To the testimonies referred to in the foregoing chapter may be added that given by Dr Seemann, in “Viti: An Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands in the years 1860-61.” He was sent out by the English Government to ascertain the fitness of the group for the production of cotton. He was absent only thirteen months from England, and had time not only to sow the seed, but to pluck the cotton which it produced. Speaking of the missionaries to the group, he says: “It was all up-hill work; yet results have been attained to which no right-minded man can refuse admiration. According to the latest returns, the attendance on Christian worship in 1861 was 67,489, and there were 31,566 in the day-schools. For the supervision of this great work the Society had only eleven European missionaries and two schoolmasters, assisted by a large class of native agents who are themselves the fruits of mission toil, and some of whom, once degraded and cannibal heathens, are becoming valuable and accredited ministers of the gospel.” Dr Seemann is a naturalist, and certainly is not prejudiced in favour of the Wesleyans, or of any other religious body. His evidence is therefore of more value. A description of the condition of Fiji as it was is sickening; and yet it is necessary to show the depth of depravity to which human nature can sink, and the glorious change which the gospel can work even in savages such as these. They were constantly at war with each other, and often fought for no other purpose than to procure people for their ovens. They have been known even to bake men alive. Often a town was attacked, and all the inhabitants, sometimes four or five hundred in number, were slaughtered. When the son of a great chief arrived at manhood, it was the custom to endue him with his toga virilis on the summit of a large heap of slaughtered enemies; and the whole population of a town was ruthlessly murdered for no other purpose than to form such a heap.
When a chief received a visit from a brother chieftain, if he had no captives ready to kill, he would kill some of his own slaves, or send out to catch some men, women, or children from a neighbouring island, or from among his own people. Indeed, no man, whatever his rank, was safe; and hundreds thus lost their lives every year, that the cannibal propensities of the chiefs might be gratified.
Infanticide was common among the chiefs as well as among the lower orders; and mothers, abandoning all natural affection, considered it no crime to kill their children. It was an ordinary matter for children to bury their aged parents alive; and fathers and mothers have been known to bury alive their grown-up sons who might complain of illness, or have become weary of life, stamping down on their graves with the greatest unconcern.
On the death of a chief his favourite wives were invariably strangled with him. Numerous slaves also were killed, to form his band of attendants to another world; and a great cannibal feast was also held. Human victims were offered to their obscene deities by their priests in their temples, groves, and high places. When a house was to be built for a chief, four live slaves were placed in deep holes to support the corner posts, when the earth was filled in on them, that their spirits might watch over the edifice. When a large canoe was to be launched victims were clubbed, or the canoe was drawn over their living bodies like the car of Juggernaut, crushing them to death. For the slightest offence a chief would club to death one of his wives, or any of his people, and feast afterwards on their bodies.
But enough has been said to show the character of the people of Fiji. They are, especially the chiefs, tall, handsome men; and though their skin is black, they have not the features of negroes. They are also very intelligent, active and energetic.
Dr Seemann says, page 77 of his work, “Until 1854, Bau, which is the name of the metropolis as well as of the ruling state, was opposed to the missionaries, and the ovens in which the bodies of human victims were baked scarcely ever got cold. Since then, however, a great change has taken place. The king and all his court have embraced Christianity; of the heathen temples, which by their pyramidical form gave such a peculiar local colouring to old pictures of the place, only the foundations remain; the sacred groves in the neighbourhood are cut down; and in the great square, where formerly cannibal feasts took place, a large church has been erected. Not without emotion did I land on this blood-stained soil, where probably greater iniquities were perpetrated than ever disgraced any other spot on earth. It was about eight o’clock in the evening; and, instead of the wild noise which greeted former visitors, family prayer was heard from nearly every house.
“To bring about such a change has indeed required no slight efforts, and many valuable lives had to be sacrificed; for although no missionary in Fiji has ever met with a violent death, yet the list of those who died in the midst of their labours is proportionately great. The Wesleyans, to whose disinterestedness the conversion of these degraded beings is due, have, as a society, expended 75,000 pounds on this object; and if the private donations of friends to individual missionaries and their families be added, the sum reaches to the respectable amount of 80,000 pounds.”
Dr Seemann describes a visit to the island of Lakemba, hallowed as the spot on which the first Christian mission was established. Mr Fletcher, the resident missionary, conducted him and his companions through a grove of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees to his house, a commodious building, thatched with leaves, surrounded by a fence and broad-boarded verandah, the front of the house looking into a nice little flower-garden, the back into the courtyard.
The ladies gave them a hearty welcome, glad to look once more upon white faces, and to hear accounts from home. Though the thermometer ranged more than 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the thick thatch kept off the scorching rays, and there was a fresh current of trade wind blowing through the rooms. It was pleasing to see everything so scrupulously neat and clean; the beds and curtains as white as snow, and everywhere the greatest order prevailed.