A short time afterward Sukuna was in his schooner, sailing from Viti Levu to Lakeba. Suddenly he called out, “Turn back!” For in the water, skimming along his course, he had seen the family totem shark. That could mean only one thing—death of a near relative. When he returned to Suva, his cousin Ratu Pope was dead.
There followed a battle of magic and countermagic, ghost against ghost, throughout Thakombau’s old empire. The persons concerned in it were too noble to be ignored. All this, mind you, happened only about three years ago. It began with Ratu Pope’s dying whisper into the ear of his faithful wife, Andi Torika. She belonged to the same matangali as Ratu Wailala, powerful sub-chief in Taveuni. To Wailala the widow sent a present of ten tambuas, a dangerous gift, for under the eyes of the gods the recipient must grant a favor. Ratu Lala, Lord of Taveuni, was on Andi’s bad books; he stood in royal succession; if he lived his son might sit on Pope’s shadow-throne.
This was politics, in a conflict between two branches of an old ruling family. Seventy-five years ago it would have meant war. Today it was draunikau. Ratu Wailala took Andi’s tambuas, which had come with a request to put a draunikau on Ratu Lala, accused of Pope’s death by magic. Wailala was also jealous of Lala’s title, and went about the curse in classic style. He presented a tambua to another chief, with the request that a draunikau be arranged for Lala. This chief took the tambua to Mosese, a very able witch doctor.
That was in mid-April, 1938. In the dark of night Mosese and Kalepi, his assistant, with a local chief, stole over to the grave of Ratu Lala’s grandfather and carried with them the proper leaves and kava root for the Sova Yanggona (the Pouring Kava) ritual. They crouched at the foot of the mound where the dead man’s legs would be pointing. Mosese, seated between his two associates, lifted the bowl to his lap, then six times raised it to his head. Kava was made according to ceremony. Now it was ready. The performers clapped three times; Kalepi filled a drinking bowl and presented it to the dead chief with the request that Ratu Lala’s life be taken away. Six times the libation was poured on the head of the grave to fill the mouth of a thirsty tevoro.
The tattler was a woman who had started out before the break of day to fish for prawns. She lost her way, shuddered by the cemetery, then paused in a paralysis of fear. There were voices by the grave of Nagolea, there was the scent of uthi, the graveyard flower. She peered, she saw three crouching figures making draunikau. For days she was too frightened to tell.
Then, on April 15, 1938, Ratu Lala went to Suva and grew dizzy as he walked. He knew why, and sent for the powerful sorcerer Ngio from Ngau, whom he employed to combat the evil magic. Ngio told him that his sickness started from Taveuni, and there the draunikau would be found. That night Ratu Lala had a dreadful dream. A chief who had been dead twelve years came in and poked him with his walking stick, saying, “Who is this man sleeping in my house?” Lala returned to his home in Taveuni, and when another sick spell came on he heard gossip about the three men who had made draunikau. He sent for the sorcerers, ignored their pleas of innocence and had them beaten with ropes. They went to the hospital, still denying their share in black magic. Wailala also feigned innocence, but a constable included him with the others.
Ratu Lala’s witch doctor, the gifted sorcerer from Ngau, assembled his colleagues, hoping that their combined magic would offset the dreadful Sova Yanggona. One night Lala dreamed that he saw the gods in a meeting; a short man knelt at Lala’s doorway, holding up a tambua with the request for death. A voice wailed, “Ratu Wailala’s tambua cannot be returned with mercy on Lala’s life!”
It was on September 17, to be exact, when I was with Dr. Strode, inspecting the hospital at Suva. We found Ratu Lala in bed with an abscess of the neck, and his morale completely shattered. He had told the world that he expected to die of a draunikau.
On Wednesday, September 21, Dr. Strode and I went to a luncheon at Government House. And what did we see? Sitting calmly beside Mr. Monckton, Secretary of Native Affairs, was Ratu Lala. Only four days had passed since he had about given up the ghost, and now he was in high spirits, telling the Governor fine stories and eating with gusto. His explanation was straightforward. Oh, that witch doctor, Ngio from Ngau, had an antagonism that was too strong for black magic to withstand. He had worked from the Bible, and that was big medicine; he would open the Good Book at random and interpret past, present and future; but invariably he would return to the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, and from that he could foil any ghost or devil that ever flew over Fiji.
Ngio the gospel-wizard came to Suva later and boasted of his holy magic to all and sundry.