of a clump of iron-wood trees which skirted the temple. A sacrificial stone marked the spot where hundreds of prisoners of war in past times had been killed, a heap of whitening skulls attesting their number.

Here the dissecting began. It was performed with sharpened shells and split bamboos by the dautava tamata, or cutter-up of men, who handled his instruments skilfully. The bodies having been disembowelled, and the head removed, the feet were cut off at the ancles, and the legs from the knees; the thighs were dissevered from the hip joints, the hands from the wrists; the fore arms were cut off at the elbows, and the shoulders were taken out of the sockets—the operator, who was watched with great interest by a crowd of onlookers, displaying no mean surgical skill. Each of these divisions was treated as a separate joint. Having been enclosed in green plantain leaves, the several pieces were placed in the oven. When the stones became red hot, green leaves were put on them to slacken the heat.

Some of the septs or families received their portion of the horrible repast on large wooden dishes covered with a cloth of fresh leaves. I noticed one dish 12 ft. long, 4ft. wide, and 3ft. deep. It would almost have held an ox roasted whole. Vast heaps of yams, and walls of taro and other vegetables had been prepared to accompany the meat. This portion of the feast alone must have weighed several tons. I noticed that several of the chiefs were linga tambu—not allowed to touch food with their hands for a certain time. These were fed by one of their wives, or a herald.