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

by Henry Britton

In the second rank of this “middle class” we have hero-gods. These are the deified spirits of generally acknowledged heroes. They take up their places of honour according to their earthly rank as chiefs and the deeds of valour they are believed to have done. Besides these, but far back in the shade behind them, are vast multitudes of human spirits, who, though far from being heroes in the highest meaning of that title, were nevertheless heroes in the limited circles in which they once moved, and to their own kinsfolk, by whom they were raised to the ranks of demigods, of no mean influence. These gods, while yet men in the world we live in, were heads of families or guardians, and only attained to the position they now adorn by complying with the condition which alone entitles them to it. This condition is that, after death, they visit the earth, and make such visit most unmistakably clear to their old friends.

In this middle class are also to be found goddesses. These do not appear to be so numerous as deities of the sterner sex, nor are they so often brought on the stage where cannibal divinities “have their exits and their entrances.” Like their humbler sisters of human birth and mien, they are made to follow on behind, never coming to the front, except when placed there through the irresistible influence of surpassing beauty, or that law which, in the-place-of-Everlasting-Standing, brings a lady before the world in order to fix, by her own nobility, the precise legal degree of that of some chief of whom she is the honoured mother.

Coming now to the third and last great class, it may be noted that democratic gods are by far the most numerous, and the most difficult to arrange. These gods are everywhere and in everything. Each inhabits some favourite shrine, from the human body in all its stages and conditions before and after death down to the mosquito, which, by the way, is one of the most annoying and sanguinary little gods in Fiji. With regard to what the cannibal says about these gods there is a greater confusion of ideas and contradictory statements than are to be found clinging to the gods of the other classes. Our cannibal theologist tells us there is no object, animate or inanimate, which has not a spirit of its own. But this spirit, according to some, is not the God, for, say they, “every object is the shrine of something more than its own spirit, even that of a genuine god.” Here we enter further into the sphere of confusion and darkness, inasmuch as when we ask the old mythologies if every object has two spirits, its own and a god, or whether its own spirit is the god, their answers agree not. It may be either that the spirit of the object is the god, or that the god, being independent of both the object and its spirit, has only taken up his abode with them. This portion of the cannibal’s creed leads to the conclusion that Fijian mythology points to a kind of pantheistic doctrine of this peculiar type, which, while it recognises god in everything, does not seem to recognise everything as a “part or particle of god.”

Great respect was paid to shrines, which the people called the god’s “covering.” Indeed, the respect shown to the “covering” or “shell” often exceeded that given to the “covered,” or the god in possession. From the chaos of opinions which the Fijian brain has cast up, it seems impossible to discover where the priests and people drew the line of demarcation, if they drew it at all, between the shrine and the enshrined. Whenever one met with the shrine of one of his gods he would offer it all the honours in his power, as if it were the actual god himself. He would, moreover, call the object his god. The Fijian was not a worshipper of idols of his own making, but of spirits which had taken up their abode in natural objects. Such worship was not, therefore, of the basest sort, seeing that while the apparent objects of it were shrines for the purpose of bringing divinity near and making it palpable, the real object was that divinity. Thus we see that, although the cannibal may in some sense be said to have lived by faith, inasmuch as he believed in the existence of spirit-gods, he did so through the medium of what was tangible, and which could not deprive him of the happiness of living by sight.

If, on the sudden appearance of his god, a devotee was not in a position to make a proper offering, he would not fail as the next best thing to make the “shout of respect” due to a great chief. Turbaned heads in respectful acknowledgment of their gods, would quickly uncover, and all ornaments would be removed from the person. Very pious men on finding a shrine would take it up, and carefully carry it home. Here they would deposit it in some part of the house, or in one of the village temples: and, often stealing away to the spot where it lay, would address it in these or like words—“Oh, Sirs, great is our joy that you two,” meaning the god and his shrine, “have been of so good a mind as to make your appearance in this gracious and unlooked for way to us, your unworthy and useless servants.”

It is a crime to be visited with death for anyone to eat the shrine of his god. He, whose god is enshrined in a shark, turtle, duck, or what not, must for ever abstain, however pressed by hunger, from the sacrilegious deed. This is the reason why, in every kingdom, there were to be found persons to whom the eating of human flesh was an abomination. The shrine of their god was human. Funeral honours were not unfrequently paid to deceased shrines, which, whatever might be asserted or proved of the divinity within them, were themselves far from being immortal. The last remains of a divinely-honoured vase would be interred with every formality. Festivals would be held and offerings made in memoriam of the shrine which death had conquered, perhaps through the god deserting it, and sacred to the memory of the god himself, who, whether by his own act or not, was now shrineless.

Not only do shrines cease to be shrines, but gods to be gods, for some are said to be gods only so long as their popularity lasts. When this goes, divinity goes with it, but not immortality. The Fijians’ belief in the immortality of spirit, whether that of a man or of a god, is, with some slight qualifications, a cardinal one. But “once a god, always a god,” is not so, except as regards the “aristocratic gods,” who are not easily thrown down from the pedestal of their divinity. All sorts of demigods, however, cease to be gods whenever the tribes serving them happen to be conquered in war and become the slaves of their conquerors. The gods of the victor thereupon take the place of those whose names were for ages “household words” ever on the lips of men, women, and children, who had suffered so much and fought so long to keep their independence, but who at last had helplessly failed.

Strange things are told of the way in which condign punishment overtakes those who slight, injure, or kill the shrines of their gods. The cock is the shrine of a god called by the natives who paid him homage “Fire-face,” or “Fire-eye.” Should any worshipper of this god kill any of these sacred fowls, the avenger will some day suddenly appear before him in the shape of a real game bird, with awful spurs and wrathful eye, the departed spirit of the veritable fire-eyed chanticleer against whom the offence was committed. Flying full and furiously at his victim, he will leap upon his head and leave him hairless. The culprit’s feet will also become divided and twisted, so as to assume the appearance of chicken’s feet, claws and all included. No wonder that, not so very long ago, old priests might have been seen sitting at the low doorways of every spirit-house in the country, cautioning all and sundry, saying, “Oh ye chiefs and people, be sure you respect your gods, and never harm their shrines.”

The patronage of all the gods was a thing most anxiously desired and sought by the people, who believed that these superior beings encouraged and governed their wars, made the yam crops good or bad, loaded the trees with fruit or blighted them, brought fish to their nets and human flesh to their ovens, and did a thousand and one other important things, but always on the clearly advertised condition that every divine command must be obeyed, the temples be kept in good repair, and the priests revered, feared, and well-cared for. The last part of the contract was by no means the least important, for between the gods and their priests there was believed to be the closest connection—hence the necessity to treat the priest with no less attention than that due to his god.

While it would seem to be quite true that certain of the lower-class gods are continually passing away into oblivion, as their popularity wanes or the people paying their homage die out, it is said to be no less true that gods of the first-class neither pass away nor change, but, strangers alike to the greenness of youth and the decay of age, are ever hale and strong. If such is the case with the aristocratic gods themselves, they certainly have not allowed it to be so with surrounding nature, upon which, as it would appear from the oldest traditions, they have played some most “fantastic tricks.” The legends are full of exaggerated tales of great physical changes, which in the silent ages came again and again, gradually or suddenly, over the face of the country. At one period fields of pumice-stone are said to have been swept by winds and ocean currents into the group from the south-east, and, settling at the foot of the hills of Eastern Great Fiji, helped in forming the foundation of the present extensive flats and deltas of rich alluvial soil, which, after feeding many generations of cannibals with yams and taro, are at last destined to put gold into the pockets of industrious sugar-growing settlers.