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

by Henry Britton

But there is a nearer approach to the true signification of this god’s name in a word found in one of the older and now almost obsolete dialects, the dialect of the land of poetry, where most of the songs and other compositions were produced, and whence they were issued from a Fijian Grub-street or Paternoster-row, though in oral publications instead of printed volumes. The discovered word is—as pronounced—Dengehah. This word is a verb, meaning “to plant, to stick firmly in the ground.” The god’s name, Dengeh, is the passive participle of the verb, and signifies “planted,” &c. After hearing all that the priests had to declare about the attributes of their ancient deity, we see at once the clear appropriateness of this hitherto unexplained name—“The Planted One,” “He That is Set Up,” “The Established.” On this point there is more agreement than is usually discoverable in the legends of savage races.

One explanation teaches us to regard Dengeh as the great shaker, shaking the earth to cause certain natural and periodical results. A second explanation connects this shaking with the god’s serpentine shrine, in which we see the emblem of eternity. A third requires us to believe that the god had a great father, whom we are directed to see in a rock, the symbol of that which is everlasting; while a fourth leads us to gaze on what is immovably set up. Such consistency in the mythology of a savage race is somewhat remarkable. It forces us to the admission that the cannibal mind had a pretty fair notion, considering how absolutely that mind was shut up within itself, of what the work and attributes of a god ought to be.

Dengeh was not always what he now is. He has undergone a change of form and abode. The reason given in the biographical legends for the first change is that in very ancient times, when living on the beach as a great chief, in human shrine, of course, another god made war upon him; whereupon, in order to teach his enemy a lesson he should never forget, he let in the ocean from the north over all the lower lands, and, Dutchman-like, swamped the impudent invader, he himself taking refuge in the hills that form the immediate background to that part of the country, and which became his permanent dwelling-place. It was at this time that he changed his appearance. “Once upon a time,” so goes the tale, “when viewing himself in Nature’s own looking-glass, clear water, he was unfortunate enough to discover for the first time, and much to his disgust, that he was repulsively ugly.” Talking to himself, he said, “Lest I be hated by all men for my ugliness I will retire to the hollow places on the mountain tops.” He did so, and thenceforward lived in a serpent shrine; “For,” added he, continuing the soliloquy, “if I remain in the form of a man I shall be despised, but if I assume that of a snake, everybody will fear and obey me.” The inundation from the sea named in this legend may be the grain of truth which at the time was thought to be worth preserving. The other parts of the story suggest that the cannibals’ ideal of a superior deity was once far higher and nearer perfection than it has since grown to be. At one time it was a purer hero-worship, which, instead of gradually ascending to something still higher, began at some undiscoverable turning-point to take a downward course, deteriorating from its great ideal—a glorious conqueror—first to an invaded and retreating warrior, then to a miserable craven, and last of all to a crawling reptile, seeking to do by the terror which his outward shape inspired what in better days he had accomplished by heroic wisdom and courage. In pointing out the changes said to have come over the people’s god, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that these changes were rather in the people themselves than in their god. Hence, much that is attributed to him, while purely fabulous, will, if interpreted as concerning them, be simply historical.

Dengeh is a god of wrath. His ire burns at times with dire effect. He often punishes his offending people, one year by blighting their crops, another by floods that carry everything before them, and a third by hurricanes, which not only strip the trees of their fruits, but utterly destroy the trees themselves, and blow away houses and temples and everything else capable of being blown away. Such a god would surely find it an easy thing to destroy man from off the face of the earth. The legends tell us that he actually attempted something of the sort on a small scale when his two mischievous sons once so successfully tried their eye and hand on their father’s sacred bird, which every morning was in the habit of waking the god by its crowing. For the never-forgiven crime of shooting this pet-bird, the old god visited the country with a flood, which washed away every place where the refugees sought shelter. The criminal twin-brothers drifted at last into the Rewa district, where they became the patron deities of that most important branch of industry in Fiji, canoe-building, which, from the date of the catastrophe that brought it such high patronage, has flourished amazingly, and outstripped every other industry for which the country is noted.

Some have regarded this legend as a traditionary account of Noah’s flood, but there is nothing to support that view. The tradition itself is not one of the oldest productions of the Fijian brain. The flood was a local one, and many places not more than 60ft. above the usual river level remained untouched by it. The Bau kingdom was already a power in Fiji, yet it is well-known that this power did not begin to rise in importance till towards the end of the last century. Floods in some districts are also almost of yearly occurrence, and they form the subject of a torrent of legends. The nature of the sacred bird to revenge whose death the flood was sent has been wrapped in a good deal of mystery. In the old legends the bird has what is clearly an onomatopoetic name. It is spelt “Turukawa,” and pronounced “Toorookawwah.” Now let anyone pronounce it thus in a somewhat drawling manner, and see if he cannot recognise in the tones a resemblance to the voice of the bird that wakes the village before the dawn. It is plain from other legends that the bird was a bright-colored cock. His legs are represented as being covered with large white cowrie shells, and his feathers as being so abundant that when one wing only was plucked they rose up and covered the mountain tops like a dense fog. In times of drought and famine Dengeh was supplicated with costly offerings. The priests would beseech him to send forth his greatest ambassador and foreman of works, Breadfruit by name, to mass up the clouds for rain, or cause the yam plantations to flourish, or ripen the fruits, or do any other good work to meet the most widely-pressing want of the times.

The demigods were the offspring of later and corrupter ages. How corrupt may be imagined from legends which tell us that men were not wanting who, dissatisfied with the god or gods that were, would start on god-hunting expeditions, hoping to find something nearer their notions of what a god should be—a being more worthy of their homage, and more likely to bestow upon them his favors. There was a chief named King of the Little Water. One day, after due thought on the subject, this chief became convinced that the gods his fathers had told him about were not only too few, but they were not the kind of gods he needed and must have. Moreover, he had a selfish object in view in seeking an additional master. Impelled by these motives, he one day made a rush to the hills, on reaching which he began to run hither and thither, shouting wildly as he ran, “Who will be my god? Who will be my god? Ho! ho! Who lives here? Who will be my god? Ho!” But no voice answered. The king of the Little Water rushed down again to the beach, where, repeating the cries, he was at last answered by a snake. Uncoiling from sleep, this snake replied, “Why are you calling me? I will be thy god. I! I! I will be thy god!” Whereupon the indefatigable god-hunter ceased his ravings, adopted the common snake as his god, and, which was the chief object he had in view, was in his turn appointed priest.

In Dengeh’s most flourishing days his priests were a numerous and wealthy body. Pilgrims from all parts of the group were in the habit of visiting them during important crises, in order to consult the greatest known oracle in Cannibal-land. The canoes of these pilgrims were generally well laden with every kind of Fijian property, such as clubs, spears, sacred shells, kava-root, native cloth, and, in later times, whales’ teeth, and other riches from the ships of the white man. It was the custom for the priests to throw many of these offerings into Dengeh’s caves on the Screw-pine Hills, some to remain there for ever, and others to be taken out again no doubt as soon as possible after the visitors were fairly out of sight. Whether this was done in every case or not it is certain that the greater portion of the gifts were never taken up to the hills at all, being the undisputed fees and perquisites of the priestly office. Those articles that were thrown to the god and not subsequently abstracted from the sacred treasury, were left either to rot or to remain in undisturbed quiet till the foot of the white man crashed in upon the tall reed-grass, and his native guides brought them once more into the light in various stages of decay.

In some of the sayings reported by poets and priests as Dengeh’s own, resurrection gleams appear here and there, but only very dimly, as in this one:—“In far back times when a certain corpse had lain a long period in the grave, Dengeh gave orders for it to be disinterred, but the people refused to obey. He commanded again and again, but only to be disobeyed. Whereupon he said, “Very well; do it not. Had you done what I desired, the dead body would have been restored to life, and all flesh should thereafter have taken part in a resurrection. But since you have refused to disinter this one body, all your bodies shall die once and for ever.”” In this death of the body the cannibal philosopher firmly believes.

From all that is discoverable to the contrary in the mythical accounts of Dengeh, it would seem that this god, in whose existence the Fijian had such strong faith, did at some unknown period of that existence become enshrined in the person of a great and powerful chief, probably the most wonderful man and greatest hero ever known in cannibal-land. From the time of this enshrinement till the kingdom began to decline, the interests of god and chief were one; but afterwards, when men began to regard this union as less powerful than formerly, and something which they might even venture to disregard, Dengeh left the human for the serpent form, in order to retain his influence over them and, if possible, stay the work of ruin. Of course these changes are the inventions of the priests, and not the result of any action or revelation on the part of the god himself. The lowering of the god to a hero and the raising of the hero to be one with the god, are acts perfectly consistent with cannibal mythology, in which we discover a religion that, if on its upward path of improvement, compels us to wonder greatly at its progress, seeing it has climbed to where the object of the people’s best thoughts and worship is seen clothed in god-like attributes and widely spoken of as the “Model Inventor,” the “Creator and True Appreciator of Beauty,” the “Giver of Good Things for Man’s Good and Evil Things for his Correction,” the “Great Earth-shaker” for the earth’s special benefit, and the “Rock” that knows no decay. But if, as is more probable, this religion when found by us, was on its road to ruin, our astonishment need be none the less, for then we see the soul of it struggling hard against ever-growing corruption to hold fast its first possession, or at least the next best representative of it as developed in the highest models among the worshippers themselves—the worship of Genius and Power.