Turning to Tonga, we have the account of Miss Teuira Henry.[13] The
sister and sister's child of Miss Henry have walked over the red-hot
stones, as in the Rarotonga and Fijian cases. The ovens are 30 ft. in
diameter. The performance was photographed by Lieutenant Morne, of
the French Navy, and the original photograph was sent to the Editor
of the 'Polynesian Journal,' with a copy from it by Mr. Barnfield,
of Honolulu. The ceremony, preparatory to cooking the _ti_ plant, is
religious, and the archaic hymn sung is full of obsolete words. Mr.
Hastwell, of San Francisco, published a tract, which I have not seen,
on the Raiatean rite, witnessed by himself. The stones were I heated
to a red and white heat.' The natives 'walked leisurely across' five
times; 'there was not even the smell of fire on their garments' (cited
in the 'Polynesian Journal,' vol. ii. No. 3). There is corroborative
evidence from Mr. N. J. Tone, from Province Wellesley, Straits
Settlements, in the 'Polynesian Journal,' ii. 3, 193. He did not see
the rite, arriving too late, but he saw the fire-pit, and examined the
naked feet of the walkers. They were uninjured. Mr. Tone's evidence is
an extract from his diary.
As to Fiji there are various accounts. The best is that of Mr. Basil
Thomson, son of the late Archbishop of York. Mr. Thomson was an
official in Fiji, and is a well-known anthropologist. His sketch in his
'South Sea Yarns' (p. 195, _et seq._) is too long for quotation. The
rite is done yearly, before cooking the _masáwe_ (a _dracæna_) in the
oven through which the clan Na Ivilankata walk. 'The pit was filled
with a white-hot mass, shooting out little tongues of white flame.'
'The bottom of the pit was covered with an even layer of hot stones
... the tongues of flame played continually among them.' The walkers
planted 'their feet squarely and firmly on each stone.' Mr. Thomson
closely examined the feet of four or five of the natives when they
emerged. 'They were cool and showed no trace of scorching, nor were
their anklets of dried tree-fern burnt,' though 'dried tree-fern is as
combustible as tinder.' 'The instep is covered with skin no thicker
than our own, and we saw the men plant their insteps fairly on the
stone.' A large stone was hooked out of the pit before the men entered,
and one of the party dropped a pocket-handkerchief upon the stone 'when
the first man leapt into the oven and snatched what remained of it up
as the last left the stones.' Every fold that touched the stone was
charred. Mr. Thomson kindly showed me the handkerchief. He also showed
me a rather blurred photograph of the strange scene. It has been rudely
reproduced in the 'Folk Lore Journal,' September 1895.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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