The former religion of the Fijians was a sort of ancestor-worship, had much in common with the creeds of Polynesia, and included a belief in a future existence. There were two classes of gods—the first immortal, of whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who, though far above mortals, are subject to their passions, and even to death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes and other ancestors. The gods entered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the issue of every enterprise, but they were not represented by idols; certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which suggest phallic associations. The priesthood usually was hereditary, and their influence great, and they had generally a good understanding with the chief. The institution of Taboo existed in full force. The mburé or temple was also the council chamber and place of assemblage for various purposes.
The weapons of the Fijians are spears, slings, throwing clubs and bows and arrows. Their houses, of which the framework is timber and the rest lattice and thatch, are ingeniously constructed, with great taste in ornamentation, and are well furnished with mats, mosquito-curtains, baskets, fans, nets and cooking and other utensils. Their canoes, sometimes more than 100 ft. long, are well built. Ever excellent agriculturists, their implements were formerly digging sticks and hoes of turtlebone or flat oyster-shells. In irrigation they showed skill, draining their fields with built watercourses and bamboo pipes. Tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans and pumpkins, are the principal crops.
Fijians are fond of amusements. They have various games, and dancing, story-telling and songs are especially popular. Their poetry has well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is said to be always in the major key. They are clever cooks, and for their feasts preparations are sometimes made months in advance, and enormous waste results from them. Mourning is expressed by fasting, by shaving the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family will reward the compliment; sometimes it is done vicariously, as when one chief cuts off the little finger of his dependent in regret or in atonement for the death of another.
A steady, if not a very rapid, decrease in the native population set in after 1875. A terrible epidemic of measles in that year swept away 40,000, or about one-third of the Fijians. Subsequent epidemics have not been attended by anything like this mortality, but there has, however, been a steady decrease, principally among young children, owing to whooping-cough, tuberculosis and croup. Every Fijian child seems to contract yaws at some time in its life, a mistaken notion existing on the part of the parents that it strengthens the child’s physique. Elephantiasis, influenza; rheumatism, and a skin disease, thoko, also occur. One per cent of the natives are lepers. A commission appointed in 1891 to inquire into the causes of the native decrease collected much interesting anthropological information regarding native customs, and provincial inspectors and medical officers were specially appointed to compel the natives to carry out the sanitary reforms recommended by the commission. A considerable sum was also spent in laying on good water to the native villages. The Fijians show no disposition to intermarry with the Indian coolies. The European half-castes are not prolific inter se, and they are subject to a scrofulous taint. The most robust cross in the islands is the offspring of the African negro and the Fijian. Miscegenation with the Micronesians, the only race in the Pacific which is rapidly increasing, is regarded as the most hopeful manner of preserving the native Fijian population. There is a large Indian immigrant population.
Trade, Administration, &c.—The principal industries are the cultivation of sugar and fruits and the manufacture of sugar and copra, and these three are the chief articles of export trade, which is carried on almost entirely with Australia and New Zealand. The fruits chiefly exported are bananas and pineapples. There are also exported maize, vanilla and a variety of fruits in small quantities; pearl and other shells and bêche-de-mer. There is a manufacture of soap from coconut oil; a fair quantity of tobacco is grown, and among other industries may be included boat-building and saw-milling. Regular steamship communications are maintained with Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. Good bridle-tracks exist in all the larger islands, and there are some macadamized roads, principally in Viti Levu. There is an overland mail service by native runners. The export trade is valued at nearly £600,000 annually, and the imports at £500,000. The annual revenue of the colony is about £140,000 and the expenditure about £125,000. The currency and weights and measures are British. Besides the customs and stamp duties, some £18,000 of the annual revenue is raised from native taxation. The seventeen provinces of the colony (at the head of which is either a European or a roko tui or native official) are assessed annually by the legislative council for a fixed tax in kind. The tax on each province is distributed among districts under officials called bulis, and further among villages within these districts. Any surplus of produce over the assessment is sold to contractors, and the money received is returned to the natives.
Under a reconstruction made in 1904 there is an executive council consisting of the governor and four official members. The legislative council consists of the governor, ten official, six elected and two native members. The native chiefs and provincial representatives meet annually under the presidency of the governor, and their recommendations are submitted for sanction to the legislative council. Suva and Levuka have each a municipal government, and there are native district and village councils. There is an armed native constabulary; and a volunteer and cadet corps in Suva and Levuka.
The majority of the natives are Wesleyan Methodists. The Roman Catholic missionaries have about 3000 adherents; the Church of England is confined to the Europeans and kanakas in the towns; the Indian coolies are divided between Mahommedans and Hindus. There are public schools for Europeans and half-castes in the towns, but there is no provision for the education of the children of settlers in the out-districts. By an ordinance of 1890 provision was made for the constitution of school boards, and the principle was first applied in Suva and Levuka. The missions have established schools in every native village, and most natives are able to read and write their own language. The government has established a native technical school for the teaching of useful handicrafts. The natives show themselves very slow in adopting European habits in food, clothing and house-building.
History.—A few islands in the north-east of the group were first seen by Abel Tasman in 1643. The southernmost of the group, Turtle Island, was discovered by Cook in 1773. Lieutenant Bligh, approaching them in the launch of the “Bounty,” 1789, had a hostile encounter with natives. In 1827 Dumont d’Urville in the “Astrolabe” surveyed them much more accurately, but the first thorough survey was that of the United States exploring expedition in 1840. Up to this time, owing to the evil reputation of the islanders, European intercourse was very limited. The labours of the Wesleyan missionaries, however, must always have a prominent place in any history of Fiji. They came from Tonga in 1835 and naturally settled first in the eastern islands, where the Tongan element, already familiar to them, preponderated. They perhaps identified themselves too closely with their Tongan friends, whose dissolute, lawless, tyrannical conduct led to much mischief; but it should not be forgotten that their position was difficult, and it was mainly through their efforts that many terrible heathen practices were stamped out.
About 1804 some escaped convicts from Australia and runaway sailors established themselves around the east part of Viti Levu, and by lending their services to the neighbouring chiefs probably led to their preponderance over the rest of the group. Na Ulivau, chief of the small island of Mbau, established before his death in 1829 a sort of supremacy, which was extended by his brother Tanoa, and by Tanoa’s son Thakombau, a ruler of considerable capacity. In his time, however, difficulties thickened. The Tongans, who had long frequented Fiji (especially for canoe-building, their own islands being deficient in timber), now came in larger numbers, led by an able and ambitious chief, Maafu, who, by adroitly taking part in Fijian quarrels, made himself chief in the Windward group, threatening Thakombau’s supremacy. He was harassed, too, by an arbitrary demand for £9000 from the American government, for alleged injuries to their consul. Several chiefs who disputed his authority were crushed by the aid of King George of Tonga, who (1855) had opportunely arrived on a visit; but he afterwards, taking some offence, demanded £12,000 for his services. At last Thakombau, disappointed in the hope that his acceptance of Christianity (1854) would improve his position, offered the sovereignty to Great Britain (1859) with the fee simple of 100,000 acres, on condition of her paying the American claims. Colonel Smythe, R.A., was sent out to report on the question, and decided against annexation, but advised that the British consul should be invested with full magisterial powers over his countrymen, a step which would have averted much subsequent difficulty.
Meanwhile Dr B. Seemann’s favourable report on the capabilities of the islands, followed by a time of depression in Australia and New Zealand, led to a rapid increase of settlers—from 200 in 1860 to 1800 in 1869. This produced fresh complications, and an increasing desire among the respectable settlers for a competent civil and criminal jurisdiction. Attempts were made at self-government, and the sovereignty was again offered, conditionally, to England, and to the United States. Finally, in 1871, a “constitutional government” was formed by certain Englishmen under King Thakombau; but this, after incurring heavy debt, and promoting the welfare of neither whites nor natives, came after three years to a deadlock, and the British government felt obliged, in the interest of all parties, to accept the unconditional cession now offered (1874). It had besides long been thought desirable to possess a station on the route between Australia and Panama; it was also felt that the Polynesian labour traffic, the abuses in which had caused much indignation, could only be effectually regulated from a point contiguous to the recruiting field, and the locality where that labour was extensively employed. To this end the governor of Fiji was also created “high commissioner for the western Pacific.” Rotumah (q.v.) was annexed in 1881.