The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of CustomThomson, Basil
History
The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom
Thomson, Basil
Ethnology -- Fiji; Fijians
Ndungumoi's teachings were an ingenious compound of Christianity with
the cult of Ndengei. Recognizing probably that the Mission had too firm
a hold to be boldly challenged, he declared that when Nathirikaumoli and
Nakausambaria, the twins who made war against Ndengei, had sailed away
after their defeat, they went to the land of the white men, who wrote a
book about them, which is the Bible; only, being unable to pronounce
their Fijian names correctly they called them Jehovah and Jesus. His,
therefore, was the newer revelation. There was some controversy among
the faithful whether Ndengei was God or Satan. Most of them inclined to
the latter belief, because Satan, like Ndengei, was a serpent. They
named various places round Kauvandra Roma (Rome), Ijipita (Egypt),
Kolosa (Colossians), etc., and they said that if a man were bold enough
to penetrate to the recesses of the great cavern he might see the flames
of hell.
[Pageheader: THE ARREST OF THE PROPHET]
The prophet had more practical concerns than the discussion of problems
in theology. The twin gods, he said, were about to revisit Fiji,
bringing all the dead ancestors in their train, to share the ancient
tribal lands with their descendants: the missionaries, the traders, and
the Government would be driven into the sea, and every one of the
faithful would be rewarded with shops full of calico and tinned salmon.
Those who believed that he was sent before to prepare the way would be
rewarded with immortality, but the unbelievers would perish with the
foreigners. The white men, he said, were fully aware of what was coming,
as was shown by the officers of men-of-war who, when questioned as to
why they squinted through glass instruments, looked disconcerted, and
said evasively that they were measuring the reefs, whereas in fact they
were looking for the coming of the divine twins. In the meantime the
faithful were to drill like soldiers, and the women to minister to them.
They used a travesty of English words of command, and pass-words such as
"Lilifai poliseni oliva ka virimbaita,"[56] which is not sense in any
language.
Temples were built secretly at Valelembo and other places, wherein,
behind the curtain, the god might be heard to descend with a low
whistling sound. A white pig, a rarity in Fiji, and probably a symbol
for the white men, was being fattened against the day when it was to be
slaughtered as a sacrifice to the ancestors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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