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Updated: June 14, 2025
Like the Hawaiians and Fijians, the Maoris came from Samoa about five centuries ago. Their traditions about their journey are clear and exact; even the names of the canoes, or barges, in which they made the journey are preserved in Maori history. First they went to Rarotonga, an island of the Cook group; then they went to New Zealand.
There are many more reasons that might be urged in favor of the Fijians. We are not aware that the reverend missionaries have given any statistical tables, showing a regularity in the annual numbers of consumed persons, male and female, classed according to the reasons why consumed; but no one can doubt that such tables might be given, and if so, the whole question of anthropophagism could be very easily buckled up in a tidy little valise. The Fijians, in the plural, we take it, have little or nothing to do with it; it is the abstract, will-less, impersonal Fijian who, according to the learned Ferrari,[A] would be called, now, Podesta Fijian, now Consul Fijian, now Papa Fijianus that snuffs the flavor of his own dear natural pot
After a great deal of trouble I managed to get an interpreter named Masirewa, who came from the small island of Bau. He was a fine-looking fellow, and, like most Fijians, possessed a tremendous mop of hair. His stock of English was limited, and we often misunderstood each other, but he proved a most amusing companion, if only on account of his unlimited "cheek."
The public mind may not yet be ripe for it; but we desire to assist in placing the subject in its proper light, and in showing that an enlightened impartiality can find very much in defence of the Fijians, more, indeed, than the Rev. Mr. Froude has been able to accumulate in favor of his wife-devouring hero, or than Mr. You cannot wash it out; it inheres physiologically in the Constitution.
In the first place, the Boupari dialect, though agreeing in all essentials with the Polynesian of Fiji, nevertheless contained a great many words and colloquial expressions unknown to the Fijians; this being particularly the case, as Felix soon remarked, in the whole vocabulary of religious rites and ceremonies.
The Tongans had earthen ware which they learned to make from the Fijians, but the Polynesians had left the mainland before the beginning of this art. Thus they remained a people who were, despite their startling advances in many lines, the least encumbered by useful inventions of any race in the world.
However, it will doubtless be objected by some, that it is simply disgusting to eat our fellow-creatures of the same species, that it is unnatural and against our religion, and that so remarkable a diversity of taste can be explained only on the ground of our belonging to different races. We do not believe that the Fijians belong to a different race.
I ought here to mention that Fijians vary a great deal, both in colour and language. Fiji is the part of the Pacific where various types meet, viz., Papuan, Malayan, and Polynesian. The mountaineers around Namosi, which I visited, who were all cannibals twenty-five years ago, are much darker in colour than the coast natives, and they are undoubtedly of Papuan origin.
I was, of course, soaked to the skin and got badly bruised, and was once all but washed overboard, one of the Fijians catching hold of me in the nick of time. We cast anchor for the night, though we had only a few miles yet to go, but this short distance took us eight or nine hours next day, as this channel is nearly always calm.
Lubbock, Sir J., on the antiquity of man; on the origin of man; on the mental capacity of savages; on the origin of implements; on the simplification of languages; on the absence of the idea of God among certain races of men; on the origin of the belief in spiritual agencies; on superstitions; on the sense of duty; on the practice of burying the old and sick among the Fijians; on the immorality of savages; on Mr.
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