Dennis Wheatley - The White Witch of the South Seas

With the arrival of the traders, matters changed for the worse, because the most prized objects they had to offer were firearms. The possession of even a few muskets meant that the warriors could kill without risking their lives in personal combat. So the wars became more frequent and casualties much more numerous. By the fifties there were occasions when over a hundred victims were eaten after a victory.

Smiling, Gregory put in, `No wonder the Fijis became known as the Cannibal Isles.'

June Knox Mawer laughed. `There is a nice story told about Ratu Edward Thakobau, the great grandson of the King of Fiji who ceded the country to Queen Victoria. Once, when he was on his way to Europe, a stupid woman at the Captain's table expressed her horror at cannibalism and would not leave the subject alone. Ratu Edward sent for the menu, read it right through, then said to the steward, “Is this all you have?” As the menu listed about a hundred items, the man looked very surprised, as he replied, “Why, yes, sir.” The Ratu shrugged and handed the menu back. “It all looks a little dull, and I am rather hungry. Please bring me the passenger list”.'

`Another about him,' the Judge followed up, `is of his meeting a lady who asked his nationality. He replied, “Half Fijian and half Scottish”. Naturally she was surprised to hear that he had Scottish blood, so he explained, “You see, in my great grandfather's time quite a number of Scottish missionaries came to Fiji and our people found that they made a very pleasant change from pork.” Then he added with that charming smile of his, “But perhaps I should have said, `Scottish by absorption'.” '

`He sounds a most delightful man,' Gregory remarked.

`He is, and a brave one. He won both the O.B.E. and the M.C. in the last war. The Fijian Chiefs are splendid people. Ratu Penaia has the D.S.O. and the O.B.E., and both the Ratu George and the Ratu Mara are O.B.Es. Ratu George is the direct descendant of the hereditary King of Fiji. He is greatly respected by everybody. The Ratu Mara rules the widespread Lau group to the east of Fiji, and is the Chief Minister under the new Constitution.

James grinned at Gregory. `He is the cousin I mentioned when you remarked on my height that night we met in Rio. Mara stands six foot seven and his wife, the sweet Adi Lala, is taller than you are. The Fijian Chiefly Families are all highly educated, modern in thought and wise in their decisions. They are greatly honoured by their people, who still have the good sense to be guided by them in everything.'

`I find it a little surprising,' Gregory said, `that a family who were cannibals only one hundred years ago should have developed into such cultured people.'

`That, I think,' said Knox Mawer, `is due to their being largely of Polynesian descent. As you doubtless know, the line dividing the Polynesian peoples from the Melanesians runs only a little to the east of Fiji, and they are utterly different races. The Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific are light skinned, comparatively gentle and evolved a high culture of their own. Based on root similarities in language, there is even a theory now that Scandinavian. Vikings came via South America to the Pacific and were among their ancestors. The Melanesians, on the other hand, infiltrated into the Western Pacific from New Guinea and came of Negroid stock. Until comparatively recent times they remained cruel and primitive savages.

`The Fijians were originally pure Melanesians. But Tonga lies not very far to the south east of Fiji, and the Tongans, a very brave and adventurous people, are Polynesians. For many years they not only frequently raided the Fijis but established permanent settlements in some parts of the Group. At times some of the leading Fiji Chiefs secured them as allies against their enemies. That led to intermarriage between the ruling castes of the two countries and, of course, the Tongan warriors often had children by the Fijian women they captured.

`The present people of Fiji include many of mixed blood, and it was not only the Tongans who account for that. The white man made his contribution. Then those who settled here found the Fijians unwilling to work on their cotton and sugar plantations, so 'in the 1860s they began to import labour from the islands to the north and west of Fiji, where there were great numbers of hardy natives for the taking, I say “taking” because it virtually developed into a slave trade. Thousands of them were kidnapped and many thousands more induced to agree to work here for six years for what seemed to those innocents a good wage, and a promise to be shipped home when their time was up. But. the planters played the wicked old game of selling them goods that got them into debt, and very few of the poor wretches ever saw their homes again.'

After pausing to light a cigarette, the Judge continued to tell Gregory how Fiji had achieved civilisation the hard way.

`The traffic had raised such indignation in the United States that there had been talk of America putting a stop to it by annexing the Fijis; but nothing came of that. Yet with every year it became clearer that the country needed some form of stable government. It had developed into a positive hell, where every man was a law unto himself. Half the white inhabitants were the dregs of humanity: castaways, deserters, escaped convicts and beachcombers who had brought with them liquor, firearms and disease. With whip and gun they terrorised the natives and battened upon them. The more prosperous defied the local Chiefs and ignored their ordinances. The warring feuds continued and tribes who were victorious carried out orgies of cruelty.

`There had already emerged two major, if small, powers in Viti Levu: the people of Bau Island, which lies some twelve miles off the east coast, and those of Rewa, who occupied the delta region in the south east of the island, where afterwards Suva was to become the capital of the whole group. In 1843 a war between them broke out. As usual, it did not concern the interests of the common people on either side, but was brought about by a quarrel between two High Chiefs.

`The Principal wife of Tui Tanoa, King of Ban, happened to be a sister of Tui Dreketi, King of Rewa, and she was unfaithful to her husband. On being found out, she fled to her brother. Instead of returning or punishing her, Tui Dreketi gave her in marriage to a' Rewa Chief. In the light of Fiji customs there could have been no greater insult. Tu: Tanoa called on his son, Prince Thakobau, to avenge him.

'Thakobau was an outstanding personality. He was brave, cunning, wise within the limits of his upbringing and by nature as well as birth an aristocrat. The war with Rewa" went on for years, and in the end Thakobau won it, but only through the backing of King George of Tonga, who allowed Prince Ma'afu to bring a Tongan army to Thakobau's assistance.

`On his father's death, Thakobau conceived the ambition of becoming King of all Fiji, and this turned Ma'afu into his enemy. The Tongan Prince was a man of great ability. As his King's representative, he controlled the greater part of the islands in the north of the group and had a powerful army. There followed more years of wars, intrigue and treachery. There were still forty petty Kings in the Fijis, but real power lay in the hands of fewer than a dozen. At length these were brought together, Thakobau and Ma'afu agreed to sink their differences and in 1860 the Fijis were made a Confederacy.

`Unfortunately, it did not last, because Thakobau and Ma'afu quarrelled again. Meanwhile, a reign of anarchy continued. A British Consul had long been resident in Fiji, but he had not been given the powers even of a magistrate over his own nationals. The white settlers rode roughshod over Thakobau's laws and American traders blackmailed him into making over to them large tracts of land in exchange for weapons to fight his wars against the tribes up in the mountains. Up till 1854, deaf to the pleas of missionaries, he continued to feast off his captured enemies. But in that year he suffered a sudden change of heart. The missionary Waterhouse succeeded in converting him, and on Sunday, April 30th, he was baptised into the Christian faith as Ebenezer.